In our latest roundup, we present eight more stars of tomorrow from various parts of the biz whose dedication and effort make their superiors look good.
This week's entrants will also find their faces in our most recent mag. Lucky for them, this feature—and $8.95—will get them a "special" chaggacino latte from participating
Whole Foods locations.
Alisa Applegate
VP, Promotion, Virgin Music
Amy Winehouse’s 2007 performance at
The Roxy was understandably a career highlight for Applegate. She’s currently boosting
Lauv’s “All 4 Nothing (So in Love),” “a feel-good song for the summer,”
Surfaces’ “I Can’t Help But Feel”—deemed “fuego!”—
Rema’s earworm “Calm Down,” off March’s
Rave and Roses,
Culture Jam’s “Waves” f/
Gunna &
Polo G and
Renni Rucci’s “Don’t Like Me”—“next up for all the bad bitches.” When she’s not cooking up promotion strategy, Applegate’s cookin’ in the kitchen.
We’ve been told to stay out of the kitchen (we can’t take the heat).
Max Braun
Agent, Wasserman Music
Having worked with
Rex Orange County (whom he met via
SoundCloud) since 2015, Braun is savoring the triumph of the English artist’s latest tour—which boasts a score of sold-out dates, including one at the
Hollywood Bowl—in support of his new album,
WHO CARES? Braun is likewise overseeing road shows for such acts as
slowthai,
BADBADNOTGOOD,
Disclosure,
Sad Night Dynamite,
Adam Melchor and
Gesaffelstein. “One of my best friends owns a ghost town where I spent a lot of time during the pandemic,” he reports. Any town with
us in it tends to become a ghost town.
Kim Valderas
Senior Director Artist Relations, Motown Records
Valderas had the pleasure of working with
Migos in 2018 when they hit the road with
Drake for
Aubrey & the Three Migos Tour LIVE!, one of the highest-grossing rap outings in history. She’s also lent her expertise to the careers of artists like
Lil Yachty,
City Girls and
Lil Baby. Nowadays she’s wrangling
SXSW and
Coachella dates, a tour for
Tiana Major9 (who is supporting
Jazmine Sullivan) and
Kem’s co-headlining trek with
Babyface. Back in the day, Valderas practiced aerial acrobatics. Alas, she was unable to silk her way out of appearing in these pages.
Josh Love
Partner, Reed Smith LLP – Entertainment and Media
In 2015
LaPolt Law principal
Dina LaPolt gave Love his first shot at being a music attorney, which he calls “a dream come true.” The
California State Summer School of the Arts Foundation board member joined Reed Smith in 2016, excelling at catalog acquisition and now also advising clients on music-rights issues related to digital-content distribution and new technologies (including NFTs and other web3 applications). A 2014
USC law school grad, Love loves him an authentic L.A. hole-in-the-wall. It’s a shame he couldn’t avoid this hole-in-the-music-industry.
Meg Hourihan
Director, Licensing & Soundtracks, RCA
Hourihan was stoked to see the
Taco Bell commercial she worked on—which featured
Doja Cat covering
Hole’s “Celebrity Skin”—air during this year’s
Super Bowl. In 2021 she doubled the number of placements she secured in 2020 and thereafter got
Tate McRae’s “you broke me first” into the trailer for February’s
The In Between. A self-proclaimed “professional fangirl,” Hourihan, who has an M.A. in Producing Film and Television from
Royal Holloway,
University of London, appears for exactly three seconds in a 2014
McBusted video. You can catch
us at
McDonald’s.
Ben Farber
Senior Director, Streaming Strategy, Warner Records
Farber was critical to enacting
WMG and
Amazon’s largest partnership to date, 2019’s pact with
The Head and The Heart, which saw a
Pike Place Market rooftop performance (and livestream) attended by 20k, Prime documentary and exclusive live album. More recently, he made
Omar Apollo an
Apple Music UpNext Artist and worked on campaigns for
Red Hot Chili Peppers’
Unlimited Love, Neil Young’s
Barn (securing a
Zane Lowe interview) and
Zach Bryan’s “From Austin.” In 2022 Farber achieved a long-held goal: completing the
Ventura Marathon.
We slipped on a banana peel.
Nina Lee
Director of Communications, The Oriel
Born in Brazil and raised in L.A. by Korean parents, Lee is proud to have seen client
88rising make history with Asian talent on
Coachella’s main stage (and to serve as a role model for Asian Americans climbing the biz ladder). She’s also publicizing
Amazon Music,
godmode (the music company behind
Channel Tres),
UPSAHL (who just made her TV debut on
Corden),
Sean Paul (whose
Scorcha drops 5/27),
Maxwell (touring arenas with
Anthony Hamilton &
Joe) and
Grammy winner
Lucky Daye. Lee makes restaurant-quality chicken wings. You should see
us do the Chicken
Dance.
Jed Weitzman
Head of Music, Logitix
Few people can say they met
Neil Young while the legend was wearing a wizard hat, but Weitzman can also claim he worked with
Gary Shandling on
The Larry Sanders Show and lived in Rome while helping
Morrissey make
Ringleader of the Tormentors. At Logitix, he enhances artists’ understanding of the secondary ticketing market so they can successfully navigate the primary (it’s all about the data). Weitzman informs: “I take ice baths every Sunday and for a sober guy, there’s no better rush.” The data actually shows there’s no better rush than avoiding
us.
