Table of contents for No. 1386 in Music Week

Independence Slay It is our great, great pleasure to welcome the incredible Sampha on to the cover of Music Week. Arriving six – that's right, six! – years after his Mercury Prize winning record Process, his new album Lahai stands comfortably as one of the most anticipated releases of 2023. And with the return of one of UK independent music's biggest stars, now seems like a very good time to look at how that world is doing. At the AIM Awards last month – which notably saw Caius Pawson, founder of Sampha's label Young, being presented with the Music Entrepreneur Of The Year honour – CEO Silvia Montello praised the tenacity of the UK indie scene. “Year-on-year, the independent sector continues to grow both here and around the world,” Montello…

THE BIG TRIBUTE UMG CEO & chairman Sir Lucian Grainge has paid tribute to Clive Fisher, who has died aged 71. Fisher, who retired in 2011, spent 33 years at UMG. He was promoted to EVP in 2005. “Clive Fisher was a loyal colleague who loved people and enjoyed being in the company of characters,” said Sir Lucian. “Over the 25 years we worked together, he created a unique role for himself as a behind-the-scenes dealmaker who used his soft power and personal networks within the industry to close countless artist and label deals.” THE BIG AWARDS The FAC and MMF have revealed more recipients for the Artist & Manager Awards, taking place at London's Bloomsbury Big Top on November 23. In recognition of his success with Central Cee, the…

Parliamentary and research manager, UK Music @hpmclennan You previously worked as a civil Servant. What made you move to the music industry? “I joined UK Music in 2021, just as things were reopening after the pandemic. Like a lot of people, I'd really missed going to gigs and festivals and music was something that really got me through lockdown. I have a degree in politics and I joined the Civil Service straight out of university, so I thought any hope of joining the music industry was a bit of a lost cause, but when I saw the job advert [for UK Music], I knew I had to apply. My friends are still baffled at how I found a job combining the two things I've been going on about since I…

HANNAH LAING – GOOD LOVE (FEAT. RORO) Hannah Laing's Top 10 hit Good Love has been one of the most significant dance music tracks in the UK this year. It reflects an electronic music phenomenon that has occurred at a rapid pace: the return to the charts and dancefloors of high-octane dance tracks. This genre and its accompanying BPM level have not seen chart success since the late '90s and early '00s. This change is down to a combination of the “sped-up” playlists on Spotify, the growing influence of BBC Radio 1's Sarah Story, who champions the more up-tempo sound, and the demand for shorter tracks to make an immediate impact on TikTok. All of which is encouraging producers to cram more music into a short time. As someone long…

OCTOBER 20 Gucci Mane Breath Of Fresh Air Atlantic Alabama 3 Cold War Classics Vol.2 SubCat Blink-182 One More Time… Columbia Bombay Bicycle Club My Big Day Mmm…/AWAL Chvrches The Bones Of What You Believe: 10th Anniv. Virgin Dylan LeBlanc Coyote ATO Glen Hansard All That Was East Is West Of Me Now Anti– Jake Scott Lavender Elektra Jamie Cullum Twentysomething (20th Anniversary) Decca Katy Perry Catalog Collector's Edition Boxset Capitol Knuckle Puck Losing What We Love Pure Noise Liz Phair Exile in Guyville (30th Anniversary) Matador Me Rex Giant Elk Big Scary Monsters Oxymorrons Melanin Punk Mascot Pip Blom Bobbie Heavenly Priya Ragu Santhosam Warner Rival Sons Lightbringer Atlantic Skinny Lister Shanty Punk Xtra Mile Sophia Scott Barstool Confessions Dragonfly/Empire Sun June Bad Dream Jaguar Run For Cover The…

“We have been particularly vociferous about our wish to deliver tickets to customers at a price that we think is correct” STUART GALBRAITH There are countless examples of artists fulfilling their childhood sports dreams by playing in the stadium of their favourite teams. Oasis played both Manchester City's Maine Road and Etihad stadiums, Jay-Z didn't just perform at the Brooklyn Nets' Barclays Center home, but bought a stake in his favourite basketball team, while Sam Fender sold out two shows at Newcastle's St James' Park. Fender's shows were promoted by UK live sector titans Kilimanjaro Live, and if you've ever wondered if promoters share a similar glee when they put on a show at a football ground, Music Week can confirm the answer is a resounding yes. “Steve Tilley promotes Sam…

What defines Mavin's approach to A&R? “The goal has always been to spot raw talents and nurture them to be the next superstars. The A&R team at Mavin is extremely attentive and meticulous in its approach to every aspect of the artist's branding; from how they sound to what they look like, down to the colour of their hair. We've been very intentional about talent development from the ground up, and we understand the time and effort that goes into it. And as long as there is talent and alignment in vision with the artist, we are ambitious to say ‘however long it takes'. This relentless in-house training and development process, though rigorous, has enabled us to build unique artists with unique positioning and narratives.” So how did Rema and…

