MBW’s World’s Best Managers sequence profiles the perfect artist managers within the world enterprise. Right here, we discuss to Lex Borrero, founding father of NEON16 and supervisor of Tainy, one of the profitable and influential producers of the final decade. World’s Best Managers is supported by Centtrip, a specialist in clever treasury, funds and international alternate – created with the music trade and its wants in thoughts.
Lex Borrero wouldn’t presume to name himself a protégé of both Sean Combs or Jay-Z, two of the best artists-turned-execs of any period or style. However he did spend a few of his adolescence of their firm (at their firms) – and it exhibits.
Borrero is his personal man, along with his personal technique, but it surely’s undoubtedly there within the angle and ambition.
He says: “One thing I discovered from Puff first, after which noticed re-iterated at Roc Nation with Jay, is that they’re a flag for the tradition.
“Lots of instances, most artists, most entrepreneurs, most labels, they deal with simply their job: I’m a music man, I’m going to handle my artist, I’m going to do touring, I’m going to do publishing, I’m going to do the label deal.
“Only a few folks have the strategy of Puff and Jay, which is to say, ‘We have an effect on tradition, we perceive what our shoppers like. So, I’m going to begin setting this flag in client items; I’m gonna set this flag in style; I’m gonna set this flag in liquor; I’m gonna set this flag in sport.’”
This blueprint was a transparent inspiration for NEON16, the more and more multi-faceted firm Borrero established in 2019 with super-producer Tainy, (whom Borrero manages).
Final month, NEON16 (whose different administration purchasers embody the likes of Yandel and Dylan Fuentes) expanded on its music and media mini-empire with the launch of twenty-two Publishing in partnership with Sony Music Publishing.
That information arrived simply as Unhealthy Bunny’s smash album Un Verano Sin Ti – on which Tainy produces/co-produced a minimum of 9 tracks – was exploding globally.
And we imply exploding: Based on Bloomberg, within the two months to July 18, Unhealthy Bunny tracks appeared in Spotify‘s Prime 100 chart over 150 instances – greater than any file label’s whole artist roster.
For Borrero, that is all additional proof of Latin music’s mushrooming mainstream second, one thing that NEON16 has been designed to benefit from ever because it launched.
“I mainly noticed no-one doing [what Jay-Z and Sean Combs did for hip-hop culture] for Latin tradition on the time when Latin music was beginning to change into world and beginning to break streaming information,” says Borrero.
“Like every cultural motion, like with hip-hop, it’s led by the music – then it goes into client items, it goes to Hollywood, and unexpectedly it’s mainstream popular culture.
“So I figured, if we will change into the Roc Nation or the Unhealthy Boy of Latin music, I’m going to have the ability to experience that wave all the way in which to a billion-dollar enterprise. And that’s basically what we’re doing.”
Lex Borrero’s preliminary break into the music enterprise got here after leaving college, when he interned at a studio and made a file with a neighborhood rapper. That led to a distribution take care of Common.
“My mother needed to negotiate that deal for me,” he remembers. “She used an immigration legal professional as a result of that was all we knew.”
From there Borrero made his technique to New York to attend a Dynamic Producers conference, which, crucially, included a ‘Beats Battle’.
The prize for the winner of mentioned battle: the possibility to work within the studio with an artist Russell Simmonds had simply signed.
Solely drawback was, Borrero’s beats hadn’t been deemed ok to realize him entry to the competitors.
“I began annoying the woman organizing it a lot that in the long run she mentioned, ‘Child when you don’t get out of right here, you’re by no means going to come back to this convention once more. Simply settle for the truth that you didn’t make it to the battle.’”
He… didn’t settle for it.
“Sunday comes round and he or she begins naming these producers [in the final], and there’s one person who doesn’t present up. I run to the place it’s happening and he or she’s like, ‘Okay child, you’re so freaking annoying – you’re in.’
And, in fact, Borrero wins.
“I am going to the studio that evening and there’s a man referred to as Gregory ‘Beef’ Jones, who was President of Russell Simmons Music Group.
“I mentioned to him, ‘Pay attention, I don’t know something about how this enterprise works, however I need to study, and I believe I may very well be your finest worker. Give me a job.’”
Jones didn’t give Borrero a job, however he supplied him the subsequent neatest thing – an internship primarily based in NYC.
Says Borrero: “I got here again to Miami, took out a pupil bank card from Financial institution of America for $5,000, and I left for New York.”
“The cash ran out and I used to be broke. I ended up homeless. I slept on the 6 practice for months.”
To date, so Hollywood biopic. However the actuality of Borrero’s first internship was something however glamorous.
“The cash ran out and I used to be broke. I ended up homeless. I used to be sleeping from sofa to sofa; I truly slept one time in a crack home, though I didn’t realize it was crack home.
“I slept on the 6 practice for months. I went by way of every little thing you may take into consideration.
