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What do you know about Kobalt?

The Alternative To Record Labels

Willard Ahdritz dressed in black sitting on a red chair
Kobalt Music Group was founded by Swede Willard Ahdritz in New York City 21 years ago (2000)

Kobalt is a state-of-the-art music company that presents an alternative to the traditional business model. This world-leading company serves as the leading independent music publisher today offering transparency and further leverage to the rights of artists, songwriters, and publishers.

Kobalt currently represents on average more than 40% of the top 100 songs and albums in the UK and the US. Among the Hispanic artists signed by this company are Enrique Iglesias (Spain), Ozuna (Puerto Rico), Karol G (Colombia), Natti Natasha (Dominican Republic), and the most recent one signed on July 19th, the Urban Composer / Producer Daniel Echavarria Oviedo (Colombia), better known as Ovy On The Drums, creator of great hits like Tusa (Karol G & Nicki Minaj), Ahora Me Llama (Karol G & Bad Bunny), Fútbol y Rumba (Anuel AA & Enrique Iglesias), Miedito O Qué (Karol G & Danny Ocean), and Sigo Buscándote (Mau & Ricky), among others.

Kobalt Music Group, Ltd. (Kobalt) has offices in the main cities of America, Europe, and Asia: London, Berlin, Sydney, Stockholm, Hong Kong, New York, Nashville, Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles, also manages more than 200,000 copyrights on behalf of more than 1,200 content holders, including the most celebrated composers, artists, and other music publishers.

This global technology platform from Kobalt (Ktech) innovatively tracks and collects royalties through the trillions of micropayments that streaming provides. Among the many services that they provide include brand and sync partnerships, global license management, online copyright management & use rights tracking, royalty collection and processing (website and App) with weekly online balances, monetization of YouTube, plus creative services, digital collections, and trailers for writers, publishers, musicians, and other rights holders.

  • You Can Also Read: The Business Of The Artists

How Does Kobalt Achieve Transparency?

Kobalt banner with red background
With AMRA you own your songs, keep 100% of your copyrights, have flexible online previews at your convenience, and you are free of ties

Through a global digital collection company called AMRA (American Music Rights Association – Original Name), belonging to Kobalt Music Group, but operated separated from the company. This organism began its operations in June 2015 and is the world’s first society based on technology and trust.

AMRA was designed for today’s artists and takes a straightforward, global approach to license agreement as well as digital collection and management using the advanced rights management platform, KTech, that leverages data and tracking technologies to gain insight into a valuable revenue stream with detailed reports for your clients. This optimized model allows increased efficiency by combating the margin of uncertainty, delay, and continuous errors existing in the traditional system.

I give you an example: Currently, leading digital music platforms are global companies (Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, and many more), but the traditional music industry collects their income locally and regionally. It creates an increasingly complex and fragmented collection process that causes unnecessary delays and inaccurate transmission reports that occur frequently.

AMRA works with flexible contracts, without complicated distribution rules, nor policies that discriminate or reward certain members over the artist. Most of the income is attributed to the client minus a commission absorbed by the company.

For publishers and composers, this means total clarity on the terms of the deal with complete information on all royalties collected. The association does not charge additional monthly fees or surcharges and is responsible for distributing all unattributed income.

Willard Ahdritz (Founder and CEO of Kobalt) assures that with the arrival of streaming, independent artists of medium projection level acquire most of the income of the industry through the alternative to record companies, Kobalt, what was not done before in the big record labels, who for decades denied these resources to international music figures.

“If you have $ 100k ($ 100,000) and you control your rights, the value of the masters is one million dollars in terms of the salable value of your rights.”

Willard Ahdritz

Are You An Independent Artist?

AWAL Could Be Your Option

Concert with people raising arms with light blue background
Kobalt Label Services (KLS) acquired the digital distributor AWAL in December 2011.

AWAL is a digital distribution company that guarantees independent emerging musicians a greater presence in all major

AWAL works with three modalities adapted with agreements to three different styles of artists: AWAL Core, AWAL+, and AWAL Recordings.

AWAL Core: This modality is created for independent artists with a career. Each musician takes home most of his income (85%), remains in control of his creations, has built a community, contributes information on his story in interesting ways, and bypasses long-term contracts. In summary, AWAL Core is for influencers in music who reach notoriety such as: “The TikTok cover exceeds 250,000 visits in 10 days” or “Reaches 100,000 monthly broadcasts on Spotify”.

