THE FUTURE 25

In a year of crisis, weathering change isn’t enough — the music business has to also push forward. Meet the visionaries leading the charge

The Tech Entrepreneur Building His New Reign

GHAZI SHAMI

FOUNDER AND CEO

Empire

made computers before hit records. “Tech and music have always been simultaneous for me,” says Ghazi, who, over the past 10 years, reared his own distribution and record company, Empire, driving hits from Migos, XXXTentacion, and Tyga. “I got my first real job right after high school building large-format servers — but I was still working on records till four in the morning.” The self-made exec, who prefers going by his first name, is obsessed with efficiency to the degree that he programmed custom software for Empire employees to cut faster deals. When his rising artist Money Man wanted a remix earlier this year, Ghazi hit up Lil Baby on Instagram. “I leapfrogged my finance team, logged into the system, and sent the wire myself so that he would get it the next morning,” Ghazi says. The duo’s tag-teamed “24,” which eulogizes Kobe Bryant, splashed onto music charts to critical acclaim a few weeks later, epitomizing the startup music label’s furious pace. Ghazi is expanding with global hires at Empire: “I wanted to build a company that was so diverse, nobody could pigeonhole us.” SAMANTHA HISSONG

Keys to the fame machine ISABEL QUINTEROS ANNOUS MUSIC PARTNERSHIPS AND ARTIST RELATIONS

TikTok

ARTISTS CAN

➜ try to go viral on their own on TikTok — but a hand from Isabel Quinteros Annous almost guarantees it. As the artistrelations manager at the video app, Annous is the bridge between record labels and TikTok’s influential tastemaking platform, working with stars’ marketing teams to orchestrate hits as well as scouring TikTok for new acts to champion.

She’s helped turn Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage” into a Gen Z dance anthem and boosted Ppcocaine, whose brassy 15-second snippets made it into millions of videos, leading to a record deal with Columbia. After the Weeknd held a virtual show on TikTok, the music team was “flooded” with requests from other artists to set up livestreams, in-app merch features, and other experimental tech features. “We want those loud belland-whistle moments,” Annous says. “We know we can do the song campaigns — but we’re looking into that space to go bigger.”

A music-marketing veteran, Annous previously worked at major PR firms Rubenstein and PMK-BNC before founding her own branding company, PRWorks. She joined TikTok last year and has served as a Swiss Army knife for its music team, promoting the app to the music business and introducing artists to new audiences at the same time.

Just before Covid-19, Jason Derulo told TikTok he wanted to grow his audience. Annous went to Derulo’s house and taught him the basics of viral success for two hours. Now, Derulo is the most-followed musician on TikTok, reaping chart hits galore and profitable sponsorships. Annous also met with Iggy Azalea, who wanted to discuss the trend known as “Ghost TikTok” with her — and who gained millions of followers within a few weeks of Annous’ tips. “The first question [Azalea] asks is, ‘Is Jason making as much as he claims? I want to be number one!’ ” Annous recalls.

“I look for artists who know what they want to do with the app,” Annous says. “What these artists have in common is they find they act like themselves.” ETHAN MILLMAN

Designing music’s gaminginspired future

TRACY CHAN

HEAD OF MUSIC

Twitch

TRACY CHAN

➜ has spent his music career in jobs that never existed in the old music industry. He started as a product manager at YouTube, then launched CrowdAlbum, a photo-aggregation algorithm collecting pictures taken by fans at shows. Spotify acquired the startup and brought Chan on board to lead Spotify for Artists, its platform for musicians, managers, and labels — and then he hopped over to Amazon-owned Twitch, becoming the livestreaming company’s head of music in August.

As artists bunkered down in their homes this summer, Twitch smelled an unparalleled opportunity. Logic inked a seven-figure deal to stream guest conversations, games, and studio sessions on Twitch in July, and hip-hop festival Rolling Loud aired exclusive virtual shows on Twitch in September. Grammywinning artist RAC says he makes more money from fans on Twitch than he ever did on tour; Manchester, England’s OrtoPilot is using his earnings to produce and release albums. Despite fierce competition in the livestreaming space, Chan thinks Twitch’s proven success in the video-game streaming business is a unique draw as he sets out to lure in more artists. “What attracted me to Twitch was that even though it’s gamecentric, at the core, it is creators and fans building community and spending quality time with one another,” Chan says. AMY X. WANG