“I used to be nonetheless interning, hustling my beats, simply making an attempt to be within the combine. And little by little I used to be beginning to meet folks. However I used to be at a degree the place emotionally and financially I simply couldn’t keep in New York anymore. I used to be uninterested in being homeless.”
Ultimately, knocked down by the financial realities of combating to make it in music, Borrero referred to as his mother, defeated.
“I requested her to e-book me a visit house. That was Sunday; she booked me a visit for Thursday. Two days later, on Tuesday, I get a name from this A&R at Unhealthy Boy. He was searching for information for Puff and he requested me to come back by.
“I present up; I’ve 23 beats on my CD. And the twenty third beat, Puff ended up recording. That was my first test within the music enterprise. They purchased it for $1,000.”
Borrero stayed in New York, making beats but in addition studying the enterprise facet of issues, most notably with Blue Williams and his extremely profitable producer administration enterprise, Household Tree.
Subsequent, a task at Roc Nation, the place Borrero would go on to go up the Latin division, took him again to Miami.
When he received there, Borrero found {that a} gifted producer, Tainy, had landed a gig as a advisor, however wasn’t actually being utilized. Actually, his profession was going by way of one thing of a downturn.
A lot in order that, having moved into the identical constructing as Borrero, Tainy requested his new neighbor if he would possibly be capable to assist.
Since then, Tainy has change into one of many world’s greatest producers of the previous decade (by way of his work with Unhealthy Bunny and J Balvin, but in addition Cardi B, Selena Gomez, Dua Lipa, Travis Scott and extra).
Borrero, in the meantime, is proving himself to be equally influential as an government, altering the industrial panorama of Latin music whereas planning and constructing what he’s assured will likely be a billion-dollar enterprise inside 5 years…
Earlier than we get into your profession, we now have to ask about that interval if you have been homeless in New York. Why didn’t you stop as quickly as you discovered your self with no roof over your head?
The perseverance that I’ve had has actually been the important thing to my success. There have been a number of instances after I needed to stop.
There have been days after I would get up on the practice and my complete again can be moist. I assumed it was as a result of I used to be sweating, but it surely was simply because some man had pissed on me.
Like, there have been many instances after I noticed folks get into fights, get stabbed. And there have been instances after I nearly died from warmth exhaustion.
On prime of that, I wasn’t consuming proper; I used to be consuming off the McDonald’s one-dollar menu each single day.
However I’m displaying up for work prefer it’s nothing, regardless of how drained or how sick I used to be.
Inform us about assembly Tainy, and changing into his supervisor?
He lived in my constructing in Miami after I was at Roc [Nation], and I simply saved operating into him.
Someday I requested him to come back over, he was tremendous impressed by my sneaker assortment! Again then he was super-quiet, super-humble, very Zen.
However he was at a reasonably horrible stage of his profession. Financially he was in a very unhealthy state of affairs, he was a part of tons of unhealthy offers, and at some point his girlfriend got here and requested me if I might assist.
On the time I wasn’t trying to handle. I used to be an government at Roc and I used to be actually making an attempt to deal with [that]. So I simply began to assist him as a pal, step-by-step. After I went to L.A., I might convey him with me, so he might meet some [people in] the American market.
“That was the day every little thing modified.”
Out of that, issues began taking place with Balvin and with Bunny. The transition level was after I was with him and an artist referred to as. [Tainy and said artist] have been arguing over one thing, and the artist mentioned, ‘Hey, Tainy, nobody offers an F about producers; it’s at all times concerning the artist.’
I noticed his face simply collapse, as a result of Tainy’s such a pleasant, humble man, and this actually hit him.
He hung up the cellphone and I informed him, ‘You realize what, sufficient is sufficient. We’re going to work collectively, we’re going to work out a plan to make you larger than any artist.’
And that was the day every little thing modified.
That’s the day that I made a decision, okay, there’s this misunderstanding of how producers ought to get handled within the Latin enterprise, and there’s this concept of how producers must be billed and offered and there are limits that get placed on their energy and creativity, and we’re going to change that.
Six months after that, just about precisely three years in the past, we have been in Tokyo and I made a decision to construct this firm [NEON16], to place producers round him.
I informed Tainy, ‘Now we have one thing that nobody else has, which is my years of expertise making Anglo-pop music and city music, plus my relationships in that market. We even have your understanding of heritage and tradition, from being concerned in so many Latin hits.’
So we launched into this journey. And, simply so you realize, he’s now a lot larger than that artist [laughs].
Are you able to give us some thought of simply how massive he has change into in your time collectively?
He grew to become the No.1 Latin producer in Billboard’s chart for 27 weeks in a single yr. He spent 196 weeks at No.1 and [is] one of many Prime 10 producers of the Century in accordance with Billboard figures.
He’s taking part in a run of festivals this yr as a dwell performer, and commanding the identical charges as main artists. There’s a multitude of hits and awards, and most significantly there may be the cultural affect.
