PRISM.FM PRESIDENT STEVE STERNSCHEIN LEFT THE COMPANY, WHICH HE CO-FOUNDED. ARTIST MANAGER MICHAEL GEORGE AND HIS WIFE, NICOLE, WELCOMED A BABY SON, EZRA.Rimas became known for its YouTube campaigns for
very big artists, including Maluma and Ozuna. Is that
still part of your business?
Today, I would say label revenue is 50 % of my busi-
ness, publishing is around 30 %, touring is 15 % to
18 %, and sponsorships are 5 %. At the time, we got
into the promotional side to create relationships
inside the industry, more than to make money
from it. It was about networking, helping people.
There are a whole bunch of artists — huge Anglo
acts — who would contact us to do their market-
ing campaigns. That meant a lot to us. But we no
longer work a song or one-offs. It takes too many
resources to support a song for an artist who isn’t
even signed with us.How have artists and labels changed their YouTube
strategies since then?
Now it’s about who can organically make things
happen. For Bad Bunny’s “Yo Perreo Sola” [which
topped YouTube’s global charts in April], not one
dime was put into digital marketing. We didn’t
invest anything. We put the video on YouTube and
it went viral.In that video, Bad Bunny dresses up like a woman
and talks about female empowerment. He’s a straight
guy known for his flamboyant get-ups. He paints his
nails. He bends gender norms very daringly, but is
hugely popular with men and women. How do you
explain that appeal?
If you saw him walking down the street, he doesn’t
look like a traditional rapper. He looked like your
average Puerto Rican, who was working for $ 7. 25 an
hour. That’s what makes him very appealing. Every-
one can see something different in him.In 2019 , you came close to signing a deal with Inter-
scope for tens of millions of dollars, according to
many sources. Why didn’t you?
It was very close. First of all, they’re all amazing hu-
man beings — [CEO] John Janick and [then-Geffen
Records president] Neil Jacobson — but the people
that made the final decisions weren’t able to approve
the deal that I wanted. It wasn’t necessarily about
money. For me, money is not the first thing that
comes to mind. But some things that were important
to me, we couldn’t come to terms with. And it wasn’t
about ownership. It was always going to be a distri-
bution deal. I own all or part of all my masters, and
I would never, ever, ever give up ownership. Maybe
when I retire.You’ve said before that you are a major label. What
types of deals do you offer artists?
We have distribution deals, we have record-label
deals. What people don’t understand about a distri-
bution deal is that it’s taking something from A to B.So we don’t dedicate all of our resources on distri-
bution deals. I’m not fond of distribution deals. In a
record-label deal, we’re involved in everything: the
marketing, correctly pitching to platforms — not
everybody knows how to pitch music correctly.
Every artist is different. But I have some type of
ownership in all my label deals. I can give you the
advance a major can give you. But the advantage we
have over any label is the way we see the playing
field and our music culture IQ. Every six months
there’s a pivot in the industry, and I see it coming.Bad Bunny has released two albums: X 100 PRE on
Dec. 24 , 2018 , and YHLQMDLG on Feb. 29. Those
aren’t traditional dates to drop albums, and for
X 100 PRE, some songs were delivered to your label
just 48 hours before release. Is there a method to
the madness?
We plan everything out. Of course, I didn’t plan for
the album to be finished two days before, but the
release date, the timing, that’s all set, and I keep [the
streaming services] informed constantly. Today, you
need personal relationships with the platforms. The
release dates have a meaning. As a kid, [Bad Bunny’s]
happiest day of his life was Christmas, therefore
Dec. 24. And with YHLQMDLG, we stuck to our con-
cept of releasing it Saturday, Feb. 29 , [because 2020
is] a leap year. Had we released it on Friday, it would
have been No. 1 on the Billboard 200.How has the coronavirus affected your business?
Consumption has gone down, but subscriptions have
gone up. I’m releasing music every week. You just
have to know when and how. But I haven’t stopped a
single one of my releases.1. Assad received Billboard’s New Power Generation
award (left), given to executives on the rise, at the
2019 Power 100 event. In 2018 , the video to Bad
Bunny’s “I Like It” was named MTV’s Song of the
Summer at the Video Music Awards, earning Assad
a Moonman. 2. His favorite baseball team is the
Chicago Cubs. When they won the World Series in
2016 for the first time in a century, Assad was able
to get most of the players to sign a jersey. 3. The
Bad Bunny pinball machine, one of only two in
existence, is an extension of the theme of the artist’s
debut album, X 100 PRE, which features an image of
the arcade game on the vinyl version of the album.
4. Assad was the promoter for J Balvin’s sold-out
Arcoiris tour stop in Puerto Rico.2413“ I OWN ALL OR PART OF ALL
MY MASTERS, AND I WOULD
NEVER, EVER, EVER GIVE
UP OWNERSHIP.” —ASSAD
APRIL 25 , 2020 • WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 218market_ftdo_assad_lo [P]_27888438.indd 21 4/22/20 3:30 PM