Thursday, August 18, 2022
NOISEMAKERS: YOUR LATEST SAMPLE PACK
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 $22.95—will get them a probiotic smoothie at participating Erewhon locations.
Halie Hampton Mosley
VP, Roster Operations, WHY&HOW
While managing Florida Georgia Line in 2021, Mosley was thanked by the duo from the stage for her role in producing the sold-out charity concert they were hosting with Live Nation—which raised $450k for Feeding Nashville. She’s currently focused on Seaforth, who recently dropped “Queen of Daytona Beach” with Sean Kingston, and clients like BRELAND and Chase Rice. When she was a radio rep at Arista for Brooks & Dunn, Mosley accidentally walked onstage―and was introduced to fans by Ronnie Dunn. First impressions of us are usually more traumatic.
Ben Friedlander
Marketing Manager, Virgin Prior to joining Virgin, Friedlander was on the team that helped JOJI secure his first platinum record, “SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK.” The marketer’s 2021 plans for Coast Contra’s weekly rap freestyles resulted in an opening slot at Dave Chapelle’s Hollywood Bowl Show and a live performance on Fallon. He’s also been working with 10K Projects’ Leah Kate and JELEEL! and artist David Kushner on growing their fan bases internationally. Friedlander has an encyclopedic list of restaurants for every major city in North America. Coincidently, there are none near us.
Niki Zahedi
Manager, Hallwood Media For Zahedi, who’s devoted to breaking down barriers for women in music, nothing tops going to Europe for recording sessions with her client 99makaveli, a female producer she discovered when the rising star was working at McDonald’s. The Hallwood manager is equally dedicated to breaking Lawsy, a pioneer of the “sexxnb” genre who scored a viral hit with “Hotel,” and advancing the career of platinum producer Othello Beats (Pop Smoke, Lil Tjay), collaborator with Kelz’s on his recent “Sinner.” Zahedi loves to throw a party. We doubt we’ll ever get invited.
Shawna Spears
Senior Manager, Artist Partnerships (Hip-Hop & R&B), TikTok
Seeing TikTok partner with Pharrell and Patriot Management to sponsor the SOMETHING IN THE WATER Festival was a career highlight for Spears. So was moderating her first VidCon panel, “How Women in Hip-Hop Have Found a Home on TikTok: Featuring Doechii, Baby Tate & Monaleo.” Today she’s leading the hip-hop and R&B community on TikTok, presently collaborating with Babyface and his team on content strategy for Girls Night Out. If Spears didn’t work in music, she’d likely be a kindergarten teacher. We’d be unemployed.
Steve Higgs
CEO, M&S Management Back when Higgs was a road manager at Emagen Entertainment Group, he toured the world with Nas. Today heading M&S Management, he launched its partnership with the Propel Center and Apple to support young people looking to become executives in entertainment and the arts. The program benefits students from three HBCUs. Higgs was drafted out of high school by the Detroit Tigers. We’re out of breath just typing this.
Nagina (Nae) Lane
Director, Creative Strategy, Island Lane fondly recalls working on digital creative for the 2015 album Beauty Behind the Madness by The Weeknd, one of her favorite artists. She’s equally proud to have seen the photo she took of SleazyWorld Go on a Times Square billboard. Lane is now focused on creating short-form content with Demi Lovato’s team to help build the story around her upcoming album. While creative, particularly photography, will always be Lane’s first love, she claims the MySpace era could’ve led to a professional coding career if she’d taken it seriously. Did someone say Top 8?
Elina Adut
Founder, The Exclusive Agency Ascending the ranks of Latin publicity, Adut launched her own firm in 2021. She oversees communications and media relations for The Latin Recording Academy/Latin Grammys, Sony Latin, Univision and HBO’s A Tiny Audience, as well as emerging acts like Ryan Castro, Farina, Santa Fe Klan and Zion & Lennox. Her busy summer includes working on Castro’s first U.S. tour, gearing up for Latin Grammy season, the launch of Reggaetonlandia and booking clients for New York Fashion week. In a past life, Adut was a figure skater.
