Canadian Musician - September/October 2021 | Page 38

KARDINAL

OFFISHALL

rappers were Drake , J . Cole , and Kendrick Lamar . Today , the conversation remains focused on Drake , J . Cole , and Kendrick Lamar .
“ Of course , there ’ s your Chance the Rapper and Migos and Travis Scott , definitely a good handful of people that came out and are doing dope music , but unfortunately there ’ s a lot of artists where you ’ re like , ‘ Yo , that artist is ill , love them !’ and then , more times than less , you ’ re like , ‘ What happened to that person ?’ because they were fire hot for just a year and a half .”
So , if career sustainability is the problem , how do we fix it ? Figuring that out is partly why he accepted Randy Lennox ’ s offer .
“ I ’ m also somebody that never saw myself as an executive ,” he says . “ I almost threw up my first day working at the label . Between the anxiety and just some of the things that we were doing behind the scenes , I was like , ‘ This is way worse than I thought !’ But the dope thing about being me , and being an executive , is it ’ s a similar journey as I took being an artist . I say that because I had a conversation with one of my A & Rs yesterday and we were talking about an artist , and we were like , ‘ He doesn ’ t fit in any box . He ’ s incredible , but where does he fit ?’ But then I had to take a step back and I was like , ‘ Well , that ’ s what they used to say about me , too .’ They said , ‘ Is he hip-hop or is he dancehall ? Oh , he ’ s Canadian but it leans culturally more American than Canadian .’ So , what I ’ m saying is I didn ’ t necessarily fit in a box before , but I made that work for me and was able to have some massive success around the globe . Most of my career was people saying , ‘ That ’ s never going to work ; that ’ s not going to happen .’ And I would say a cool eight times out of 10 , I proved everybody wrong . So , on the executive level , there ’ s definitely things that people are like , ‘ Well , why would you do that ? That ’ s never going to happen ?’”
“ Think about this ,” adds Lennox , “ how underwhelming Canada ’ s performance had been in Black music and those genres a decade ago . We both got very , very motivated by the notion of really doubling down in that area . [ Hiring ] Kardi was one of the major components and , matter of fact , we started to rebuild our A & R team in its entirety at that stage .” But beyond his ability to identify and foster talent , Lennox says he knew instinctively that Kardi would be more than the usual musician-turned-talent-scout .
“ I just knew in my in my soul that day that he was going to be this ubiquitous spokesman for the community , in addition to his role in finding talent . Kardi would advise me in governmental issues , and because he ’ s so smart , he ’ d give me his opinion on some of the challenges we were having with Canadian content and radio play and things of that nature . So , he not only had A & R chops and artists chops , he is studied in the condition of our country and the music industry .”
( As a side note , let me add this charming anecdote from
Lennox here : “ I remember Kardi saying to me , ‘ By the way , Randy , do I get to design my own office ?’ I said , ‘ Have your way with your space .’ So , he came in and he had one of the most unique offices I have ever , ever seen . It was all red and sort of looked like a bowling alley . It was so , so cool , and it was literally 20 feet from my office . You walk in Kardi ’ s office and your stress level will go down 50 percent . He ’ s created that environment .” Anyway , back to the story …)
At this stage , Offishall ’ s fingerprints are all over UMC ’ s rap and R & B roster . In the last year or so , he ’ s responsible for joint-venture deal with British mega-producer Harmony Samuels ( Ariana Grande , Jennifer Lopez , Mary J . Blige ) and signing Juno-winning R & B singer Savannah Ré and Quebec-based bilingual rapper Zach Zoya .
There ’ s a particular artist , though , who best exemplifies Offishall ’ s approach to A & R , and his skepticism about analytics . This artist is London , ON ’ s Emanuel , who has quickly risen from obscurity to be the first Canadian signed to Motown Records in the U . S .
“ Here ’ s an artist that has zero streams , zero views on You- Tube , was an orderly at a hospital , overweight , no buzz — all those things , but he had an incredible gift ,” Offishall says about Emanuel . “ I signed him and Jeffrey [ Remedios , UMC CEO ,] was like , ‘ You know , I hear it and I see it , and Kardi , I will always bet on your passion ’… Within a year — within one year — he was able to do 30 million streams . Now , in the grand scheme of things , is that a massive number of streams ? If you put it in context , it is . For this random guy that nobody knew about last year to have 30 million streams ? But not only that , but to be on some of the biggest playlists around the world at the end of last year , and a lot of these platforms were like , “ Oh , the guy to watch for next year .’ That ’ s just one example of me taking a bet on somebody .”
In essence , he says , with his newfound influence , Offishall is trying to be the label guy he would have respected and wanted to work with 20 years ago .
“ I ’ m saying , that person who is empathetic — not sympathetic , but empathetic . The person that , based on his past , really understands the anxiety that artists go through and that torment that we go through at times , and the consideration that we need . That ’ s how I use my past experiences is dealing with people , just trying to be a great person .”
Offishall is fully aware that the timing of his promotion – April 2021 – could be viewed as merely a response by UMC to Blackout Tuesday and the heightened focus on the lack of Black executives in music . He sees that meaningful change is often competing with performative corporate gestures .
“ I know that I ’ ve earned it , so in terms of me becoming the SVP , I don ’ t have any qualms around timing or any of that stuff . I busted my ass for the last few years doing a lot of things ,” he says . “ But it wouldn ’ t have been meaningful to me if I got this promotion to be the country ’ s first black SVP at a label , but then it was just something for the news to bite onto and it was just a cute title or some clickbait and there was nothing that actually happened .”
Likewise , in his capacities as the chair of UMC ’ s B . L . A . C . K . ( Businesses Levelling Access to Change and Knowledge ) Label Coalition ( BLC ) and Canada ’ s representative on Universal
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