The Industry Connection

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Music & Entertainment News

• 💰 The nationwide economic impact of the Entertainment Strikes has passed $6B.

• 📺 Netflix adds 8.7M subscribers in Q3, totaling 247M.

  • Netflix also announced a rate hike to their monthly Basic ($11.99) and Premium ($22.99) plans.

• 🤖 YouTube is developing an AI tool to let Creators sound like famous musicians.

• ⚖️ Universal Music Group sues Amazon-backed AI company Anthropic.

• 🎫 Live music is stronger than ever, according to a report from UTA.

• 🎹 ROSTR just dropped extensive data behind Europe’s top 50 Summer Festivals.

  • According to ROSTR, when looking at all festival acts in their study, 64% were Male, 35% were Female and 1% were Non-Binary.

    • That balance gets worse when looking at headliners as 90% of headliners were men. Check out ROSTR’s full report here.

🎙️ Interview with Jbeau Lewis, Partner & Music Agent at UTA

This week, we sit down with Jbeau Lewis, who is a Partner and Music Agent at UTA. Jbeau represents a lengthy list of stars including Bebe Rexha, Karol G, Jason Derulo, Sean Paul, Anita, Chance the Rapper, LANY and Flo Rida. Though the hottest name on his roster is undoubtedly Bad Bunny, who is has been one of the biggest names in the music the last few years. This year alone Bad Bunny made history as the first Spanish-speaking Artist to headline Coachella, then went on tour playing arenas and stadiums back-to-back. He is also the first non-English speaking Artist to be crowned Spotify’s most streamed Artist of the year, an award he has won every year since 2020. He also holds the all-time record for the biggest streaming year of any artist in Spotify history, generating over 18.5 billion streams in 2022. Haven’t seen him live yet? Catch him on SNL this weekend.

Jbeau is another prime example of working hard to rise through the ranks. He went from mailroom to a Partner and now has one of the biggest Artist rosters in the world.

Our conversation is below:

AvA: How did you first get involved in the music business?

Lewis: I grew up in Dallas and discovered the jam band scene as a teenager, going to shows whenever I could. I quickly fell into the tape trading scene - sort of the remnants of the Grateful Dead era. Before I knew it, I had a wall of cassettes. I think I accidentally was learning every venue in America as a result of it because we would put labels on the tapes with the city, date, venue, setlist etc.

During my first year of college at the University of Virginia, I joined the concerts committee. It was just a volunteer thing that I never took seriously as a career path, as my entire family is in medicine, and I was on a pre-med track. So I took the MCAT, got into the University of Texas Southwestern, and went back to Dallas for medical school.

It wasn't until I had a pretty happenstance run in the summer after my first year of med school with Scott Clayton, then from CAA. I had known Scott because I had gotten to know John Mayer (client of Clayton at the time) during my sophomore year through his tour manager. He happened to be in Dallas that summer covering the John Mayer & Counting Crows co-headline show, and we ended up staying in touch. His assistant position came open a couple of weeks later, and off I went to Nashville. I took a leave of absence from medical school and I've never looked back.

AvA: What happened next?

Lewis: I went straight onto Scott's desk at CAA as his assistant in 2003, which was 20 years ago this month. I ended up being in Nashville for about nine months. CAA at that point didn't have any other offices beyond Nashville and LA, and there was no one else beyond Scott and a couple people supporting him that worked genres outside Country and Christian. CAA basically said “we want to promote you in the training program, but if you don't want to work in Country or Christian music, you need to move to LA.”

Nine months after I arrived in Nashville, I packed up and moved to LA.

AvA: What was it like starting out in LA?

Lewis: The intent of the mailroom at any of these major agencies is really to give you exposure across all the different departments. So you're with people who are in film, television, brands, and learning how the entire business works.. which was great exposure early on. When I came out of the mailroom, I went to work on Don Muller's desk, who was at the forefront of the rock music business representing System of a Down, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Weezer, you name it. That was an amazing experience.

AvA: Did you get to see many shows?

Lewis: I fell into the scene of seeing two or three shows every night and hanging out at venues like Hotel Cafe, The Viper Room, Troubadour and The Roxy. This was well before streaming and social media, so shows were the way that we discovered music.

I got to meet a lot of the artists. including the first guy I signed Brett Dennen, and shortly thereafter, Katy Perry. Katy was playing acoustic shows for crowds of 30 people, and she, her manager and I got to be really good friends. That led us to signing her at CAA, and a year or two later she broke. That was my first experience with an artist taking off.

AvA: What do you look for when signing Artists?

