Ethiopia Habtemariam: The highest-ranking African-American female at a major record label

Ethiopia Habtemariam: via Facebook



Ethiopia Habtemariam was born on September 24, 1979, and she headed Universal Music Publishing Group as Senior Vice President & Head of Urban Music. She will be taking over Sylvia Rhone's position at Motown Records. That makes her the highest-ranking African-American female (of Ethiopian descent) at a major record label. Motown is a division of Universal Music Group, the World's largest Music company.

Ethiopia Habtemariam
She “strongly believed Motown should be youth-driven,” an individual close to the executive told TheWrap. “It’s all about youth. They’re the ones who open the doors.”

How did she get there?

Ms. Habtemariam has signed some of music's biggest superstars, including; multi-platinum recording artist and songwriter Chris Brown, breakthrough artist and songwriter Keri Hilson, gold recording artist and songwriter Ciara. She's steered the careers of BMI Songwriter of the Year and Producer of the Year Polow Da Don, Andre Merrit, Candice Nelson, Balewa Muhammad, Ezekiel Lewis (The Clutch), Rock City, and Brian Kennedy to name a few.

She also oversee’s one of the hottest urban rosters in music — from multi-platinum and GRAMMY award winning acts like Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, Eminem, Jeremih, Amerie, Ashanti, Jill Scott, Prince, Nicole Sherzinger, Ice Cube, Raphael Saadiq, Swizz Beatz, DMX, Asher Roth, Beastie Boys, R.Kelly, Babyface, Keyshia Cole, and many more. She is a native of Atlanta and she began interning at LaFace Records at age 14. Hired there as an assistant right after high school, she found herself in Los Angeles in 2001 working as a creative manager for Edmonds Music Publishing. Universal came calling two years later.

So essentially she's an executive from the publishing side of the business being given a very senior role within Universal's corporate structure (she is credited with wooing Justin Bieber into a global publishing deal) business moves like that help you a lot. With her background in music publishing and a sharp focus on discovering hit talent, Habtemariam envisions developing Motown to be a magnet for young trendy stars who appeal to the industry’s core youth audience.

It would be good to see how she and Chairman Barry Weiss work together, hopefully he'll be forward thinking as well, just as he was in the 80's during the maturation stages of Hip Hop when he was keenly aware of what the trends were then. Weiss's resume is well established even now (Britney Spears, Usher, Backstreet Boys, Justin Timberlake, 'N Sync and T-Pain) and now with Ms. Habtemariam steering the ship at Motown, things should be interesting indeed.

Ethiopia Habtemariam: "The labels think they dictate what's hot to the consumer. That's the biggest mistake. You can never underestimate the intelligence of the consumer, especially the youth. I'm not going to mention any specific songs, but there are records that are just hits at radio but don't translate into sales. So you have labels that will chase the charts or what's happening in different areas and then will sign those acts.

But they're not quality acts. That's because artist development doesn't exist anymore. I remember when people knew the names of everyone in a group. Now labels might rely heavily on production companies to give an artist some definition. That's because labels have smaller staffs and so many artists. As such, there's a short list when it comes to the next generation of urban music superstars"

- She definately knows what she's talking about...

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Rapper DMX: I’d written him off as being a loser, but now I’m not so sure

Via: dirtygurl.wordpress.com



DMX was once one of the top artists in the rap game. He had definitely possessed more talent than a lot of rappers that came in the nineties. I don’t know what happened; but all of a sudden you started to hear about how he was on drugs, and crazy, and breaking into airports, and stealing cars and what not.

I’d written him off as being a loser crackhead, but now I’m not so sure. Listen to this interview with DMX, and hear what he has to say about the industry. I think he makes reference to Jay Z when he says that you wouldn’t find him at the club throwing “it” up, and made me laugh when he was talking about the deejays.

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Busta Rhymes talks music industry economics

Busta:

The desire to want things doesn't stop, whether your broke or whether your caked up.

Etta James - and her tired apology

Etta has no manners...


Sure...this controversy has been on the net for a few days now, but I thought I'd post it after finding a decent YouTube link for it and her apology for the incident was weak. Beyonce in my view sang Etta James song "At Last" at Obama's inaugural ball as more of a promotional ploy for the Cadillac Records movie which I'm sure Etta co-signed her approval for seeing that she's still living (Beyonce was also one of the producers for the movie, to think Etta could have been more grateful). In stark similarity to how she's portrayed in the movie, Etta showed no class in her later years by downing Beyonce (the modern day mainstream star) for singing her classic song. The modern singer always resurrects the classic singer of older days, and she should have seen it as a compliment - instead she ashamedly had this to say...

The Incident...


Now don't get me wrong I love Etta's "music" but I did not like her weak apology...

ETTA JAMES APOLOGY HERE

The Music Bidness...lol

Times are changing fast...


I keep getting asked..So...these are some of my views on the music industry.

1. The music industry does NOT like to change.

2. The music industry ISN'T an innovator, they have tried (a few times) to follow WHAT OTHERS have done, and they couldn't do it.