If you happen to take a look at the Latin music enterprise, you might have Unhealthy Bunny, you might have J Balvin, you might have Rauw Alejandro, you might have Tainy, you might have Karol G and you’ve got Rosalia.
They’re the idea of [modern] Latin music. Tainy’s change into as massive as any artist, as beneficial brand-wise and financially as any of these artists.
Do you suppose he will get the credit score he deserves, not within the Latin trade and group, however all over the world?
I believe he’s there, as a result of now he’s checked out as this general inventive – the identical manner Pharrell has been checked out all through his profession.
Producers like Pharrell and Tainy, they’re actually good at making rhythmic information, and people are the toughest information to make.
To be actually inventive, musically, on a file that has a variety of motion, it’s extraordinarily laborious. And that’s why most producers should not rhythmic producers, they’re very commonplace pop producers or city producers.
That’s why Pharrell is the place he’s. And with Tainy, though his publicity to the broader world has solely been prior to now few years, that’s why he sits in that Prime 10, above producers which have far more historical past than him; he’s actually modified the sound of music.
What kind of metrics and milestones are you able to share to present us an thought of the expansion of Neon16 in your first three years?
I can let you know that once we began, we have been a two-man staff and we are actually at 22 folks throughout the enterprise.
We began with only a manufacturing home; now we’re a label, a particularly profitable publishing enterprise, we now have a model company and we now have launched a TV and movie division.
“We’ll construct Neon16 to a billion-dollar enterprise. After which we are going to select to go for an IPO or go for a merger or sale to an even bigger firm inside 5 years.”
What you’re going to see us do over the subsequent two years is create a Latin media powerhouse that touches every little thing from music, movie and tv to client items.
We’ll construct that to a billion-dollar enterprise. After which we are going to select to go for an IPO or go for a merger or sale to an even bigger firm inside 5 years.
Have you ever already had majors trying to both purchase or make investments?
Yeah, we now have. And at first we weren’t , primarily as a result of we appreciated our inventive freedom and with the ability to construct it our manner.
However we additionally perceive that we now have the muse of the enterprise. When you might have an explosion of success like we now have, within the first two or three years, you’re simply structuring issues, you’re determining your predominant targets, the place your income is really coming from, and easy methods to maximize that income.
“at some [point] within the subsequent six months we’re going to search for a big injection of money to assist make this the billion-dollar enterprise that we need to construct.”
Now we’re prepared to take a look at alternatives to see how we construction our enterprise for a lot larger development, as a result of we all know our potential.
That’s what we’re doing immediately; at some [point] within the subsequent six months we’re going to search for a big injection of money to assist make this the billion-dollar enterprise that we need to construct.
Would that be by way of funding from inside the trade, or would possibly or not it’s VC cash?
Both/or. It can come all the way down to partnership worth.
I’ve the blessing of a companion who I additionally take into account a form of father, in Tommy Mottola. So we will depend on his steerage.
It comes all the way down to who’s going to know the imaginative and prescient, who sees the tip objective and who will enable us to construct with out restriction.
Generally cash from the majors comes with a variety of restrictions due to their enterprise mannequin.
how necessary a mentor has Tommy Mottola been to you and what have you ever discovered from him?
He’s been crucial. I really feel extraordinarily fortunate, as a result of it’s laborious to discover a mentor, not to mention somebody who genuinely cares in your well-being as an individual.
After I say he’s change into a father to me, I don’t say that evenly. He’s somebody who’s my household and is concerned in each side of my life.
[Laughs] I joke round that generally I get screamed at like a son, and it doesn’t even need to be about enterprise. If I decide in my private life that he disagrees with, he’ll make it identified!
What I’ve been actually impressed by, and brought essentially the most from, is that Tommy will belief my intestine and comply with my lead. He offers nice recommendation, however he additionally trusts and encourages me.
That’s one thing he’s actually nice at, as a result of I’ve sat in so many conferences [alongside Mottola], with highly effective folks, who’ve labored for him, they usually all say the identical factor: ‘Tommy, thanks. You believed in me and due to you I’m sitting right here; due to you I’ve modified the music enterprise; due to you I’ve had this or that run of unimaginable success.’
That’s as a result of he understood what he was and he understood what he wasn’t. He by no means tried to be the boss who knew all of it. He introduced an all-star staff to Sony and he allow them to go be sharks.
And on the similar time, he trusted the artists. Each artist that has talked about Tommy will let you know: he put them first.
A specialist in clever treasury, funds and international alternate, Centtrip works with over 500 world artists serving to them and their crew maximise their revenue and scale back touring prices with its award-winning multi-currency card and market-leading alternate charges. Centtrip additionally affords file labels, promoters, assortment societies and publishers a less expensive technique to ship funds throughout the globe.Music Enterprise Worldwide
