Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share insights, tips, and strategies for artist managers on how to navigate through the music business.

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Ruiz’s Letter:

As the newsletter grows, so does the feedback, tweaks and experimenting.

One piece of feedback that I received was to include a CONTENTS section at the top of the newsletter so you, the reader, knows what to expect. So here you have it.

Keep the feedback coming. Its always welcomed. As are the shares to The Manager’s Playbook Newsletter. Always appreciated.

Quick reminder: Remember that special guest heavy hitter I mentioned a couple of weeks ago? Well, we finally had a chance to speak exclusively for our newsletter. Can’t wait to reveal that invaluable insight in next week’s edition.

For now, let’s talk sync licensing after our newly added “Contents” section.

CONTENTS

Strategy:
•Sync Licensing Deal Tips

Pay Attention:
•Lyor Cohen’s Email Letter about Youtube Shorts
•The Rise of Independent Artist & Labels in Africa

Industry News: 
•Beyonce’s Back on Top
•Peso Pluma Announces His Highly-Anticipated Tour
•UMG acquires Complex. Focused on ‘Superfan’ element

What We’re Watching:
•The Overlap Between Music & Streamer Economies

Check This Out:
•AI Just Reached PEAK Insanity
•Music Industry Job Openings

STRATEGY

How to Land a Sync Licensing Deal

Note: This piece was adopted from Nathan Foreman’s post on Linkedin.
Written by Nathan Foreman, Co-Founder of Supr Selectiv & Sync Educator
Illustration by Yihong Guo

Believe it or not, there were about 5-6 different Sync Licensing Panels this year at NAMM. I attended 4 of them and wanted to share my top 10 notes that I found useful this past weekend.

1. Be Human - My first tip comes from music supervisor Jennifer Smith. She emphasized when approaching music supervisors, know that they’re human. Treat them as such and know they don’t work for you, they work for the project. This includes knowing and spelling their name correctly when cold emailing, not spamming their inbox, and doing research about their project.

2. Show up to the pitch PREPARED - This includes having proper split agreements, metadata which includes contact info, PRO info, keywords, etc. Labeling if your track is one stop and easy clear.

3. Put a face to the music - By FAR, The best way to connect with Music Libraries, Sync Agents, and Music Supervisors are at networking events like panels, conferences, etc. If you can’t attend them in person, set up Google alerts for virtual Sync Licensing panels.

4. Volunteer - This goes along with my last point, but volunteering at Sync Events is an excellent way to meet more people in the Sync Community. I’ve seen Jared Oluwa do this firsthand and even Amira Gadd touch on this at her NAMM panel.

5. Collaboration - The quickest way to get your foot in the door is to collaborate with other professionals in this industry. Creating with musicians outside of your genre is a unique way to carve out a lane.

6. Mentorship - I was fortunate enough to speak at the Business panel and on that panel, I mentioned how much I’ve enjoyed Jennifer Pyken’s Music Supervision Mastercourse, & Ryan Svendsen's Masterclass. Music Supervisor Livy Rodriguez-Behar, who was also a panelist, shared that she offers consulting & a mentorship group.

7. Go-To Person - Be easy to work with, become quick and responsive to briefs and emails, and creating consistent music helps build relationships.

8. Mental & Spiritual Health - Whether you’re a spiritual person or not, this next tip from Jazmin Brooks is vital; take care of your mental health. She shared taking care of your headspace and not being afraid to ask for help is a key way to connect with your creativity.

9. Persistence Meets Patience - There’s going to be times where you don’t hear a response, which isn’t necessarily a rejection. Being persistent without being ‘spammy’ is a skillset within itself. If you’re going to follow up, wait a few weeks to a month. Everyone who works in this field is busy, so patience and persistence without taking it personally is key.

10. Innovator - One of my favorite tips comes from panelist Vo Williams who spoke at the creative panel hosted by Marcus Manderson. He connects his success with blending different styles and genres together. Instead of just being a hip hop artist, he emphasized that becoming an innovator of the Epic Cinematic Hip Hop style helped him stand out in the Sync Space.

Link to original post.

PAY ATTENTION

Lyor’s Letter: Did Shorts just TRIPLE your audience?!

Disclaimer: This feature is not an endorsement of Lyor Cohen or his platform. This content piece comes from an email that he sends out routinely to his partners. We thought that it would be a great value-add for this edition, and decided to feature it here.

Did Shorts just TRIPLE your audience?!

Feb 15, 2024 - Lyor's Letter

Every day, our teams wake up completely dedicated to making YouTube the best place for over 2 billion music fans, and our 100 million YouTube Music and Premium subscribers.

We’re carefully building an experience that brings fans closer to the artists and music they love, immersing them in the richness of content across all formats: music videos, audio streaming, Shorts, live, fan-uploaded content, and more. We still have a lot of work to do, but our mission is to bring fans on a journey where they discover music through Shorts, and then get connected to the rest of the artist’s repertoire, inspiring them to become engaged fans who lean in. To give you a sense of this experience, I’m thrilled to share new insights and product launches:

More reach: In January 2024, Shorts TRIPLED the average artist's audience of unique viewers. This means Shorts featuring an artist's music tripled the average artist's total reach!

