Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share weekly insights for aspiring artists, emerging music managers and executives on how to navigate the music industry, by Ruiz.

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Ruiz Note:

“To express you should perceive”

It’s hard to get me to shut up sometimes. As much as I ask a ton of questions and listen, alternatively I can talk a lot. That was not the case with my good man Che Kothari. When he speaks, I listen intently. Full stop.

Che is a brilliant multi-hyphenate who also happens to manage the undeniable KING OF SOCA (literally), Machel Montano.

His impact is well documented and regarded in the city of Toronto. He is the Co-Founder of the highly respected MANIFESTO organization, a non-profit organization dedicated to youth arts and culture which has thrived for 18 years, hosting an annual festival. This year they take purposeful pause to reflect and reenergize for their 20 year anniversary in 2026.

However, he is so much more.

I’m deeply honoured he took the time to chat with me on our TMP platform about his come up, artist management approach, and life philosophy.

Admittedly, the conversation with him is uniquely different than most managers I’ve spoken with. The core principals are mostly the same. However, the approach and outlook is a more inward reflection first that informs his outward projection.

Admittedly again, I knew the convo would be a fresh take. I’ve known the man at least 14 years. We live very different lives, but I whole heartedly respect his infinite wisdom and willingness to give information that is not my usual consumption on a daily basis. It was exactly why I wanted to speak with him.

My favourite way to learn and gain more understanding is to speak with those who approach life in different manners, challenge perceptions (even just by listening) and finding the take aways to better balance myself as a human being. Che is really good at that. But also a phenomenally practical individual who knows how to execute IDEAS at a monolithic level. He has no choice. It’s expected when your client turned spiritual brother is the KING OF SOCA.

In our latest edition of KEY PLAYS we sit down with Che. If you’re a long time subscriber, you’ve probably guessed it… Che is the next music executive that I will have on ‘The Manager’s Playbook’ Podcast.

The episode will air Tuesday July 16th at 1pm et/10:00am pt. 

Mark the calendars friends. It’s a great talk between us. Below is an insightful excerpt to that conversation and his approach to the business.

Ladies and gentleman, a conversation like this doesn’t come cheap. The one and only, Che Kothari.

-Ruiz

KEY PLAYS 
(FEAT. CHE KOTHARI)

My Conversation with Che Kothari

Ruiz: How do you identify a great artist (like Mustafa The Poet) or do they identify you?

Che: I think it's a mutual identification, honestly. Like, we see each other. We see each other's energy. We see each other's mission. We see each other's vision. We see each other's character. You know, the essence of this being. 

When you pass on, there's all the things that you did, but it's how did you, how were you, who were you, like how are you as a being. You know, that's what people will really remember. How did you make them feel? Right? 

It's not what you did. People are doing things all day. It’s not what you do.

In this 90 days of silence I just did, I really realized more and more, there's always going to be people that can do way more than I can do, right? In whatever I'm endeavouring to do in life, it's forever you can do things.

It's not about what you do, it's how are you when you do it. You know what I mean?

^{I think that essence of who we are and watching each other and knowing what our visions are, knowing what our purposes are. I believe relationships start with a level of understanding. Then they move to respect. Then they move to trust. Then they move to love.}

So if me and you understand each other then we will respect each other. Then we'll trust each other, then we'll love each other. But at the foundation at this part and at the beginning, it's receipted in unconditional love. Right? And I think with all these people like, I just love them, you know what I mean? Like, we are on a lifelong mission, maybe many lifetimes. They might not believe that in their belief systems, but like, you know, my belief says we've been together before. We're continuing our work.

Ruiz: A lot of us in the management space get burnt out, or a lot of us maybe don't get tired or don't get burnt out, but it's like, you know, you're going through it and you are not getting to sleep, but it's affecting your health. What are some of the tools that people could use? So in this space or abroad, you know, so they don't get to that place where they know they can't do anything.

Che: That's one of my favourite questions right now. 

This is what I'm mostly focused on right now. The music community, the artists, the managers, the PR agents, the whole sector needs this conversation and need these tools. And so this journey starts now again with Machel. When I first met Machel, you asked me like, why did we resonate together? Some of the things that he said to me at this point, he had such a massive team, big organization, lots of people on staff. He'd been carrying this for 30 years, you know, and with that comes a lot of stuff on your shoulder. You're responsible for all these people's lives and he said, can you help me responsibly bring myself back down to zero? Right? And can you help me find a life coach? And at that point, the life coach conversation, you know, we were talking about people like Tony Robbins and that sort of stuff, but I grew up in a house of meditators. I told you earlier that my parents brought their guru. So I was steeped in kind of like a house of people focused on yoga and meditation and I kind of realized that what could be super beneficial for a person like Machel is being in that kind of a community, and that would be the life coach, kind of like a guru.

We wanted a tool in our life that would enhance our perception, right? Artists and the arts community, so much of what we do is express, express, express. We're constantly expressing, but we're not taking the time. Not only giving, but we feel we have something to express when we're not taking enough time to perceive.

