EXCLUSIVE: Nic Kelly & EMI’s Night High makes first international signing

Just over a year since Sydney music media entrepreneur Nic Kelly launched Night High Records in collaboration with EMI Music Australia, the label has made its first international signing.

TIO can exclusively reveal Night High has added UK artist Yungblud, aka 19-year-old Dominic Harrison, to its roster.

Keeping to the label’s single-focused strategy, Night High will release Yungblud’s debut single ‘King Charles’ this Friday in Australia and New Zealand.

Yungblud’s UK management team, Locomotion, said:

“We have been wanting to work with Nic Kelly and Mark Holland (Director of A&R at EMI Music Australia) for a while and their undeniable enthusiasm for this project straight out of the gate and their success in the market makes them a perfect partner for us.”

Nic Kelly said he discovered Yungblud while in London this year:

“Heading to a pub on my last night in London earlier this year was a good call – it introduced me to one of the most charismatic, energetic and important young voices in the world,” he said. “Yungblud’s message reflects that of every young person on the planet, and the energy with which he expresses it means it will be heard. I’m so stoked to welcome him to Night High.”

Night High Records launched in May 2016 with Pon Cho (aka Kevin Kerr), one of the four founding members of Blue Mountains hip hop group Thundamentals. It later added Melbourne producer Tigerilla (aka Matthew Khabbaz) to the roster.

Pon Cho’s single ‘Frozen’ ft. Paige IV has been accredited Gold in Australia, while Tigerilla’s ‘Tulips’ was nominated for a J Award in 2016 for  Video of the Year.  Meanwhile, Tigerilla’s new single ‘MerryGO’  featuring US rapper/modelDominique Young Unique was immediately added to full rotation on triple j earlier this year.

Driven largely through socials and blog networks, Night High’s success can largely be attributed to strategy Kelly uses to run Project U, his 2010-founded career-planning tool for high school students. In 2014, Project U took out the Music Blog Of The Year award from Pedestrian.TV.

Kelly now manages a team of content creators at Project U and through his Nic Kelly Production company, is an in-demand writer, presenter and radio producer.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.