Rema's Afrobeats smash Calm Down was one of the biggest global hits of 2022. In the UK, it hit No.3, spent 27 weeks in the Top 10 and has racked up over a million sales, while the remix with Selena Gomez has more than a billion Spotify streams. Here, producer Andre Vibez tells us how the track came to life… I didn't know Calm Down would be global, but I always knew it was going to be big. I also thought Rema had huge potential, after I first met him about 10 years ago in Benin City, where we're both from. He was just starting off but I could see that he was really talented. We made music together for a couple of months and then I didn't see him…

TALK OF THE TOWN DOJA CAT 01 Paint The Town Red (Ministry Of Sound) SALES: 251,856 Doja Cat topped the UK singles chart for the first time in her career in September, spending four weeks at No.1 in the weekly list with Paint The Town Red, which added 251,856 sales to boost its to-date total to 318,283 units overall. Not only is it the Los Angeles-born artist's 17th song to surpass the 300,000 mark, Paint The Town Red is also the first rap single by a female solo artist to spend four weeks at the summit, achieving the feat almost 33 years after Vanilla Ice became the first male to do so with Ice Ice Baby. Paint The Town Red was boosted by a CD release as well as the…

GUTS REACTION OLIVIA RODRIGO 01 Guts (Polydor/Geffen) SALES: 100,848 With over 100,000 sales in its first month, gold-certified Guts looks set to be another blockbuster album that sticks around in the charts for Olivia Rodrigo. The follow-up to 2021's huge breakthrough LP Sour opened at No.1 in the weekly charts with sales of 60,272. Its week one sales figure included an impressive 30,879 physical copies – 11,810 vinyl LPs, 10,580 CDs and 8,489 cassettes – as well as 1,228 digital downloads. As Music Week went to press, Guts was the most streamed album in a single week so far in 2023 with 28,165 sales-equivalent streams. Debut record Sour is No.10 in the rankings for September with sales up 47.9% month-on-month (24,430 units). It has sales to date of 764,078. GO…

UNITED KINGDOM Kenya Grace Strangers Video Creations: 570,000 Kenya Grace is about to get really popular, really quickly. Having teased her major label debut Strangers on TikTok since July, the track has had one of TikTok's biggest release weeks in 2023. The song is an exploration into modern dating, looking at how we pass through numerous fleeting relationships. Kenya's lyrics highlight the lack of substance in these relationships, a feeling that is evoked through her ethereal vocals and a trance-like beat. TikTok creators have taken to the atmospheric track, using the sound to share insights into their photography and cinematography processes. Lucy Benbow, label partnerships manager at TikTok, highlights how Strangers' popularity on TikTok led to its official release and how Grace has embraced the platform to connect with her…

5 years ago… TOP STORY SPECIAL AGENT In May this year, Emma Banks was crowned winner of The Strat at the Music Week Awards, offering a reminder of her longstanding passion for live music with a rousing speech that included an impassioned appeal to save O2 Academy Brixton. Of course, the industry has long been accustomed to the force that is Emma Banks. In 2015, she took home the Outstanding Contribution trophy at the Music Week Women In Music Awards and, three years later, became the first woman to receive the Music Industry Trusts (MITS) Award. We marked the occasion by welcoming the CAA trailblazer to the cover to tell her story so far. What followed was a typically powerful interview, in which the horse racing enthusiast and Luton Town…

frontline Fittingly for a physical music manufacturer, Key Production is marking its 33 & 1/3 birthday next month. The company has pressed recent Top 10 LPs by D-Block Europe, Noel Gallagher and PJ Harvey. Here, owner & CEO Karen Emanuel talks vinyl, sustainability and the future of CD… Looking back, did you ever imagine Key Production would become so successful? “I first started in the '90s all by myself in a back office at Jungle Records – they were my first customer and are still my customer. So to have gone through all the ups and downs of the music industry – [spanning] CDs, downloads, vinyl and streaming – from a company that was literally just me, to now having a company that has four offices in the UK, one…

Say that again sorry, I'm watching my puppies and they're doing something they're not supposed to be…” Midway through his first interview with Music Week, Byron Messia loses his train of thought for a second, collapsing into laughter prompted by some canine misbehaviour in the background. “They're my manager's dogs actually,” he clarifies, leaving us to speculate about what exactly is so funny. “Every living being around us is family, so they're my dogs, too.” We find Byron Messia enjoying a sun-scorched Miami morning before heading to the studio, his daily ritual. Out on his terrace, palm trees cast shade over a barbecue and weight lifting equipment. His fingers are festooned with his customary giant, shining rings and, on first impressions, life for the 23-year-old appears very rosy indeed. Given…

