Empire Is Coming to Australia (EXCLUSIVE)
Empire, the US-based independent music powerhouse, is establishing a footprint in Australia.
Speaking at All That Matters conference in Singapore, Empire founder and CEO Ghazi Shami confirmed that his music company has hired Cameron Walsh as territory management for Australia.
Walsh has a wealth of label experience accrued from stints with Sony Music, Universal Music, EMI, Comes With Fries, and most recently with [PIAS] Australia/Inertia Music, where he served as director of label services & head of digital – Australia, New Zealand.
“It was something that we were looking for, for a long time,” Ghazi told guests during an onstage Q&A Tuesday (Sept. 17) at Hilton Singapore Orchard. “We’re really picky about the people that we select in territories to plant the flag because they have to be representative of our ethos of our cultural composition, and there has to be some type of commitment to excellence that we perceive.”
Walsh will slot into his new role from next week, The Music Network understands. When he does, he joins a growing company with a network of operations on both U.S. coasts, Nashville, the U.K., Continental Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere.
Formed in 2010 as a digital distribution specialist, Empire now boasts some 250 global staff and is active in every conceivable part of the music industry, including label and music publishing. Today, the San Francisco-based group is recognised as a hip-hop heavyweight in the US and a leader in the surging Afrobeats scene.
“I spend a lot of time learning about the cultural composition of a country,” he explained. “What the music trends are, what the religious composition is in the country, what the typical culture is, different monuments, history of the wars. It’s really important to approach every territory with a certain level of respect, especially in a world that is post-colonialism,” he explained during his on-stage session.
“Every country I go to, I want to go to the clubs, the restaurants. I want to see what the food culture is, what the music culture is. What’s the sports culture? These are things that lend themselves very well to how you market in that certain territory. So every time we go to a country, we spend a lot of time really understanding the cultural makeup of the country before we approach it with an A&R strategy and a marketing strategy and an acquisition strategy.”
Ghazi’s business is behind Shaboozey’s hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which has broken chart records in the US, where it has logged 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and cracked the top 10 in the U.K. and went to #1 on the ARIA Chart.
For the first quarter of this year, Empire Publishing debuted on the Billboard Publishers Quarterly at #10 in the Hot 100 Songs list, thanks to the strength of three song placements: Justin Timberlake’s “Selfish,” 310babii’s “Soak City (Do It)” and Morgan Wallen’s “Spin You Around.”
Running September 16th-18th, ATM is the leading conference of its kind in Asia, with tracks focusing on the industries of music, AI, sports, gaming, media, and entertainment. The Branded-produced conference and showcase event is timed to coincide with Singapore F1 GP week.