To express you should perceive, take some time to just perceive. So now Machel has been out there expressing, expressing, expressing. We were like okay let's take this time to enhance our perception. So then we go to this program, we learn this 21 minute meditation technique with a little bit of asana based preparation. So like nine minutes of preparation, 21 minutes of meditation and Kriya and we learn how to now channel our energies in a new way.

Ruiz: How do you balance all of this?

Che: Balance. Stillness. Silence.

Once you have the art of being, activity's easy. Nothing matters. Existentially, none of this shit matters. You know what I mean?

So if you are in the state of being and enjoying the day, whatever activity comes on your plate, you do it joyfully. You know what I mean?

^{Everyone always says "work hard!" Nah, let's change that, "work passionately, work in love, work in joy." You know what I mean?}

If you flip the way in which you work, none of it's stress. Nothing can stress you out. You know what I mean? When you get to the point of no like or dislike, anything that comes on your plate, just do it.

Ruiz: What are three books that you could recommend to somebody? Whether it's in the music space or not. Anything that could be helpful for growth.

There's two books. One is called Inner Engineering and one is called Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny.

Those two books tell a story, but they also give you specific tools within them to actually start to break this boundary of self and mind and all of that sort of stuff. So those are two amazing books that also tied directly to some practices that you can actually go and learn. So Inner Engineering, the book, it's kind of like a gateway into doing the inner engineering program where you learn this 21 minute meditation.

Another book, I would just say just for pure joy, because sometimes they don't all need to be like, you know, self-help or like tool books. I read this book when I was like a kid, The Beach by Alex Garland, which ended up becoming the movie The Beach that Leonardo DiCaprio's in.

But just the way that storytelling is. And I was young and like, it built a whole vision in my mind and made me want to journey and travel to Thailand and all over the place. So it's an easy, fun read, but like, it's something that I would go back to and be like, "yo, I love that book."

Sir Lucian is back at it again

“I like change”.

Another deep dive with the Chairman and CEO of the world’s largest record company, Universal Music Group. Worth the read for insights into the conglomerate’s head of state.

Mag is getting EVEN

“This whole narrative around streaming thresholds” is nonsense.”

​I profiled his disruptor company “EVEN” in one of our very first editions of The Manager’s Playbook. His company has made a lot of noise since than and his caught the attention of the music industry at large.

His proof of concept is simple: Buy The Art By The Artist

Yesterday, Mag sent out an email to his people detailing some numbers:

“Last Friday, I received a report from our team about DIY artists participating in a social media campaign for EVEN, and out of curiosity, I went to look at their Spotify monthly listeners and compared it to how much they made on EVEN the last month.

My jaw dropped.

In the last month, artists on EVEN—many with fewer than 10K monthly listeners—have been making thousands of dollars.

These are not the “emerging stars” you see on billboards or artists you would see on an editorial playlist. These are DIY artists who took a leap of faith and decided to sell their music first on EVEN before uploading it to streaming platforms.

​This only gets more exciting as we prepare to announce our partnerships with some of the leading DIY distributors (guess who) to onboard more of these incredible artists.​

Think about it: In a world where streaming platforms are cutting off payments to artists who don’t hit 1,000 streams in a calendar year, this means most of these artists we are featuring would have never seen a dollar from their music this year.

But because of EVEN, they are making real money, engaging real fans, and building real careers.

​What will this do to the industry? What will happen when (not if) the millions of artists who don’t make a single dollar from DSPs start making hundreds and thousands of dollars on EVEN?

It’s time for artists, managers, and executives to rethink what’s possible. The broken models of the past are beginning to be left behind.

We’re witnessing an industry that is getting EVEN.”

Incase You Weren’t Keeping Track, Taylor Swift has the #1 Album for Eleven Weeks

Your top 50 is here

Shaboozey goes #1 on Hot 100

Shaboozey’s initial No. 1 song is the first by a Black male artist to top both the Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs on Billboard.

Big congrats to his manager Jared Cotter and his team at Range for the monumental feat.

Merck Steps Down

Six years after founding HSM, the once leader in fever pitch catalogue acquisition will be stepping away

‘Best Part’ is Best Business!

Not everyone has time to watch a two hour and thirty minute podcast. I’m aware…So the team at ‘The Manager’s Playbook’ Podcast (Shoutout Erica and Jenny) pull out the best clips that we think are worthy for you to consume and educate yourselves on how these deals can get done.

In this fifteen minute clip of The Manager’s Playbook podcast, we delve into the creative session of Daniel Caesar's hit record "Best Part" featuring H.E.R. and the unique collaborative partnership that these boys struck with a major corporation (RCA) to split the revenue share 50/50 on this massive cultural song.

The chess move from Matthew, Jordan and Daniel here was a thing of beauty and proof of concept that a good team with good relationships have a great amount of leverage, even over the major label systems.

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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