Music Business Worldwide

Welcome to the latest MBW Podcast – this time a special podcast entry in our long-running World's Greatest Producers series. Salaam Remi is, by any measure, a World's Greatest Producer. A Grammy winner, he's worked closely – and made timeless hits – with musical legends from Nas to Amy Winehouse, Alicia Keys, The Fugees, and many more. He's also an accomplished music biz executive and entrepreneur.  On this podcast, Salaam joins MBW founder, Tim Ingham, to discuss topics including techniques for staying creatively hungry, why he decided to stop actively producing records on his 50th birthday, and what he's learned working with some of the most important artists of all time. Salaam also discusses his own music rights management company, Analog Metaverse, and its new partnership with Warner Chappell Music. (WCM's CEO is Remi's long-time friend, Guy Moot.) MBW's World's Greatest Producers series is supported by Hipgnosis.

On the latest Music Business Worldwide Podcast, Tim Ingham, founder of MBW, is joined by the founder and CEO of Harbourview Equity Partners, Sherrese Clarke Soares (pictured). Since being established in 2021, Harbourview has acquired premium music assets associated with stars such as Wiz Khalifa Nelly, Lady A, Florida Georgia Line and Christine McVie.  One of Harbourview's biggest deals to date was its reported $325 million purchase of Sound House Acquisitions LLC in 2022.  The company has since expanded into other entertainment verticals, investing in assets in film/TV. Founded with backing from Apollo Global Management, Harbourview has more recently inked a deal to secure $500 million in debt from KKR via a private securitization of its catalog of music royalties. On this podcast, Ingham asks Soares about Harbourview's ambitions to keep on buying in the music and entertainment space, streaming trends, and much more.

On the latest Music Business Worldwide Podcast, Tim Ingham, founder of MBW, is joined by the CEO of Amra, Tomas Ericsson (pictured). Amra is a global digital collection society that happens to be owned by Kobalt Music Group.  Since Kobalt acquired and relaunched Amra in 2015, the collection society has become a fast-growing business in its own right: in the 12 months to the end of June 2022 – the last year for which public financial information is available – Amra generated over USD $110 million in revenue.  Amra's clients today include Kobalt's global publishing business, plus other significant independent music publishers, including Anthem Entertainment and Armada Music Publishing.  Prior to joining Amra and Kobalt, Tomas Ericsson was Deputy CEO of Swedish collection society STIM, and he was the Managing Director of ICE until 2009. (At that time, ICE was a joint venture between STIM and the UK's PRS For Music; it would later welcome Germany's GEMA as a third stakeholder.) On this podcast, Ingham asks Ericsson about the changing landscape for songwriter royalty collection, the opportunity ahead – and the fact that Amra has, to date, invested more than $50 million upgrading and expanding its core technology...

On the latest Music Business Worldwide podcast, MBW founder Tim Ingham is joined by Eliah Seton, the CEO of SoundCloud. Seton (pictured) joined SoundCloud as the company’s President in 2021 after over a decade at Warner Music Group/ADA. Seton then became CEO of SoundCloud last year. During his time at SoundCloud he has steered the company beyond major milestones – including SoundCloud's first ever annual profit, posted last year. The biggest headline surrounding SoundCloud in 2024, however, has been the news that the company is headed towards a financial event: either a sale, an IPO, or some kind of raise, following investments in the firm in recent years from Sirius XM, Raine Group, and Temasek. Meanwhile, Seton confirms that SoundCloud hosts 400 million tracks today - making it significantly bigger as a streaming platform for listeners than other audio services. At the same time, it's a powerful partner for millions of creators, offering distribution and additional services to accelerate their careers.