The Red Hot Chili Peppers have sold the rights to their entire music catalog to Hipgnosis Songs Fund, a music IP investment company, which marks their biggest deal to date at a whopping $140 million sales price. The infamous rock band has a deep list of marketable songs like “Californication” and “Scar Tissue”, giving Hipgnosis the perfect opportunity to establish long-term plays in movie licensing deals and video advertisements. Merck Mercuriadis, the co-founder of this newly created firm, has been rapidly buying the publishing rights for artists like Neil Young and Shakira. This didn’t go unnoticed by other companies, increasing the value of existing catalogs and ushering in a music acquisition boom. To compete in this new environment where songs are long-term investments, Universal Music Publishing Group gave Bob Dylan $400 million for complete publishing rights over his music. With the covid-19 pandemic preventing festivals and touring opportunities for over a year, many artists have grown worried and have decided to take the lump-sum cash for their music. As we see more music festivals like Austin City Limits releasing lineups, it needs to be asked if the music acquisition boom can continue. If the value of catalogs continue to rise, will it be a better deal for the original artists or the publishing companies? I reached out Ibraheem Hamza, a local Dallas-Fort Worth artist whose goal is to become the face of Middle Eastern South rappers, to discuss the monumental changes to the music industry throughout 2020.
HYBE Co Ltd, the agency behind K-pop super groups like BTS, has acquired Ithaca Holdings in a $1.05 billion deal. This deal will have the South Korean firm managing talent like Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber. Do you think there’s any key cultural differences trying to build your music career in the United States versus other countries?
Honestly, with how streaming is you can really be anywhere in the world and just blow up. You don’t have to necessarily blow up in your city. It doesn’t have to be that way anymore. I used to live in Qatar in the Middle East for like seven years. I moved here in 2014. I have friends over there that make music and I also have friends that make music here. I have friends that are artists in Canada and the UK and all over. They all tell me that it depends on how you market it and what your sound is. So, for me specifically, I do a lot of R&B music and I do a fusion with Middle Eastern elements and the era elements and my music. Whether it’s my lyrics or whether it’s the instruments I use or how I structure the song, I try to put at least some influence in it. I’m in Dallas, but my major listeners aren’t even from Dallas. I have a lot of listeners in Lebanon, I have a lot of listeners in Chicago, and a majority of my listeners actually come from the UK.
So, right now there are definitely cultural differences when it comes to what type of music you put out, what type of message you’re trying to put out there. There is always going to be someone that’s going to say something about it or someone that’s not going to like your music or a group of people that think that what you’re doing and what you’re saying is wrong, but you just got to find your niche and you got to find who you’re actually targeting. So, it all depends on your marketing and how you want to portray it, because if I keep targeting Dallas, Dallas is really into Trap music, rap, and lyricism. I used to do that, but that’s really not my thing. I’m good at it, but for me, my voice, my sound, and what I do, it doesn’t match it. I strive and like R&B and like the melodic type of rap and that’s more for the East Coast and I’m more of like the Midwest.
2020 was marked with vocal outrage towards events like the Jennifer Lopez halftime show, which received over 1000 complaints related to the risqué material. There was also the notable debate over the August release of Cardi B’s “WAP”. Do you have any reactions towards critics who state that songs with sexual references give poor values to younger generations?
They were getting backlash for their outfits and dancing and all that. That’s nothing new coming from them. That’s been how they were. I grew up around my parents listening to Shakira and Jennifer Lopez when she was Jenny from the Block way back when. That type of stuff you shouldn’t bring around kids. I think it was a little excessive how people reacted towards them, but that again, that’s just depending on who you are, how you want to raise your kids if you don’t want to show them that don’t show them that. That’s them, but kids do come up with questions, then people do. Kids do ask why it is wrong. Explain, elaborate, but don’t bash. Everyone is free to express themselves. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but I would just say, don’t get it mixed in, don’t put down someone’s ideology, or don’t put down why people do the things they do. Now with WAP, I’ve never listened to the song. I knew what it was about, I thought that was excessive, that was too much.
I think that was just honestly like an industry song, something they knew that was going to pop off and then it really put too much thought into it. There’s definitely music and there are definitely things that I don’t think kids should listen to. I definitely think that there’s a lot of things that are in the music industry that kids shouldn’t see, and shouldn’t be brought around because that’s one thing about normalizing like, you know what, we can do this and we can dance and sing our music. Yeah, that’s cool, but at the same time, you should know that you’re going to get backlash from someone at least. There’s always going to be someone that’s not going to like it, and I would say defend yourself. Obviously, you have the right to your opinion, and you have the right to your freedom of speech, but don’t belittle, or don’t get confused when people start saying like, “Hey. This isn’t cool.” Or like, “We don’t want our kids around that.” Am just saying like, yeah, a kid shouldn’t be listening to that and they shouldn’t be watching the video for that because kids are heavily influenced. There are people I know in their 20s that are still heavily influenced, so you got to expect that people aren’t going to like it, and you got to expect that this is going to affect a lot of people.
The 2020 Grammys featured the major comeback of Demi Lovato, whose absence was due to a near-fatal drug overdose in 2018. Have you collaborated with any other creatives who were impacted by the Opioid epidemic? Is there anything that can be done to raise awareness and help musicians struggling with addiction?
