As the music industry boomed in the 1980s and 1990s, the place to be for global business was MIDEM, the annual conference in Cannes. Over the past three years, though, an increasing amount of those deals have been made at the IMPF (Independent Music Publishers Forum) Global Music Summit in the fall in Palma de Mallorca, in Spain. I went for the first time this year, from Oct. 1 to 4, and it’s one of the best music business conferences I’ve ever attended. (I should point out that I got a press pass, but Billboard paid for my travel.) Now in its third year, the event drew 500 attendees, up from 320 last year. It’s the perfect size — small enough to see people you know, but big enough to meet people you should. 

The vibe is very different. MIDEM was like the throne room of the Imperial Music Business, where dealmakers held court at high-end hotels and the hamburgers cost 35 Euros. But most labels now control recording rights in most of the world, so the focus of dealmaking has shifted to publishing. The Global Music Summit is more relaxed. It takes place at two hotels in the Mallorca marina that are nice but not over the top, and you could walk around and see everyone easily. By day, you could take meetings on one of the hotel terraces or walk to the marina. At night, you could have cocktails at the Budde Music-sponsored Budde Bar. 

The IMPF itself only goes back to 2014, when a dozen or so independent publishers got together to form a trade association that would focus on their needs. The International Confederation of Music Publishers, which includes both majors and indies, has many of the same members and focuses on some of the same issues and the two organizations worth together frequently. Both are international but wield more power in Europe, where countries tend to have stronger copyright laws, and where the publishing business generates more revenue.  

Much of the action took place in private meetings, but the panels were also smart — shortish and relevant, and held one at a time. The keynotes were also worthwhile. The first was from Reservoir Media founder and CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi, who spoke about how technology has helped music publishing expand. Reservoir’s first big investment was in Music Maestro, she recalled, and data tools helped the company grow. She predicted that artificial intelligence would create opportunities and efficiencies as well as challenges, a welcome message at a time when it seems like the wild elephant in the room. 

The next day’s keynote came from BMI President and CEO Mike O’Neill, who gave an audience used to dealing with traditional, nonprofit collective management organizations a look at the alternative his company represents now that it’s owned by private equity investors. He pointed out that this might not be so different from the status quo, since SESAC has a similar ownership structure and GMR is said to have an “understanding” to sell some of the company to a private equity firm. “Why is that?” O’Neill asked. “I can only speak for BMI, and for us, it means a level of investment that we simply could not have achieved before.” 

O’Neill also discussed BMI’s plan to distribute 85% of licensing revenue and retain 15% for overhead and investment and said that the company is on track to do so. “While we have not finished our audit for the last fiscal year, I’m extremely pleased with our results and how we’re tracking towards our goals,” he said. “We’ve had a series of record-breaking distributions this year and our final distribution growth will reflect that.” 

NMPA (National Music Publishers’ Association) President and CEO David Israelite closed the event with a keynote about how the publishing business is both growing and at the same time closing the gap with revenue from recorded music, plus touched on “Spotify’s war against songwriters,” the MLC database, and how transparent collective management organizations should be. Israelite ended his speech — and, really, the entire conference, with advice for the publishing business. When Israelite started at the NMPA two decades ago, “we had a cultural problem” — the major publishers and the indies often pushed different agendas, which also differed from those of songwriters. One of Israelite’s key successes was to convince these groups to work out their disagreements in private and unite behind one agenda in public. In Europe, where collecting societies and songwriters groups have more power than they do in the U.S., this could be difficult. But it could also help the entire business get the influence it needs to make sure it can benefit from AI.  

It’s never easy to get the various parts of the music business to unite behind anything, of course. But events like the IMPF summit, held in a cool place at a scale that makes sense, make it a lot easier. 

Jelly Roll hasn’t had the easiest road to success, but he hopes to heal the hurt he might have caused along the way.

In a vulnerable, in-depth interview with Jay Shetty on the latter’s On Purpose With Jay Shetty podcast, the “Need a Favor” singer opened up about wanting to reach out to the people he robbed over weed when he was a teenager. Jelly was subsequently charged as an adult with aggravated robbery and was facing a potential 20-year sentence, though he ultimately served over a year for the charge, followed by more than seven years of probation.