By entering this mode you have the following support from the distributor:

  • Distribution: They are responsible for providing the material to the world’s main stores and digital providers (DSP – Digital Service Providers
  • Multiplatform Streaming Statistics (AWAL Analytics): Convert real-time streams into insights with proper skip rate analysis for plays, completions, playlist history, and much more using a complete and advanced music streaming platform.
  • A&R Discovery and Upstream: The multidisciplinary team assigned by creative artists and repertoire, monitors and finds constant opportunities to help them continue to climb more ground in various interesting ways in the musical field and in this way continue to attract attention on multiple platforms.
Multiple albums in red, blue, and black colors
AWAL stands for Artists Without A Label

AWAL+: In this category is a smaller group of artists that the company believes are on the brink of fame. Two examples of musical milestones found in this line are: “Debut EP Sensitive exceeds 30 million streams” or “Naika achieves high-profile sync placements in global Apple and FIFA ads”.

Generally, the method of entry into AWAL+ is through a lawyer or manager.

Once a member of this category, the artist will have a more personalized strategy with a combination of services:

  • Label Management: Designed to perfect the campaign strategy and ensure that the musician is always aware of the news and better options to promote his creations.
  • Funds: Includes project financing. When the company considers that the creative has enough force, they will contribute funds to materialize the project. However, the artist controls the destination of the budget after the campaign strategy made by the company.
  • Synchronization and DSP compatibility: This service offers synchronization and playlist promotion, that is, the global AWAL team will look for the best opportunities to put music in playlists on major digital platforms, as well as on movies, TV, commercials, feature film trailers, and other areas where he/she can reach a milestone and get more exposure.
AWAL logo in Pink, Violet and Cream color
Dozens of AWAL artists earn over $ 1Million Streaming every year (2020 Figures)

AWAL Recordings: In this last stage the singer can make his album with the company’s record label under his terms, but for whom is this benefit made? For all those artists who are constantly on the rise on the different digital platforms. As a sample, I leave you these two headlines of production and a musician for reference: “Gray Area wins the nomination for the Mercury Award, NME Award for Best British Album, and Ivor Novello for Album of the Year” and “Girl in Red gets one billion views before releasing her debut album”.

The Services of this stage are:

  • Financing Plus: Here the singer-songwriter must approve the budget for marketing. She/he maintains creative control and 100% of her/his copyright. Likewise, AWAL will take a percentage of the income that depends on the contract by mutual agreement, but they ensure that the artist obtains the majority percentage.
  • Global Marketing: The Company’s global marketing team will guide everything from digital campaigns to brand collaborations, social implementations, and whatever is necessary to propel the project towards the top of the popularity charts of all digital platforms.
  • A&R and Global Promotion: With this service, you will be able to maximize the dissemination of the project by making use of partners and commercial places with greater relevance, advertisements on music platforms such as Apple, be part of the best charts, and be on the programming grid of the best 40 radio stations.

You Can Also Read: What do you know about Kobalt?

How Can You Become An AWAL Member?

Cold War Kids at night concert
American band Cold War Kids is a member of AWAL

In August 2020, the distribution company announced that many of its artists were earning more than $ 100,000 per year per streaming, which is equivalent to an increase of 40% compared to 2018.

On February 1st of this year, AWAL

To become a member of this company, you must be selected by the differently trained professionals who are in charge of choosing them according to the following characteristics:

  • Quality: You must have a mixture of three skills: exponential Creativity, maximum Originality, and overflowing Talent.
  • Fans participation: A good base of engaged fans is essential because the number of transmissions on platforms such as YouTube, Spotify, and Soundcloud will be quantified with the number of followers and subscribers. They will also analyze the number of fans on associated Social Networks such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. In addition, they will be attentive to musicians with successes in live presentations and tours that confirm the power of a massive convocation.
  • Breaking the Noise: Each artist must be proactive and create press headlines as well as comments on blogs and music magazines to break the noise of the 20,000 new recordings that Spotify adds daily and be part of the hard-working replacement generation to make his name known.
  • Support Team: You must have among other work relationships: Manager, publicist, Music Editor, and lawyer. It is not necessary for your team to be made up of all these members, but at least three.
  • Strong Brand: First, you must have a high degree of professionalism. Having created a brand and being in continuous growth demonstrates the basis of a great effort and commitment to consider and be evaluated.

