the saga continues

Hey! All day I've been thinking about last night's Succession finale. No spoilers but damn, what a great show. I could write a whole memo on last night's episode but I'll spare you! I bet there are dozens of thinkpieces you can read about "what Succession can teach you about Corporate America" or similar.

Thanks to everyone who read and shared last week's essay How Hip-Hop Artists Became Billionaires. And thanks to everyone who checked out Trapital's new job board. If you're hiring new for roles at your company, start here.

Today's memo covers a few topics:

• new Trapital Podcast with Audiomack's VP of Product
• Diddy wants back Sean John
• Ye and Drake's benefit concert to support Larry Hoover
• Utopia Music acquisition spree and gameplan

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new podcast: Charlie Kaplan, Audiomack

Audiomack's VP of Product, Charlie Kaplan, came on the Trapital Podcast to talk about the company's latest launch Supporters. It allows fans to directly contribute to their favorite artist's releases. The company wants to bridge the gap between fans and artists. On the service, Charlie and I talk about how Audiomack is positioned relative to other digital streaming providers, where music streaming is heading, Web3, and more.

Tap into the Trapital Podcast here.

Kanye and Drake's Amazon Concert

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Last Thursday night was Ye (Kanye West) and Drake's Free Larry Hoover benefit concert that was livestreamed on Amazon Music. Not gonna lie, I'm still surprised this event happened given Drake and Kanye's ongoing drama in recent years, but here we are!

Shoutout to J. Prince. The Rap-A-Lot Records founder is the reason this event happened. In 2018, he stopped Drake from retaliating to Pusha T's diss track. And after Kanye's infamous Drink Champs interview, J Prince got Ye to publicly ask Drake to do this benefit concert with him.

J. Prince spoke to both sides and squashed this feud. The Houston legend has strong communication and negotiation skills that can benefit more than hip-hop drama. The United Nations needs J. Prince on retainer! Let him help negotiate some geopolitical conflict.

From Apple to Amazon. This summer, Ye's Donda listening sessions broke Apple Music livestream records with 5.4 million viewers. He had a Beats by Dre commercial to promote the album. Apple and Ye seemed all good. So why would Ye jump from one FAANG company to another?

A few potential reasons:

• Bidding war: Amazon may have been willing to pay more than Apple, which is not surprising. In 2021, the company stepped up its Amazon Prime Day concerts, made deeper integrations with Twitch, and made hip-hop a bigger priority. If Kanye can bring 5M+ viewers to watch an event on short notice, plus Drake's reach, it makes sense to pay up.
• Is Ye frustrated with Apple? The rumor mill has been swirling. Some believe that Kanye was frustrated with how Apple released Donda. Remember when Ye said that Universal Music Group released the album without his permission? The album was temporarily taken off Apple Music thereafter. This reason has less merit, but it's thought-provoking given Ye's contentious past with his mega-corporation business partners.
• Maximize reach. In my 2019 essay, Beyonce's Streaming Strategy, Explained, I broke down why Bey released her Coachella documentary, Homecoming on Netflix instead of Tidal, the streaming service she co-owned, or HBO, the home to her past visual projects.
  ​
  In April, former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that 175 million of Prime's 200 million subscribers have streamed content in the past year. The concert was available on both Prime Video, Twitch, Prime Music, and the Amazon website. Amazon said there was no missing this:

Meanwhile, Apple Music last publicly reported subscriber count was 60 million in June 2019. But analysts predict it now has around 80 million subscribers. Even if we add Apple TV+'s 20 million subscribers, it still pales in comparison to the reach of Amazon.

Livestream events like these are top of funnel for the biggest artists in the world. It's in the artists' interest to maximize reach and get paid by the biggest distributors to do so. Amazon's show may pave the way for other future shows.

Ye and Kanye were in different modes. Ye played all his old hits and won his fans back in the process. It was the right move. 2021 has been a low-key redemption tour for the Chicago artist. Ye lost a lot of fans after the MAGA hat, "slavery was a choice," and other controversial comments. Many of them may never come back, but a lot of them have, especially after the listening sessions. He went into his deep catalog and played the songs that fans loved.

Meanwhile, Drake did mostly songs from Certified Lover Boy. Drake could have turned it into a glorified Verzuz battle, but he stuck to the new stuff.

Drake's profile has been toned-down since CLB. There were no big interviews to promote the album, and he recently withdrew his Grammy nominations. Some of it may be related to the Astroworld lawsuits, but maybe he's saving up for his upcoming tour.

Hear me about... Certified Donda Tour? Now that the two have patched things up to at least be civil, why not run it back for a worldwide tour? They had the two biggest hip-hop albums of 2021. Neither has done a stadium tour. The collective draw could guarantee packed stadiums in even the smallest markets.

The economics work out too. They could gross $6 - 8 million from ticket sales alone per show. It would take 4-5 arena shows to hit that revenue mark. And since every artist wants to tour in the next 24 months post-pandemic, combining forces is not a bad idea. Plus, there's a good amount of overlap in both fanbases.

Drake has done tours with other artists like Future and Migos, so he's used to this. It's a lot to ask, but maybe J Prince can help close the deal!