“I really want to have a conversation with them. I’ve thought about reaching out,” he told Shetty. “This has been 24 years ago now. I just don’t know how that would even start, or, you know, how I would go about it because sometimes I wonder if they might have even seen me in passing or are aware of my success. I wonder if they’ve even correlated. I mean, I’ve obviously dramatically changed. I was 15, dude, you know what I mean? I couldn’t grow facial hair at all. I hardly hit puberty. I still had my high voice when I did that robbery. So, I’ve thought about that a ton and they’re definitely on my list.”

He added that he would apologize, take accountability and ask for forgiveness. “I had no business taking from anybody,” Jelly explained. “Just the entitlement that I had, that the world owed me enough that I could come take your stuff. It’s just what a horrible, horrible way to look at life and people. What a horrible way to interact with the Earth.”

The Grammy-nominated star continued, “I hope that they would see that I’ve made it my life’s mission to change and to change people because that’s what I’m representing the most in what I do. I think people cheer for me because they see a little bit of me in them, or they see their cousin — I’m a family member, they relate, and I speak for an unspoken group of people, and I hope they would know that. […] I’m trying to diligently prove myself that I’ve not only changed but also I took the platform serious and that it’s making me change more every day. I hope they would forgive me.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Jelly opened up about how he doesn’t relate at all to the person he once was. “I look back at those years, and I’m so embarrassed to talk about them,” he revealed. “I was still a bad person in my early thirties, but I mean, I was a really horrible kid all the way into my mid-twenties. People are always like, you’re the nicest dude I’ve ever met. I’m like, I’m so glad y’all haven’t met nobody that knew me 20 years ago.”

He added, “I took zero accountability for anything in my life. I was the kid that if you asked what happened, I immediately started with everything but me. And it took years for me to break that, like years of work, solid work to just like break that. It also has taken years of work for me to even forgive that kid.”

Watch Jelly Roll’s full On Purpose With Jay Shetty interview below.

Soulja Boy is typically one to brag about being the first rapper to do something, but he’s had to retract one of his latest claims.

On Oct. 12, Big Draco posted a clip to social media of himself in the cockpit of a plane with a pilot gearing up for takeoff. “I was the first rapper to fly an airplane. Let’s go, we bout to get in the air,” he said in the video. “You ready to do this? Let’s do this.”

The “Crank Dat” rapper must’ve not been familiar with Snoop Dogg’s pilot work as Captain Mack in 2004’s Soul Plane.

Ludacris, who has posted clips of himself flying planes while working on his pilot license dating back to 2021, hopped into Soulja Boy’s comments section with a simple message to correct his fellow rapper, leaving a thinking emoji with the hand over its chin. Plenty of fans backed up the rapper-turned-actor’s claim and Soulja took note. Big Draco did some research and bent the knee to Ludacris while handing over the rap pilot title belt.

“I just saw ur video you did it first,” Soulja Boy wrote back to Luda with a gold medal emoji.

Back in June 2021, Ludacris joined The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he cleared the air about his flying videos and clarified that although he owns a plane, he doesn’t have a pilot license.

“That’s something that’s called a ‘nickel ride.’ That term goes back to the military days. So, it’s my first time actually flying,” he told the comedian at the time. “I actually own a plane, but for all of these years, I’ve never wanted to become a pilot, because you can’t drink alcohol within eight hours of flying. Who would want to go on a vacation and not drink before they leave?”

Ludacris continued: “Long story short, that’s the first of many, but I do plan to get my pilot’s license soon. It’s a work in progress, it takes some time.”

Watch Soulja Boy’s video of himself in a plane’s cockpit below:

Latin music has gone global and its revenues have now surpassed the $1 billion mark, which means the business of Latin music has evolved.

