The Deals: Milk & Honey Sweet on ‘Savage’ Producer, Warner Records Signs ‘The Voice UK’ Breakout
A roundup of notable music industry deals from the past two weeks, including Milk & Honey's pact with "Savage" producer J. White Did It and Warner Records' signing of The Voice UK star…
Milk & Honey Management has signed songwriter-producer J. White Did It to a worldwide management deal. He will be managed by Chad Wes, Nic Warner and Milk & Honey founder and president Lucas Keller.
White, who also works as a DJ, has collaborated with artists including Cardi B (“I Like It ,” “Bodak Yellow,” “Money,”), Megan Thee Stallion (“Savage” feat. Beyonce), 21 Savage (“A Lot,”) Gucci Mane (“Big Booty”) and Iggy Azalea (“Sally Walker”).
Donel, star of The Voice UK, has signed a recording deal with Warner Records and a publishing deal with Sony/ATV. Both agreements are joint ventures with Max Gousse’s Artistry Records.
After appearing on The Voice UK at age 16, Donel was invited by Prince Harry to perform at Queen Elizabeth II’s 92nd birthday at The Royal Albert Hall. He later wrote and released his debut single, “Bang Like a Drum,” via Polydor Records. He currently boasts over 1 million followers combined on social media and has received over 16 million likes on TikTok.
Trending on Billboard
Raised in Zimbabwe, Donel’s music combines afrobeat with modern pop and R&B and weaves his native Ndebele language into his lyrics. He has already collaborated with MNEK, Guilty Beatz and Pip Kembo, among others, and also caught the attention of Major Lazer and Nigerian singer-songwriter Mr Eazi, who included Donel’s single “Wish You Well” in his African incubator program emPAWA.
Donel is currently working on his debut EP and has a single planned for release later this year.
WME has signed New Orleans rock band The Revivalists for global representation in all areas.
Led by frontman David Shaw, The Revivalists have released four studio albums, including 2015’s Men Amongst Mountains, which spawned the Billboard Alternative Songs chart No. 1 “Wish I Knew You.” The band has played festivals including Lollapalooza, the New Orleans Jazz Fest, Governor’s Ball, Outside Lands, Bonnaroo and more.
Notably, this is The Revivalists’ third agency in two years. They were previously with Madison House and Paradigm.
The Revivalists are managed by Morgan Young and Charlie Walker at C3 Management, while their legal rep is Farah Usmani at Loeb & Loeb and their publicity rep is Carla Senft at Press Here. They are signed to Loma Vista Recordings.
UTA has signed country singer-songwriter Easton Corbin for worldwide representation in all areas.
Corbin has released a total of three studio albums, as well as hit singles including “A Little More Country Than That” and “Roll With It,” both of which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. He is also a three-time ACM Award winner.
Corbin released the single “Didn’t Miss A Beat” on Aug. 21. Other recent singles include “Turn Up” and “One More Night,” his second collaboration with EDM artist Lost Frequencies. He is managed by Sam I Am Entertainment and attorney David Crow.
Steve Aoki’s new Latin imprint, Dim Mak En Fuego, has signed Venezuelan artist Andrekza.
Described as an artist who “incorporates global aesthetics and sounds — combining the traditional dembow riddim found in dancehall and reggaeton with uplifting melodies,” Andrekza is signed to Warner Chappell as a songwriter and is currently working on her debut album, Cassette. She wrote the official song for Univision’s Premios Juventud awards show this year.
Music licensing platform Songtradr has partnered with music credits database Jaxsta to help creators worldwide collect missing revenue. The partnership is part of Songtradr’s recent $1 million investment in Jaxsta, which includes a five-year exclusive commercial agreement and a revenue share arrangement.
Under the agreement, Jaxsta Pro members will have the ability to utilize Songtradr’s platform to initiate collection and ongoing management of their neighboring rights income. In turn, Songtradr will use Jaxsta’s music credits metadata to assist in the identification of uncollected revenues resulting from the performance of sound recordings on broadcast and digital/online media.
“Jaxsta has solved a significant piece of the music industry data dilemma and has built a scalable technology solution that integrates neatly into our music rights ecosystem and licensing marketplace,” said Songtradr CEO and founder Paul Wiltshire in a statement. “Many artists and musicians around the world have been impacted by loss of earnings from live performance and this partnership allows us to increase our capacity to collect unidentified and unclaimed revenue during these unprecedented times.”
Added Jaxsta CEO and co-founder Jacqui Louez Schoorl, “We are thrilled to be partnering with the team at Songtradr. This partnership highlights the significant opportunities that exist in solving the data-centric challenges faced by the music industry. Songtradr can provide an enhanced global product leveraging the use of official metadata only available through Jaxsta.”
The neighboring rights market was estimated to be $2.6 billion in 2019, with a large portion of that total left uncollected by music creators.
Radio host and R&B icon Keith Sweat has renewed and extended his partnership with Premiere Networks. Under the deal, Sweat will continue hosting his nationally syndicated R&B nighttime radio show The Sweat Hotel, which is heard by nearly three million listeners a month across more than 60 stations.
In May, Sweat launched Keith Sweat Presents Sweat Hotel LIVE – a live, weekly R&B music concert series created to celebrate Black Music Month. Due to its success, the series was extended through the month of June, with participating artists including 112, NEXT and Brian McKnight.
Over his career as an artist, Sweat has released 13 solo albums, including hit tracks such as “Nobody,” “Twisted” and “Freak Me.” He began hosting The Sweat Hotel in 2007.
BABZ Inc. has signed songwriting and production duo The Futuristics (Alex Schwartz and Joe Khajadourian) to a management deal.
The Futuristics, who kicked off their musical partnership after interning at Atlantic Records in 2005, have produced hits for G-Eazy (“Him & I” feat. Halsey), Selena Gomez (“Fetish” feat. Gucci Mane), Machine Gun Kelly & Camila Cabello (“Bad Things”) and Flo Rida (“I Cry”), among others.
The duo’s most recent production credits include Goody Grace’s “Nothing Good” feat. Juicy J and G-Eazy, two songs off Blink-182’s latest album Nine and Bebe Rexha’s “You Can’t Stop The Girl.”
More From Pro