Read more about the Kanye and Drake show in Paul A. Thompson's article for Pitchfork.

will the saga continue for Diddy and Sean John?

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Last week, Diddy made a $3.3 million bid to buy back Sean John since the parent company, GBG has filed for bankruptcy and is selling its assets.

The timeline. If Diddy pulls this off, props to him because the timeline is impeccable.

• 1998: starts Sean John
• 2003: Billionaire Ron Burkle invests $100M into Sean John
• 2016: GBG buys majority stake in Sean John. $450M annual sales
• 2021: bids on Sean John for $3.3M

The late 90s and early 2000s had a slew of fashion brands launched by hip-hop figures. Most of them faded away as the culture moved past the baggy jeans and oversized tees. Others lasted longer, but ran into distribution challenges and oversaturated the market. Some upper-scale brands got lost in the K&G Superstore clearance racks with the Steve Harvey Collection-sized suits. But Sean John prevailed.

When we talk about hip-hop's relationship with high fashion, I often forget to mention Sean John, and that's on me. I don't consider department stores products to be luxury fashion. But Sean John's placement at Macy's helped pave the way for the Virgil Abloh's at Louis Vuitton, Gucci Mane and Gucci, and other collabs.

Leveling up at each step. Each step in Sean John's journey was an attempt to level up. Its 2003 investment was a cash infusion to scale the brand more quickly. Its 2016 sale to GBG was a desire to better compete with the department store heavyweights like PVH's Calvin Klein or Polo and Denim & Supply Co's Ralph Lauren.

But the COVID-19 pandemic hit GBG hard. Its USA sales dropped 44% in the fiscal year ending March 2021. As Retail Dive reported, the pandemic hurt the supply chain, which hurt GBG's liquidity and led many suppliers to demand cash on delivery that GBG didn't have. That sparked the bankruptcy and the selloff that Puff wants in on.

Diddy's endgame. I'm no bankruptcy expert, but I won't be surprised if Diddy's $3.3 million gets outbid. But I also expect that Diddy is willing to pay more given his previous lawsuits against GBG for leveraging his image. Diddy owns his likeness, which is an advantage he has over other buyers should he require the company.

It also aligns with Diddy's strengths. He's made a lot of business moves, but his two biggest successes outside of music are Ciroc and Sean John. In both settings, he found a sector that didn't identify as much with hip-hop—vodka and affordable luxury fashion— and added his own touch.

He's been elevating that lifestyle since he dressed Jodeci for music videos when he interned at Uptown Records. This has always been his strength. Puff should continue to lean into that.

Read more about Diddy's Sean John pursuits in GQ.

Utopia Music's plan to unlock value for creators

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Utopia is a Swiss music tech company that wants to help the industry better understand data, unlock new revenue streams, and reduce friction wherever possible. To accelerate that goal it has announced its new Creator Services division, wrote a creator rights white paper with MiDIA, and made several moves in recent months.

Acquisitions:

• ​ROSTR: a company that tracks artist teams, company rosters, demographics, and other industry insights
• ​ForTunes, which shares music data analytics with artists and creators
• ​Musimap, an A.I. powered music analysis that gains insights from listening trends
• ​Lyric Financial, which gives artists an advance on royalties without owning the rights

Hires:

• ​Thomas Steinbrueck, Chief of Brand and Design, former Reebok creative director
• ​Paul Stuart, Chief Legal Officer, former general counsel at Soundtrack Your Brand
• ​Paul Gathercole, Chief Data Officer, former Amazon Prime Video exec
• ​Roberto Neri, Chief Operating Officer, former Downtown Music EVP

Utopia's goal is to help creatives monetize beyond the end product. It views experiential music as an opportunity to develop new rights and attribute income from those rights to artists. That includes songwriting, collaborations, promotions, and other forms of content that drive value to platforms.

Here's a chart from Utopia and MiDIA's white paper:

It's an ambitious goal, but it's directly aligned with the underlying goals for web3 in music. It's an opportunity for rights to catch up with the rapid pace of music innovation.

The concept makes sense in theory, and time will tell how it shakes out. New platforms will likely emerge to help creators get paid for experiential and creator-oriented rights. But the big question marks are with the Web2 platforms that are still dominant. They have taken an "ask for forgiveness, not permission" approach to rights ownership, which delays artist compensation.

Maybe Utopia can buck that trend? 2022 should be an even more exciting year for the company.

Read more about Utopia Music in Music Business Worldwide.

Featured job opportunities

1. Pico - Creator Success Manager. Pico is a creator monetization platform looking for a strong written communicator who is passionate about helping creators.

2. Piñata Farms - Lead Product Designer. Piñata Farms is a social video meme-creation company looking for someone who can design apps from the ground up.

3. RapChat - Mobile User Acquisition Lead. RapChat helps artists make music on their phones. The company is looking for someone to help build a user acquisition program.

Want to your company's roles featured on the job board? Submit here.​

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Coming soon from Trapital

Trapital Podcast: Chris Taylor, President + CEO of MNRK. Chris and I talked about selling a record label (formerly eOne Music) in the red hot music acquisition market, managing the Death Row Records catalog, and more. Before MNRK and eOne, Chris was a music attorney who represented many Canadian artists including Drake, Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtado, and more. Drops on Friday!