Will Runzel
CEO, Prodigy Artists As a talent buyer, Runzel chased Afrojack for half of the last decade, so it was surreal for him to ink the producer to Prodigy Artists. Other career highlights span SLANDER and NGHTMRE’s each headlining Coachella’s Sahara tent, Deorro’s Times Square billboard and three-night L.A. run over the Fourth of July (11k tickets sold) and Moore Kismet’s becoming the youngest performer in Lollapalooza history at 16. Runzel is now focused on albums by Deorro, NGHTMRE and SLANDER. Always on the run, he’s run back-to-back L.A. Marathons. Try saying that five times fast.
Halie Hampton Mosley
VP, Roster Operations, WHY&HOW
While managing Florida Georgia Line in 2021, Mosley was thanked by the duo from the stage for her role in producing the sold-out charity concert they were hosting with Live Nation—which raised $450k for Feeding Nashville. She’s currently focused on Seaforth, who recently dropped “Queen of Daytona Beach” with Sean Kingston, and clients like BRELAND and Chase Rice. When she was a radio rep at Arista for Brooks & Dunn, Mosley accidentally walked onstage―and was introduced to fans by Ronnie Dunn. First impressions of us are usually more traumatic.
Ben Friedlander
Marketing Manager, Virgin Prior to joining Virgin, Friedlander was on the team that helped JOJI secure his first platinum record, “SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK.” The marketer’s 2021 plans for Coast Contra’s weekly rap freestyles resulted in an opening slot at Dave Chapelle’s Hollywood Bowl Show and a live performance on Fallon. He’s also been working with 10K Projects’ Leah Kate and JELEEL! and artist David Kushner on growing their fan bases internationally. Friedlander has an encyclopedic list of restaurants for every major city in North America. Coincidently, there are none near us.
Niki Zahedi
Manager, Hallwood Media For Zahedi, who’s devoted to breaking down barriers for women in music, nothing tops going to Europe for recording sessions with her client 99makaveli, a female producer she discovered when the rising star was working at McDonald’s. The Hallwood manager is equally dedicated to breaking Lawsy, a pioneer of the “sexxnb” genre who scored a viral hit with “Hotel,” and advancing the career of platinum producer Othello Beats (Pop Smoke, Lil Tjay), collaborator with Kelz’s on his recent “Sinner.” Zahedi loves to throw a party. We doubt we’ll ever get invited.
Shawna Spears
Senior Manager, Artist Partnerships (Hip-Hop & R&B), TikTok
Steve Higgs
CEO, M&S Management Back when Higgs was a road manager at Emagen Entertainment Group, he toured the world with Nas. Today heading M&S Management, he launched its partnership with the Propel Center and Apple to support young people looking to become executives in entertainment and the arts. The program benefits students from three HBCUs. Higgs was drafted out of high school by the Detroit Tigers. We’re out of breath just typing this.
Nagina (Nae) Lane
Director, Creative Strategy, Island Lane fondly recalls working on digital creative for the 2015 album Beauty Behind the Madness by The Weeknd, one of her favorite artists. She’s equally proud to have seen the photo she took of SleazyWorld Go on a Times Square billboard. Lane is now focused on creating short-form content with Demi Lovato’s team to help build the story around her upcoming album. While creative, particularly photography, will always be Lane’s first love, she claims the MySpace era could’ve led to a professional coding career if she’d taken it seriously. Did someone say Top 8?
Elina Adut
Founder, The Exclusive Agency Ascending the ranks of Latin publicity, Adut launched her own firm in 2021. She oversees communications and media relations for The Latin Recording Academy/Latin Grammys, Sony Latin, Univision and HBO’s A Tiny Audience, as well as emerging acts like Ryan Castro, Farina, Santa Fe Klan and Zion & Lennox. Her busy summer includes working on Castro’s first U.S. tour, gearing up for Latin Grammy season, the launch of Reggaetonlandia and booking clients for New York Fashion week. In a past life, Adut was a figure skater.
Will Runzel
CEO, Prodigy Artists As a talent buyer, Runzel chased Afrojack for half of the last decade, so it was surreal for him to ink the producer to Prodigy Artists. Other career highlights span SLANDER and NGHTMRE’s each headlining Coachella’s Sahara tent, Deorro’s Times Square billboard and three-night L.A. run over the Fourth of July (11k tickets sold) and Moore Kismet’s becoming the youngest performer in Lollapalooza history at 16. Runzel is now focused on albums by Deorro, NGHTMRE and SLANDER. Always on the run, he’s run back-to-back L.A. Marathons. Try saying that five times fast.