Although AWAL is selective, its main mission is to partner with creative, passionate, and motivated artists to propel them with their careers on a professional level.

North America – September 2021

Miniatura relacionada con Club Tropicana

Miniatura con el título del artículo relacionado con El Patio Wynwood

Miniatura con el título de La Finca Bar & Grill

Miniatura sobre Johnny Curz en Nueva York

Johnny Vega Musical legend Composer and Vocalist

Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, veteran songwriter, and singer Johnny Vega grew up surrounded by music and relatives with the same natural talent he discovered in himself at an early age.

It wasn’t long before his obvious gift of writing accompanied by strong vocals was in demand.

Many salsa greats highlighted Johnny Vega, as a songwriter and vocalist at an early age New York was the vanguard of his success.

Relocating as a teenager, with his family, he mastered his craft in both Spanish and English being one of the first Puerto Rican musicians to compose and sing a bilingual hit, singing with Cortijo for the legendary band “Cortijo y su Combo” in the early 70s.

His musical career as described here gave him the notoriety that follows today, currently involved in multiple projects, Johnny continues to write and often performs at sold-out venues in his hometown.

It wasn't long before his obvious gift of writing accompanied by strong vocals was in demand. Many great salseros highlighted Johnny Vega, as a songwriter and vocalist at an early age New York was the vanguard of his success.
Johnny Vega veteran Puerto Rican singer and songwriter Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico

Johnny Vega has participated with a myriad of orchestras to name a few:

Trio Las 3 Voces

Jóvenes Del Ritmo

Gil Suarez Y Su Orquesta Latin Highs

Sonora Casino

Cortijo Y Su Combo

Kako And His Trabuco

Conjunto Los Imposibles

Orquesta Sabor

Conjunto Antonetti

Orquesta La Muralla

Conjunto La Villa Arecibo

Paquito Guzman Y Su Orquesta

Conjunto Santurce

Los 7 Gatos

Renovación 90

Hermanos Gonzalez (Help Yourselves 2015)

Noel Quintana & Latin Crew Popeye Y La Flaca 2016

Soloist Tribute To Celia

From this era of inspiration, Johnny gives the master Tommy Olivencia the song "Pancuco", especially for Frankie Ruiz.
Johnny Vega has participated with countless orchestras.

Some of his compositions:

Popeye – Ay Caray – Adalberto Santiago

Pancuco – Frankie Ruiz

Tú y tu novela – Pasado, presenté y futuro – Mike Cora

Avísale – Clown – incredulous – La Muralla

I’m dying inside – Rafi Marrero

Volver- Tito Rodriguez Jr. Singing Gilberto Santa Rosa

My Salsa is my Cura- Josean Rivera

Hermano Cortijo- Josean Rivera

Sueño de un Borincano- Willie Morales “El Piloto de la Salsa”.

Que le Pasa al Cielo- Chevy El Pitirre de la Salsa

Aquí Mando Yo- Chevy El Pitirre de la Salsa

From that moment on Johnny began to write and share his compositions with local bands so that they could establish their own musical identity.

From that era of inspiration, Johnny gave the maestro Tommy Olivencia the song “Pancuco”, especially for Frankie Ruiz.

Also “Ay Caray” & “Popeye el Marino” for Adalberto Santiago. Many of the musicians who grew up under the supervision of maestro Johnny Vega initially, went on to form part of the orchestras of Celia Cruz, Sonora Ponceña, Héctor Lavoe and many other high caliber bands.

In Rochester, Johnny sang with Orquesta Sabor, Antonetti, and Mike Rosario’s Muralla with whom he formed a solid partnership which included great productions, one of them being “Avísale” a collector’s item for which royalties are still being paid three decades later.

Songs by Johnny Vega-

Father and Son

Compañera Mía

Tribute To Celia

Listen To My Message

Born To Sing

Johnny Vega lives in Rochester NY with his wife of 56 years, 5 children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

He continues to leave his great musical legacy.

Contact:

Facebook: Johnny Vega

https://www.facebook.com/johnny.vega.7503

Instagram: @vjohnny220

https://instagram.com/vjohnny220?utm_medium=copy_link

If you require Vega’s pen write to email.