The biggest way I can say to spread awareness is to always check in on your friends. Always make sure that everyone’s okay. Let them know that you’re there to talk to them, listen to them and their problems, even if you don’t feel like it is a problem, or you feel like you don’t quite understand why it’s a problem for them, you need to listen and see it from their perspective. I’ve lost a few friends to drug overdoses. I’ve had one friend, even in high school. He took a Xanax thinking that it was Annex and it turned out to be Fentanyl and he OD (overdose) died. He was only 17. I was in this collective called the TFG and we named it after that because one of the guys that started it had a whole plan to start his studio on his label, but he died pretty soon due to, I think it was with Lean or Codeine or Pro Methane.
He OD (overdose) on that and it took a toll on all of us, to be honest. I didn’t know him as much as everyone else did. I was brought into the collective after his passing and I’ve only met him a couple of times, but the few times where I did meet him, we had really good talks. He really liked my music and he liked the message I was sending. I was really into the conversation with him and he was a really cool guy. Even though I didn’t know him as much as anyone else, it’s sad to see. There’s so much talent and there’s so much potential in all these people. Especially with artists, artists are there even like the hardest rappers are like the people that talk about just anything. Whether its gang violence or drugs or women or sex and everything, no matter who you are as an artist, everyone is sensitive. They are one of the most sensitive people and they take everything personally because we’re being so vulnerable and like putting out our emotions in our life and everything in music for the entire world to hear. So, it’s just sad to see. I really feel like people need to be more careful in what they do and not get too caught up in the lifestyle of music. Just like the party scene of it. There was a time where I was just getting mixed into the wrong crowd of people too, and I wasn’t touching anything like that, or I wasn’t doing the drugs or anything. I was just around the scene, but being that close to it already set the tone for me, and it really let me know I need to start treating this like this is a job at this point.
The collaboration between BTS & McDonalds was announced in April this year, around 9 months since the success of the marketing campaigns featuring Travis Scott. During Scott’s sponsorship, McDonalds reported burger shortages across their franchises and various TikTok trends appearing due to the unorthodox business plan. What has the process been like when finding a solid company you want to partner with and are there ever any signs when you know the sponsorship won’t work?
I did a few collaborations with some Middle Eastern brands. People who would make shirts and apparel targeting the Middle East or South Asia. In that whole demographic there are a lot of collaborations that work. Then there were a few that didn’t, and just because you got to make sure that you pick out the right sponsorships, not only that you fit their audience and that the point of the sponsorship is for you to gain financially and to gain a promotion, and for them to also gain finance and promotion using you and you using them. It’s a win-win operation. You got to make sure you’re hitting the right audience. You have to make sure that your audience is the same audience as them because I’ve had people that I’ve known that have their own brands. We talked about sponsorships and everything, but at the end of the day, my target market and what I promote in my music don’t fit with them and their core qualities or competencies and we didn’t line up. Those things happen in business. At the end of the day, you got to make sure that you’re targeting the right people and that you’re reaching out to them. Travis Scott and BTS collaborating with McDonald’s, that’s a win-win. Everyone knew that that was going to succeed.
Travis Scott was the biggest artist in the world for a couple of years and BTS has completely taken over the world continuously. So then, collaborating together with one of the biggest, fast-food franchises in the world, it makes sense. You just got to make sure that whenever you do that, you have to go in with your own fan base. You have to go in there with your own structure, you have to go in there with people that are already watching you with or without the promotion or the collaboration. You had to bring something to the table because at the end of the day they’re not a company. Whether it’s McDonald’s, whether it is a Nike store, whether it’s your local apparel website or the guy across the street that sells shirts off of Shopify. They’re not going to give it to anyone. You got to make sure that you’re going in there properly. So, for anyone out there that is looking for collaborations and anyone that is looking for promotions with companies, always reach out, always look around, but before you start looking to gain that momentum from other people and other companies and sponsorships, you have to be able to build your own. You have to be able to build your own fan base so you can still succeed with or without it. Doing collaborations, that’s just a plus side that comes with the hard work, but that comes later.
Verzuz, a battle series on Instagram Live that was launched by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, matches up legendary artists and producers like DJ Premier and RZA. When it comes to the writing process, do you have to do any trend research or think about what could potentially become viral?
I don’t like the trending stuff on TikTok. I don’t want to dive too deep into TikTok. I’m more on Instagram because I can repeatedly post something and get different analytics, or I use the same post and mess with the analytics and do the promotions later and target the proper audience on that same post without repeatedly going over and over again. TikTok is a love-hate relationship with me personally. I see a lot of people out there that are just influencers because of looks or partnerships or the TikTok outlet. It’s not a secret anymore. TikTok purposely picks certain people and certain artists based on their looks rather than talent. There’s a lot of people that are just underground talent and they don’t get direct recognition based on other social media. I know a lot of people, even bigger artists right now that get big on TikTok, or they get big everywhere else. Then on TikTok whenever they start posting stuff that is getting more political, things that are getting more into the real world, they automatically had shadow blocked and their stuff gets broken down.
They go into their community guidelines when it really doesn’t. TikTok algorithms are really selective on who it is, so that’s why I don’t agree with them. I see it as a waste of time for me personally to go into it that way. I stick to more algorithms just like Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, the basics, because I already know how to work that. I feel like I jumped into TikTok too late to learn everything and to consistently post all the time. As much as I love my music and as much as I love making it and sitting down in the studio, recording and posting it, and doing all of that, I still have real-life going on. I still have a job I need to go to, I still have to go to school full-time, I still have 1,000,001 things that I need to do. So, sitting in front of an app to constantly go over– but when I used to do that, I ended up getting depressed and anxious and not wondering why my stuff isn’t working until I realize it’s been six months. I haven’t worked on anything.