3. Copy protection, COST'S THEM MONEY. They haven't gotten the idea through their head THAT savings could be past on to the consumer, and that they would MAKE LOTS MORE MONEY if they did so. Kill some of your Lawyers, Kill the Digital rights management constraints currently in place, kill the corporations SUPPLYING the Digital rights management infrastructures, and the price would be 1/2 of what everyone is paying now and pirating music would almost GO AWAY.

Almost overnight the music industry positioned itself from the outside looking in. They were complacent when things were going good so when the paradigm shift occured they never seemed to see it coming. THAT PARADIGM SHIFT IS GOING DIGITAL, and people stopped using outdated formats like the CD more and more, with the emergence of MP3 players like the ipod. The Music industry's problem was that they were following an outdated business plan. It was a way of thinking that needed to be changed from the top down.

In terms of promotions and marketing...we are living in the age of "the 24 hour news cycle" where it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay relevant. There are new names and faces coming out every minute, from J. Holiday to Joe the Plumber lol. Every week there is another flavour and this is part of the reason for why singers like Mya, and Brandy, etc...are getting dropped from their labels left right and center. A short peruse of the Billboard 200 from time to time will show you that the landscape in music isn't what it used to be (sales are horrible). The labels are faced with contracted revenue streams (this limits who can be promoted and what type of resources can be put behind them). Thus, it is becoming a major battle to get attention from the marketing departments of these labels.



Lil wayne is the hottest thing going right now and he's only at 2 million units. With all the controversy of that song "I kissed a girl" by Kate Perry, the album for that single has not even went platinum yet and that was a huge song with over 5 million views on Youtube. In order to get a record deal in today's world one will need what I call "a real impact song" or what's called a "so what" record...i.e. In da club - 50 cent or "hit me baby one more time" - Brittany.



Keep in mind how controversial brittany's song was when it came out 10 years ago, she was only 16 years old singing those very suggestive lyrics and being in a lolita like video. Fast forward 10 years to today's declining morality and the shock value that people are resorting to to get attention and that song wouldn't even garner that much press now. I've even heard manager's tell me that these singers nowadays are actually acting badly on purpose, getting arrested in hollywood and doing it just so they can stay relevant and be on the news and get publicity. I'm not in any way trying to be negative, it's just important to realise the obstacles and to be aware of the scene for what it really is. My work is the work of finding opportunities and my team focuses on every avenue available for cross-market success. A record deal makes getting endorsement opportunities alot easier, but maintaining them in today's climate is the key.

Kardinal Offishall - one of Canada's finest

Among us insiders in the artistic community and "industry types" here in the city of Toronto, there's alot of talk about who could be the next king of T.O; much like how New Yorkers debate on who is New York City's greatest lyricist. Without question, undeniably this was Kardinal Offishall's shining year within the ranks of Toronto's finest. But there is another generation of Toronto hip hop hopefuls all bidding for the same position; and their eyes have watched Kardi's ascension lately with close interest. Some of them have even asked us what we thought of Kardi, and my answer has always been the same; that it was his time to shine because he was among those whose work was meant to pay off...too many people had invested in Kardinal, so his eventual break was inevitable. But that effort on his part couldn't have come at a more less opportunistic time in music. Kardi sold approximately 11,869 copies of his latest album in the United States, in its first week of release. It debuted on the Billboard 200 at #40. In Canada, it debuted at #8 on the Canadian Albums Chart, with 4,247 copies sold in the first week, and was also the #1 R&B/Hip-Hop album in the country. Those are the numbers...and numbers don't lie. If Kardi was expected to sell atleast 10 percent of what was sold in the United States here in Canada then the math would suggest that he had done well - 11,869 x .10 = 1,187, again Kardinal sold 4,247 which is almost 3 times that number. An even greater breakdown further shows us that 58 percent (2.463) of the sales mentioned above did come from Ontario and I wonder which province followed after Ontario, cause it's always good to know where sales come from. Estimating fairly Kardinal has about 35,500 more albums to sell in order for Kardinal to get a gold album certification.



Kardi's "Dangerous" single debuted at number 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 and it has peaked as high as number 5, so his single with Akon not only sold well but had lasting power. The album continues to recieve generally favourable reviews from music critics.

My Boy Kanye puts the Gun to Gun's N Roses

Two weeks ago, it seemed like the #1 position on Billboard's weekly albums sales chart could have gone to either Guns or Kanye West. The Gun's N Roses album Chinese Democracy was released on November 23, and West's 808s & Heartbreak dropped November 24. It was a battle that pitted one of hip-hop's biggest stars against one of rock's most enigmatic ringleaders, and in the end, GN'R just couldn't contend. When Nielsen SoundScan issued the latest national album sales data on Wednesday (December 3), it was West's latest at #1, opening with sales of more than 450,100, leaving Guns N Roses who performed at 261,200 copies its first week out at #3. Country singer Taylor Swift ended up grabing that #2 slot instead. Trailing in the ranks are Beyonce at #4 and Ludacris at # 5. A good week for Hip Hop...and while Kanye's single might be called Love Lockdown...it's seeming more like a Music Lockdown, and Kanye's got it locked...