WALTER KOLM
FOUNDER/CEO, WK ENTERTAINMENT; FOUNDER/OWNER, WK RECORDS/WKMX HORACIO RODRIGUEZ CEO, WK RECORDS
Kolm, one of Latin music’s most prominent managers — with a client list that includes Maluma, Carlos Vives, Wisin, CNCO, Prince Royce and Emilia — has ambitiously expanded beyond his entertainment and management company. WK Records, launched in July 2020, with Rodriguez at the helm, is a “content company where we develop new careers,” says Kolm, delineating the difference between it and the established WK Entertainment roster.
The label has signed nearly 30 up-and-coming acts and has already placed two No. 1s on Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart: “Mi Niña” by
Wisin and Myke Towers and “Fiel” by Wisin and Jhay Cortez. WK Records, which includes the regional Mexican music imprint WKMX, also provides services to Wisin’s label, La Base Records, and to Royalty Records, Maluma’s newly launched imprint. Beyond the label expansion, and in a bid for increasing global market share, WK Entertainment opened an office in Madrid to serve the European and Asian markets, while WK Records opened outposts in Mexico and most recently Brazil.
“In a globalized touring market, coupled with the expansion of Latin music worldwide,” Kolm says, “we felt there was an important opportunity to grow our business.”
WK Entertainment’s artists are signed to Sony Music, and WK Records’ artists are distributed by The Orchard. Beyond that, what is the difference between the two?
WK Entertainment is a 360 company that provides services to artists in management, booking and all commercial areas, including sponsorships and endorsements. WK Records is a content company where we develop careers and provide services to the labels that belong to Wisin and Maluma. We’re partners. They do their own A&R, sign their own artists and own their labels in full, but we provide essential marketing and administrative services.
What makes your business different from that of other Latin managers or managers overall who have launched their own labels? We have complete independence in terms of our business management. We don’t outsource anything. From Madrid, for example, we handle booking for Asia and Miami. And from Miami, we handle everything in Latin America. Although we do business with agencies, 95% of our bookings and our sponsorship deals are generated and handled in-house. This gives the artist a structure where there is a single company that oversees everything from within. From a management standpoint, it goes hand in hand with bookings and endorsement. The best offer is not necessarily the best business; the best business has to do with the artist’s growth and longterm development.
You opened offices in Madrid, with Pascual Egea in charge. Can you share an example of what that means for your business? We opened a shop in Madrid mid-2017, and since then our business in Europe has grown fivefold. We have an office there whose sole role is to find and book concerts and generate partnerships with local promoters in every country. It’s the same formula we had executed for Latin America from our Miami office, partnering with the likes of OCESA in Mexico and Bizarro in Chile. This year, for example, Maluma played 31 concerts in 16 European cities and sold 320,000 tickets.
What were your biggest accomplishments in the past 12 months?
Maluma’s Medellín concert [in Colombia] for more than 50,000 people was very big for us. It was also a livestream for the world on Amazon Prime, which was seen by over 1.5 million people. Wisin & Yandel’s tour, which we booked in partnership with Yandel’s management, has been truly sensational; we had to extend the tour through 2023. On the label side, our biggest accomplishment is the expansion of WK into Brazil. We felt language is no longer a barrier. A lot of Latin music truly has a connection with Brazil.
What is your business philosophy?
We work for the artist as a brand to ensure that he or she is always current, regardless of whether there is a hit on the charts. That has been the key to our success.