[email protected]

Por: Erika Muñoz 

La Mulata Rumbera

Erika Muñoz 

“Se Armó la Rumba en México”

Corresponsal de International Salsa Magazine

Article of Interest: Willie Morales The Salsa Pilot Taking off with force… New, Tasty and Danceable Salsa!

 

The role of the Spaha Salsa Gallery in Latin music

Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery y música latina

La Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery es uno de esos lugares que todo amante de la salsa en Nueva York debería visitar, ya que hay mucho que ver aquí. Este museo cuenta con todo tipo de artículos donados por numerosos artistas de renombre o familiares de algunos fallecidos. Esta colección de valiosas posesiones ha dado como resultado un conjunto de objetos invaluables que dejarán fuera del agua a cualquiera que visite las instalaciones de una institución tan especial. 

La Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery, también conocida como Spaha Salsa Gallery, se puede definir como una institución de carácter cultural cuyo propósito principal es servir como un recordatorio de lo grande que es nuestra cultura, especialmente nuestra música. Tanto los residentes como los visitantes de East Harlem, Nueva York, pueden aprender sobre el género de la salsa y sus raíces siempre que lo deseen. Todo gracias a una gran cantidad de herramientas, información y muchas iniciativas con las que los interesados ​​conocerán de primera mano todo tipo de datos interesantes sobre la salsa. 

Otro de los grandes objetivos que persigue este lugar es la búsqueda del conocimiento sobre la música latina y los artistas involucrados para ofrecerlo a todo aquel que decida visitar sus instalaciones. Es por ello que tanto su presidente Johnny Cruz como el equipo que lo asiste se han encargado de crear una galería inclusiva y diversa en la que se puede apreciar hasta dónde ha llegado el talento hispano de la mano de sus máximas estrellas.

Johnny Cruz tocando los timbales
Johnny Cruz, director de la Galería Spaha Salsa

Papel de la Galería Spaha Salsa en la difusión de la cultura latina 

The role played by the Spaha Salsa Gallery in the dissemination of Latin culture is very important, since these institutions are the ones that manage to arouse the interest of the inhabitants of Harlem and other nearby sectors towards one of the most representative musical genres of Latinity. This has made many other cultural institutions to use this gallery in order to awaken a higher interest in its own activities, which shows extensive cooperation between those who seek to promote anything Latin-related at all costs. 

Fortunately, our work is not that complicated to carry out because too many tourists visit New York every day and many of them know that this city was the birthplace of the biggest salsa movement in history, so they are always looking for cultural sports in which you can find information about this set of rhythms and how it emerges in the public arena.   

Instruments donated by La Sonora Ponceña
Some instruments donated by La Sonora Ponceña

Who Johnny Cruz is 

Johnny Cruz is the founder of the Spaha Salsa Gallery, but there are many other facets by which this talented Puerto Rican is known in the entertainment industry. Cruz is a famous musician and record producer who has worked and make friends with a wide number of artists from all genres, by providing him with the platform to create a true sanctuary for Latin music lovers. 

One interesting fact about the museum is that it is located on the plot where a hardware business owned by Johnny’s father used to function, which was made into something completely different thanks to the genius of his son long after. Today, that place contains several of the most invaluable objects in the history of salsa and whose relationship with some of the greatest figures of the genre is legendary.   

Migdalia Sanchéz joins Johnny Cruz and his programme

Migdalia Sánchez
Migdalia Sánchez, director of Latino 99 FM

Recently, it has been reported that Migdalia Sanchez, director of the radio station Latino 99 FM, has decided to broadcast the programme hosted by Johnny Cruz at the same time so that all its listeners can enjoy the talent of the entertainer and his exciting interviews. The Johnny Cruz Show will be broadcasted on Saturdays from 9 to 10 p.m.

Enlace al sitio web oficial de la galería Spaha Salsa: spahasalsagallery.com

Por: Johnny Cruz corresponsal de International Salsa Magazine en la ciudad de Nueva York, Nueva York

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International Salsa Magazine (ISM) is a monthly publication about Salsa activities around the world, that has been publishing since 2007. It is a world network of volunteers coordinated by ISM Magazine. We are working to strengthen all the events by working together.