Lewis: The great news is there's never been more consumption of music than right now. The challenge that it presents for all of us who want to represent artists, whether you’re an agent, manager, attorneys, business manager etc. is figuring out who's going to pierce through the noise. It’s a competitive environment where everyone is jumping as quickly as they can to sign the thing that seems to have popped off most recently.

We always try to take a breath, take a beat, and get to know the artist, their team and also their visions and aspirations. Then we apply that to our instincts of what we've done before, making sure that we build teams in film, television, brand representation, sports etc. to help sustain their career and grow them to the next level.

AvA: It’s been incredible to see Bad Bunny’s rise. Can you talk about that experience?

Lewis: Benito is one of a kind. He’s someone that anyone in my position dreams of working with. He was already significantly developed as a touring artist when we started working together four or five years ago.

When we sat down for the first time with Benito, there was certainly a conversation about touring, but it was also about his other aspirations. He wanted to have his own sneaker, he wanted to be on the screen in film and television. He’s a guy that connects so deeply with his fans through so many different aspects of his music and work. When we emerged from the Pandemic he was on a different level because he had done so much work already. I think people were stunned by how big it was.

AvA: How did you approach booking his tour coming out of the Pandemic with so much hype?

In April 2021, when we announced the arena tour that was going to start in February of 2022, there was too much demand in the marketplace to not push it further. So there's been a lot of ink on the fact that we played an arena tour and a stadium tour both last year, but the reality was, I don't know what would have happened if it hadn't been for the Pandemic. There were multiple albums to be played on the arena tour, and a new one that came out after the arena tour to be played on the stadium tour, and the demand was certainly there.

None of that should understate how incredible and visionary and powerful he is though.

AvA: What is your take on the Latin genre as a whole?

Lewis: I think this explosive proliferation of Latin music comes as a bit of a surprise for a lot of people that have been accustomed to working in the more mainstream sort of pop rock world, but the reality is it has been there all along. It's just crossing over into the mainstream in a much more significant way now.

The fun thing about Latin music as an overarching term, is there's so many different subgenres that have emerged. Watching Karol G grow from theaters to arenas to stadiums in three consecutive years is stunning. You look at what Romeo Santos has done playing stadiums and arenas this year.

On the rock side, we've started working with The Marías, who are an amazing indie rock story from LA, with María being of Puerto Rican descent. The exposure they received being on the Bad Bunny tour last year was certainly massive. Then there is also some amazing emerging stuff happening too.

AvA: What is one piece of advice you have for someone just starting out in the music business?

Lewis: Say yes to as much as possible. Go out and meet that new person. Go out and see that artist that you hadn't seen before. You’re going to be tired, but just say yes and get out there.

The fear I have for our businesses is that we're all living behind our phones and our computer screens to such a degree now that no one's getting out there and seeing these artists. The beauty of the live music business, and why I think that we will continue to grow, is that you can't replicate that on a digital screen. So say yes, get out there, meet the people, see the artists and remember why you're passionate about being in this business.

Open Jobs and Internships

🎒 = Internship | 💼 = Job

🎒Intern (Experience) - Wasserman - Toronto, CAN - 3 days a week in the office for the January - April term. Apply here.

🎒Acoustic/Audio Research Intern - Bose - Framingham, MA - Summer Internship ‘24. Apply here.

💼 Executive Assistant - The Hip Hop Museum - Bronx, NY - Looking to hire their first Executive Assistant to support the Executive Director. Apply here. (More jobs at The Hip Hop Museum linked here).

💼 A&R Assistant - AMP Entertainment - LA (Remote) - Room for growth to A&R / Creative. To apply, send your resume to [email protected] 

💼 A&R Administrative Assistant - Sony Music - NYC (Hybrid) - Supporting two execs. Apply here.

💼 Artist Development Manager - Sofar Sounds - NYC (Hybrid) - Responsible for 9 East Coast cities. 5+ years experience in booking or talent sourcing. Apply here. 

💼 Coordinator, Creative Services - Warner Chappell Music - LA - Driving engagement and marketing their songs to new audiences through content creation. 1-2 years experience required. Apply here.

💼 Personal Assistant - Sony Music - London, UK - Work across the Latin Iberian team and the Global Digital Business team. Apply here. 

💼 Marketing and Content Coordinator Temp - CMA (Country Music Association) - Nashville, TN - Temporary position October ‘23 - February ‘24. Apply here. 

👋 Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter and see you next week!

This newsletter is written by Warner Bailey (connect with me here). Edited by Malik Figaro. 

Get in touch! Email us at [email protected]. Want to partner with us? Email [email protected].