More fans: In January 2024, artists active on Shorts saw more than 60% of their new channel subscribers coming directly from their Shorts posts on average. In fact, Myke Towers gained 1.7 million subscribers in 2023, all directly from his consistent Shorts uploads.

More engagement: Shorts are now averaging 70 billion daily views and are being watched by over 2 billion logged-in users every month. Plus, the number of channels uploading Shorts has grown 50% year over year. This means more creators putting your artist's music in front of more fans. From there, fans can go beyond discovering the latest single and onto exploring and creating with your entire repertoire: music videos, albums, interviews, live performances, and more.

Launching Music Video Remixes: We’re thrilled to announce that we’re rolling out the ability for Shorts creators to “remix” music videos. Shorts creators will be able to put their own unique spin on their favorite music videos using tools like Cut, Green Screen, and Collab, creating fresh new content directly with eligible official music videos.

We are so grateful to have partnered with artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa, and next, Karol G, to help them release their music and engage fans across all formats. Together we’re making music reverberate across all of YouTube, and I cannot wait to see what we develop together next.

With love and respect,

Lyor Cohen
Global Head of Music, YouTube

Really interesting article featuring Osagie Osarenz, Director of African Operations at ONErpm, a music company helping artists across Africa. In the interview, Osagie touches on how she went from working in TV to managing big Nigerian music stars like Wizkid.

With the African music market(s) exploding in popularity, her insider takes on the challenges and opportunities in the African music industry and how streaming is growing big there are timely. Worth checking out.

INDUSTRY NEWS

UPDATE: A "TEXAS"-SIZED START FOR BEY’

Beyoncé's "TEXAS HOLD 'EM" (Parkwood/Columbia) amassed 31m+ streams in the U.S. in its first six days, making it her biggest release in well over a decade.

It has dominated charts, securing the #1 spot on Spotify's U.S. Top 50 and maintaining the #1 spot at Apple Music.

Globally, it's been in Spotify's Top 5, with its highest position at #2. The song is STILL gaining momentum and has entered various radio formats, including Pop, Rhythm, Hot AC, and even Country. And all of this without a music video. Yet again, another moment we’re sure will break the internet

Mexican sensation Peso Pluma Announces 2024 Exodo Tour

The Latin Music market is probably twice as big as you think it is, and Peso Pluma, at 24 years old, is one of the biggest names out right now. This new tour features over 35 shows across North America.

To give you an idea of the momentum in this market, in 2023, Peso Pluma had 26 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, clinched his first Grammy, and grossed a total of $48.8 million across 39 shows.

Universal Music Group is acquiring a stake in Complex

Universal Music Group (UMG) is buying a stake in Complex, a youth-oriented media platform, as part of a $108.6 million acquisition led by live-video shopping platform NTWRK. This move aims to create a hub for 'superfan' culture, merging commerce, digital media, and music. UMG's involvement suggests a focus on selling music-related products directly to Complex's audience. The acquisition comes as Warner Music Group seeks to sell two of Complex's rivals, Uproxx and HipHopDX.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

The Overlap Between Music & Streaming Economies

We’re in a place now where artists are becoming part-time streamers as a method of engaging with their audience. In some cases, they’re even being offered exclusive streaming deals. Recent examples including Logic's and Tyga’s streaming deals.

Streamers are essentially the new TV stars. They’re growing quickly and are often in positions that are ripe for management and structure. With the right elements, the sky’s the limit for them.

For artists, networking should go beyond your music counterparts.

Who are the biggest streamers in your city or amongst your fanbase? Are you in a position to begin streaming yourself?

Some ideas to consider.

CHECK THIS OUT..

AI Just Reached PEAK Insanity..

It looks like AI just reached a new level of crazy. OpenAI- Creator of ChatGPT, just announced it’s text to video model, Sora.

Sora generates realistic videos from text prompts. It can create complex scenes with multiple characters and specific motions, with amazing quality. It is not available for public use at the moment but it’s certainly stopped the creative community in its tracks. So much so, Tyler Perry claims to have put on hold an $800 million studio expansion due to concerns of Sora’s capabilities.

Apologies in advance if this sends you down a rabbit hole you weren’t ready for, but you have to check this out.

Music Industry Job Openings

Have a look at ROSTR’s job board for paid work in the industry.

Stay hungry. Stay open.

Bio

I’m Mauricio Ruiz, the Founder/CEO of 8 Til Faint, an Artist Management company with over 5 billion audio streams worldwide. Our past and current clients include Grammy nominated, Juno Award winning multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jessie Reyez, Marley Bleu, Skratch Bastid and more. I am also the Co-Founder of Mad Ruk Entertainment, a content agency with over 3 billion long form video streams worldwide. Our client list includes The Weeknd, Eminem, and Celine Dion, along with renowned brands like Nike, Pernod Ricard, Canon, and the NBA.

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