The New Latin Music Business panel, which took centerstage on Monday (Oct. 14) at the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week, was moderated by Rancho Humilde’s CEO and founder Jimmy Humilde, and featured panelists Atella (producer and songwriter, head of music, Zumba and ZML Records), Cris Falcão (managing director of artist & label strategy and GM Latin, Virgin Music Group) and Txema Rosique (senior VP of A&R, Sony Music U.S. Latin).

Humilde kicked off the conversation acknowledging the globalization of Latin music, adding that labels, whether indie or not, have had to adapt to a new way of doing business with artists who now want to be more involved in that aspect and are looking for different types of deals — from record, distribution or even single-track deals.

“Our challenge is to make the new artists understand what labels have to offer, from A&R, marketing, business development, they can make use of all those resources, that’s the challenge we have as a label now,” said Rosique. Alternatively, Atella added that “some artists arrive with the idea that the label is going to do everything for them, but the artist has to give 100% — they can’t stay at home and think that the label is going to do everything for them.”

Falcão explained that at Virgin Music Group, they have focused on deals that are “tailor-made” for each artist. “We’re not just truck with boxes anymore, we offer something different for each partners, all types of services, depending on trends, product management or marketing.” Humilde said he’s following a similar approach. “I sit with the artist and ask what they’re looking for, what deals they feel most comfortable doing. In the near future, the artist will be making their own deals, so really we’re open to take any deal that come our way.”

The panelists also spoke about the importance of both the artist and label or management company being happy with whatever type of deal they land on. “Today, the artist is clear that their patrimony is their music, their masters, every time we see more artists that are clear about what they want to give to the company and what they don’t, and obviously that depends on the commitment from both parts. This is a business where everyone needs to be happy with the deal, all parties involved. You cannot have a depressed artist.”

The 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week coincides with the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards set to air at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 20, on Telemundo. It will simultaneously be available on Universo, Peacock and the Telemundo app, and in Latin America and the Caribbean through Telemundo Internacional.

Director Martin Scorsese is among the producers on an upcoming documentary about the Beatles‘ legendary first trip to the United States slated to stream exclusive on Disney+ starting Nov. 29. According to Variety, Beatles ’64 will feature never-before-seen footage of the band and its rabid fans at the height of Beatlemania.

Scorsese produced the doc directed by David Tedeschi (Personality Crisis: One Night Only), which will also feature new interviews with living Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. The film follows McCartney and Starr and late bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison as they land in New York in Feb. 1964, promising to reveal “a more intimate behind the scenes story” of the group’s iconic debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, as well as footage of the Fab Four’s first American show at the Washington D.C. Coliseum.

The quartet made their debut appearance on Sullivan’s variety show on Feb. 9, 1964, a performance that was seen by a record-breaking 73-million people and is often cited by musicians of a certain vintage as their inspiration for starting a rock band. Variety reported that the doc also features rare footage shot by documentarians Albert and David Maysles (Gimme Shelter).

A synopsis of the film reads: “On February 7, 1964, The Beatles arrived in New York City to unprecedented excitement and hysteria. From the instant they landed at Kennedy Airport, met by thousands of fans, Beatlemania swept New York and the entire country. Their thrilling debut performance on The Ed Sullivan Show captivated more than 73 million viewers, the most watched television event of its time. Beatles ’64 presents the spectacle, but also tells a more intimate behind the scenes story, capturing the camaraderie of John, Paul, George, and Ringo as they experienced unimaginable fame.”

In addition to Scorsese – who also directed 2011’s George Harrison: Living in the Material World doc — other producers of the doc include McCartney, Starr, Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison, Lennon’s son, musician Sean Ono Lennon, and others.

The new Beatles doc will be accompanied by the Nov. 22 release of all seven American Beatles albums in a vinyl reissue collection entitled The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums in Mono; the albums will be available individually as well as in a box set. According to Variety, the reissue will include 180-gram albums that have been out of print on vinyl since 1995, including Meet the Beatles!, The Beatles’ Second Album, A Hard Day’s Night (Original Motion Picture Sound Track), Something New, The Beatles’ Story, Beatles ’65 and The Early Beatles.