Taking up a rock icon’s mantle
Others may opt for docs about Jay-Z or the Notorious B.I.G.; Dallas Martin’s favorite music movie is Inventing David Geffen, about the manager, label exec, and film producer. “The levels he took music to, and the level he took his artists to just by believing in them, and the way he built his company,” marvels Martin. The hip-hop and R&B player’s rhapsodizing over the man who brought us the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and other old-school
L.A. rock is fitting: In January, Martin became the president of Asylum Records, the label Geffen started 50 years ago, in a symbolic changing of the industry guard.
“Younger artists are inspired by Young Thug and Future, more of a melodic style in rap, and that’s the future of music,” Martin, 36, says. “In the beginning when Drake did it, it was like, ‘What’s this? He’s singing and
rapping? You can’t do that.’ Now it’s more in the space of ‘You can do that too’ or ‘You can pick up a guitar and do a rap.’ It’s just mind-blowing.”
Martin has been aiming for a role like this since he was a high school student in Flint, Michigan. Interning at Def Jam while studying marketing in college, he wound up with a job at the iconic label before landing an A&R role at Warner Bros. in 2011. There, he worked on Meek Mill’s debut, Dreams & Nightmares.
Later at Atlantic, Martin signed Nipsey Hussle and worked with Roddy Ricch. Along the way, he’s had to deal with Hussle’s shooting death in 2019 and coping with “the most pressure I’ve ever been under” while working on Mill’s post-jail comeback, Championships. (Jay-Z didn’t deliver his contribution until five days before the album’s release.)
Much like Geffen did 50 years ago, Martin sees Asylum as a refuge for developing artists; the label’s signings include Detroit’s Sada Baby, underground Houston female hip-hop artist KenTheMan, and Seattle’s Jay Loud, who blends rapping and crooning. “I want to make everybody proud,” Martin says.
“I’m looking forward to bringing Asylum into the forefront of the dope labels.”