“What's Nas like as a label boss? He's awe-inspiring” DJ SHADOW Where did the process of making this new record begin? “For a long time during Covid, I really didn't want to listen to anything contemporary, I wanted to listen to music that made me feel good and salve all these open wounds that I and many other people had. I ended up falling in love with tapes from the mid-'80s because they brought me back to a time that I feel is very rarely celebrated in popular music. I found it really inspiring.” After a run of guest-heavy records, this is a return to just you and your crate-digging sensibilities and sampling collages. Do you approach an album differently when there are no collaborations? “Even if I'm friends with the…

CURATED BY GIR'S CARLA MARIE WILLIAM With three decades of experience working in the music industry, Michelle Escoffery is an Ivor Novello and BRIT Award-winning singer-songwriter. Throughout her career, she has worked as a recording artist, producer, songwriter, lecturer in commercial music as well as an advocate for the rights of music creators. In 2021, she became the president of the PRS For Music Members' Council, and this year became a trustee for both the PRS Foundation and the Ivors Academy Trust. Here, Escoffery shares her top five tips on how to make it in various areas of the music industry… 1. Consistency is key “Always show up for yourself, even when you get knocked back, because a ‘no' is sometimes just a ‘not yet'. Just because somebody doesn't see…

In November, Gregory Porter – one of the titans of modern jazz music – releases his first-ever festive album, Christmas Wish. Here, the Grammy-winning star reflects on his journey so far, staying humble, and having a pint with Jeff Goldblum… I should have released a Christmas album earlier… “I just love the holidays. Really, a Christmas record should've been, like, the second thing I ever did. My voice and style lend themselves to it. Thematically, most songwriters go straight to the love story. But I remember early on in my career trying to talk about love without talking about love. In that sense, Christmas Wish is my way of talking about brotherly, family love, and of a place, time and memories.” It's a long way to the top. Enjoy the…

@Willjhodgkinson Important realisation that says something about something. If the Rolling Stones can keep going for another nine years, they will have outlived the Soviet Union. (Will Hodgkinson, journalist) Wednesday, September 6 @planetalex_ Ezra Collective deserve it all (Alexandra Ampofo, Metropolis/Live Nation) Saturday, September 9 @adotdee I love you all, but I'm not joining your Instagram broadcast channels (Austin Daboh, Atlantic) Wednesday, September 20 @empilbeam Last Dinner Party debut single still SLAPS (Emily Pilbeam, BBC Introducing/6 Music) Friday, September 29 @Jpizzledizzle Too many parties/celebrations, not enough good new music being made. Balance is needed in the game right now. (Joseph JP Patterson, Trench/Complex) Monday, September 18 @CurtisLSharkey Me: “Please search emails for XYZ.” Outlook: “You have literally never sent or received an email in your entire life.” (Curtis Sharkey, Festival Republic) Friday,…

VV BROWN History (YOY Records) Out this month, VV Brown's fourth album Am I British Yet? examines Black identity in Britain. Built on a reverberating bassline, soulful single History was inspired by Brown's visits to slave plantation sites in Jamaica and moved its maker to tears in the writing process. Contact: Shane O'Neill shane.oneill@umusic.com SHABAZZ PALACES (FEAT. LIL TRACY) Woke Up In A Dream (Sub Pop) Ishmael Butler has made a stream of high end hip-hop records since 2011 debut Black Up, and mini-LP Robed In Rareness adds emphatically to the canon. Featuring his son Lil Tracy, this meditative delight lives up to its title. Contact: Ben Harris ben@runmusic.co.uk SAYA GRAY AA Bouquet For Your 180 Face (Dirty Hit) ‘I'm on day 103 without you now', sings Saya Gray on…

“Everybody's impressed with what we've built” Don Jazzy Don Jazzy has a confession to make. The Mavin Records chief has been at the forefront of the African music revolution since launching the influential label in Nigeria in 2012, but not even he could have predicted the dizzying heights to which the Afrobeats scene would ascend just over a decade later. Domestic success, perhaps… But global domination? “To be honest, we didn't think it was going to be that easy,” he admits with a chuckle. “You can dream dreams – we would say, ‘Maybe someday we'll pull that off here in Nigeria,' but we didn't see it being able to happen out there.” In the UK, its impact in the summer of 2023 has been astounding, with megastars Burna Boy (Bad Habit/Atlantic)…

THIS MONTH: STICK IT TO THE MANIFESTO “To be competitive in the international marketplace, the UK needs to join the countries that are actively supporting their music industries” MARK DAVYD MUSIC VENUE TRUST STATE OF THE (INDIE) NATION: A monthly update on the ongoing closure crisis facing the UK's Grassroots Music Venues, which MVT tackles through its Emergency Response Service of experts; legal, licensing, planning, development, financial, property and noise gurus… New Emergency Venue closures in response service cases 2023: 73 in 2023: 88 Grassroots Music Ongoing cases:51 Venue openings in Grassroots Music 2023: 2 We are entering that part of the political cycle where attention turns to the forthcoming manifestos and, for our industry, the commitments to supporting music that any incoming government might be persuaded to make. The creative…