Meet Music's New Power Generation: 25 Top Innovators

They are multitaskers and multihyphenates, influencers and innovators, movers and moneymakers. Meet the 25 disrupters redefining the business, including one guy who made a marshmallow famous.

ADAM ALPERT, 38

The triple-threat CEO: Alpert likes to challenge the status quo. The longtime manager of The Chainsmokers chose a nontraditional “building album” strategy, as he calls it, to roll out the duo’s latest LP, Sick Boy. Released in 2018, the LP collected a series of singles released regularly over the previous 12 months. Alpert says the approach resulted in every track on the album getting playlisted, not just the radio singles. “It kept the buzz on The Chainsmokers for the entire year,” he adds. It also helped the act score its third No. 1 on the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The University of Pennsylvania alum, who doubles as CEO of the duo’s Columbia label partner, Disruptor Records, and Sony/ATV publishing joint-venture Selector Songs, added a third CEO title to his docket with the November launch of the act’s new film/TV venture, Kick the Habit Productions. The company has already sold its first screenplay -- based on the duo’s 2017 hit “Paris” and penned by Mickey Rapkin (Pitch Perfect) -- to TriStar. “We have about 25 projects slated: films, TV series, digital shorts, docu-series, both scripted and unscripted,” says Alpert. “Music will always be No. 1, but this is an extension of their creative career.”

Movie title that describes his life: “The Fast and the Furious.”

MARTHA EARLS, 41

The genre blender: Music City’s latest powerhouse manager Earls -- owner of EFG Management, a startup based in the Gulch neighborhood -- shepherded marquee client Kane Brown’s sophomore album, Experiment, to a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 with 126,000 equivalent album units. Anchored by a release-week blitz that included a headlining show at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater and appearances on Live With Kelly and Ryan, The Voice and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Brown’s career-making coup was the culmination of “a lot of hard work” from Earls’ team and label partner Sony Music Nashville. Of the biracial country outlier’s unexpected rise, she says, “I want the world to become smaller -- to blend genres and defy expectations.”

Recent movement that resonated: “I’m into Enneagram personality typing. It’s a wonderful way to better interpret people’s priorities and drivers. I’m an 8, by the way.”

ELLIOT GRAINGE, 25

The edgy heir: Rising urban label 10K Projects, shepherded by founder/CEO Grainge -- son of Universal Music Group chief Lucian Grainge (No. 1 on Billboard's Power 100 2019) -- had 10-digit returns in 2018, with over 5 billion streams for its roster overall, thanks to two of the year’s biggest rap breakthroughs: Trippie Redd and 6ix9ine. “I’m very proud of the fact that 10K Projects was profitable and that we have been able to reinvest back into our artists,” says the London-bred, Los Angeles-based upstart, who plans to invest more in developing new acts in 2019. “There’s a lot of volume, and a lot of new artists coming through, which equals a lot of a noise,” says Grainge, eyeing 10K’s next wave, led by new signees Lil Gnar and Icy Narco.

Five years from now... “Distribution will be the most powerful sector of the music industry.”

KEI HENDERSON, 34
JUSTIN "MEEZY" WILLIAMS, 29

The joint venture capitalist: “Not a lot of people know what getting a championship ring feels like,” says Williams about client 21 Savage, whom he co-manages with Henderson. Together, they tag-teamed the MC’s first No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 with his I Am > I Was LP, which earned 131,000 equivalent album units in its first week. Savage has also netted five top 10s on the Hot Rap Songs chart, including a feature on the mammoth Post Malone hit “rockstar,” which crowned the Hot 100 for eight weeks. “It would be nice to have another platinum album for him,” says Henderson. Although the rapper’s future is in question now that he faces deportation after his arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for a long-expired visa, Williams and Henderson have other prospects: Henderson’s boutique label, music management and publishing company, Sincethe80s, recently inked a joint-venture deal with Motown/Capitol.

Cancel: (Henderson) “Bro culture.”

KEVIN KUSATU, 39
ANDREW MCINNES, 35

The DRM TM:The artist management and live-event producer launched by McInnes and Kusatsu in 2011 exported its flagship Mad Decent Block Party to Pakistan last February, and continued pushing into Asia and Africa on behalf of its roster that includes A-Trak and Dillon Francis, who released his first Spanish-language LP, Wut Wut, in 2018. Technically an “off year” for marquee client Diplo’s Major Lazer outfit, TMWRK shepherded the launch of two new projects for the producer: pop supergroup LSD, with Labrinth and Sia; and Mark Ronson disco collaboration Silk City. The latter’s breakthrough hit, “Electricity” (featuring Dua Lipa), topped the Dance Club Songs chart and nabbed a best dance recording Grammy nomination. “The greater music business was like, ‘Those are the electronic music guys,’ which was fine,’” says McInnes, who is happy now to be “crushing it” with a more diverse roster of Panic! at the Disco support act Two Feet and alternative mainstays TV on the Radio and Animal Collective.   

Outdated industry practice: (McInnes) “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbor protections.”

LONNY OLINICK, 37

The new label head: Led by CEO Olinick, Kobalt’s recording company AWAL has already poached artists deadmau5, Broken Bells and Betty Who from major labels. In November, it announced a global partnership with Glassnote after the fellow indie label left its distribution deal with Universal Music Group. With artist-friendly deals that promise ownership and transparency, AWAL has recruited a class of next-gen stars like Rex Orange County, Little Simz, Kim Petras and Lauv, who surpassed 2 billion streams in 2018. The company further extended its reach with the acquisition of radio promotion/music marketing firm in2une Music and by forging a yearlong alliance with The Other Nashville Society to bolster the company’s Music City footing. “AWAL has created a modern music company with the ability to sign, develop and take artists to the top of the charts,” says Olinick, who adds that the company is on track to net “over $100 million” in the upcoming fiscal year.  

JONATHAN STRAUSS, 32
ALEXANDRE WILLIAMS, 31

The music monetizers: High school friends Strauss, CEO, and Williams, COO, first founded Create Music Group in 2015 as a YouTube royalties-collection service. Over three years later, the company monetizes over 9 billion monthly music streams for a roster that includes deadmau5, Marshmello and Post Malone. Their ever-widening orbit now includes distribution, video-content creation and promotion following the acquisition of TikTok and the YouTube channel Flighthouse, and a growing publishing arm, which signed controversial MC 6ix9ine last September. In December alone, CMG found over $7 million for clients, and 2019 looks like a “$100 million year,” estimates Strauss. Thanks to the agency, says Williams, an “emerging middle class” of content creators is reaping the benefits of the “fully revived post-Napster digital era.”

Quaint industry practice: (Williams) “Listening to the radio.”

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8496854/musics-new-power-generation-25-top-innovators