EMPIRE

 EMPIRE at Rolling Loud Miami 2024 Recap:  📍 Day 1: We kicked off with Tronicles Quest—a BabyTron-themed social scavenger hunt celebrating his latest album release. Fans explored branded locations across the festival grounds, boosting engagement and connecting with aligned brand partners. One lucky fan scored exclusive prizes, including custom Cartier Buffs (powered by Hutch), a VIP Rolling Loud upgrade, and BabyTron merch! 📸 Day 2: We brought fans closer to Chow Lee with an exclusive meet-and-greet featuring the iconic ‘Sex Drive’ album artwork as a photo backdrop. 🚛 Days 1-3: EMPIRE-themed trucks surrounded the festival grounds, spotlighting BabyTron, Rio Da OG, and Shaboozey. Plus, a flying banner celebrated Rio Da Yung OG’s homecoming, raising awareness for our artists and brand. 🙌 Huge thanks to the incredible EMPIRE team and our Rolling Loud Festival family for making these activations a success. Major shouts to the team on site for making this possible Harrison Golding, Avesta Shadpey, Serena Woon, Lace F., Liv Echeverria, Eamon Mulligan, Rolando Etorma, Ari Simon, Briana Blandford, and more! We can’t wait to keep innovating, collaborating with more brands, and creating memorable experiences for our artists and fans. Stay tuned for more!

This week Ari sits down with Heather Vassar, the Senior Vice President at EMPIRE. Heather and Ari discuss the incredible success of Shaboozey's “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” which has been number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts for 19 weeks straight—the longest any song has held that position. Heather reveals how this hit (released on an indie label) became the biggest song in the world and how they have sustained its momentum. She shares the entire journey from signing Shaboozey, to putting out his initial singles, releasing his album, collaborating with Beyonce, all the way to his massive global success today. Thanks to her extensive experience at both major and independent labels, Heather has sharp insights to share about deal structures, ownership models, artist development, and how the industry has shifted (in the majors and the indies) over the last five years, all of which you’ll hear about in this episode. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gaK553wJ

What a year its been 🙏🌟 Congratulations to Shaboozey on “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” making history as the longest-running #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, with 19 weeks at the top! Incredible achievement—here’s to even more milestones ahead! 🥂🏆 https://lnkd.in/gHic4mDM

🚨 Another milestone for the books! 🚨 #Shaboozey's “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” holds strong at No. 1 for a 17th week on the Billboard Hot 100! 📈 This achievement makes it the longest-running solo No. 1 in the chart’s 66-year history, surpassing Morgan Wallen’s 16-week reign with “Last Night” in 2023. A huge moment for Shaboozey and the #EMPIRE Family —here’s to making history! 🔥 #EMPIRE #Billboard #RecordBreaker #Hot100 #MusicHistory

🚨 Big News! 🚨 We are beyond thrilled to announce that EMPIRE has earned multiple GRAMMY nominations this year! 🎶🏆 MAJOR CONGRATS to Shaboozey,  Asake & Mad Skillz on their well-deserved Grammy nominations! This is a testament to the hard work, talent, and dedication of our incredible artists, producers, and team. A huge thank you to the The Recording Academy for this recognition, and to everyone who has supported us along the way. We're just getting started! 🙌 Here’s to continuing to make magic and breaking boundaries in music. Stay tuned! 🔥 #GRAMMYs #EMPIRE

The EMPIRE sync team continues to move the ball forward in sports! Excited to share a major sync placement with Nike & Lebron James in the “Lebron x Bronny Tipoff” Los Angeles Lakers season opener ad featuring “Smoothies in 1991” by Larry June. Thanks to National Basketball Association (NBA) & Sports Illustrated for the coverage: https://lnkd.in/gv49gQSt | https://lnkd.in/gkQq_4DP Alexandra K. Moore, Nikki Marshall, Eunique, Kellen Strauther

Gold House Ventures brought together the best of tech, entertainment, and innovation across California during Tech Week 2024! TECH WEEK by a16z 🌉 In San Francisco: We partnered with EMPIRE and Mantis Venture Capital to explore the transformative power of celebrity venture funds. Our stellar panel featured Milan K. (Founding GP, Mantis Ventures), Ghazi Shami (CEO, EMPIRE), and Nathan Chen (Olympic champion and GHV LP), moderated by our own Megan Ruan (Founding GP, Gold House Ventures). 150+ founders, investors, and community leaders experienced the future of entertainment-tech convergence at EMPIRE's studio. Special thanks Alexandra K. Moore (Chief Business Officer, EMPIRE) and Lester Ang (Partner, Wilson Sonsini)! 🌅 In Los Angeles: We transformed Santa Monica beach into a hub of innovation and mindfulness for our Golden Hour celebration – bridging our underrepresented founders and creative leaders. Supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Silicon Valley Bank, the event showcased diverse-owned brands while offering unique wellness experiences and meaningful networking opportunities. Special thanks Art Yuen and Jason Buen (SVB); Lily Yuen Xu (AWS) and the incredible brands below for making these events unforgettable! Fair & Square munchrooms Nam Coffee Neuro Partake Foods Sanzo Sweety Ice Cream TOCHI The Plug Drink Twrl Milk Tea wildwonder VOSS Water #LATechWeek #SFTechWeek #GoldHouseVentures #VentureCapital #TechWeek2024

Why Ghazi will never sell EMPIRE. “I’m living my purpose. There’s no price on that.” Listen to our full chat here: https://lnkd.in/ejW6hjDr This clip is from our talk at the Trapital Summit.

Tomorrow. You’ll hear my chat with EMPIRE CEO Ghazi from the Trapital Summit. It will be available on Trapital wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/gWjp3HT4 You’ll hear Ghazi explain why he’ll never sell EMPIRE.

Growing up in the Bay Area the discourse that always surrounded where I grew up was almost always about tech & startups and about the next hot thing to come out of Silicon Valley. However, over the last 50+ years, SF has been also at the forefront of the cultural and music movement, showcasing to the world the amazing artists that have come out of this city. For SF TECH WEEK by a16z, we at Brex wanted to show love to the entire SF ecosystem and recognize everything that the SF & Bay Area has influenced in the world. As many of the visionaries in the tech ecosystem has come out of SF, similarly, many of the visionaries in the world of music & entertainment have had their roots from SF as well. We wanted make an event for San Francisco and to showcase not only the amazing tech and startups that have come out of here but also the creatives, musicians and entertainers that have called SF their home. There was no better team to partner on this than EMPIRE, one of the largest independent record label and distribution company in the United States. Furthermore, their founder, Ghazi Shami, who had his roots in SF, built Empire from a small early stage startup to the 250+ person company it is today, all while keeping Empire and it's roots firm in San Francisco. Last night, we brought out 150+ founders, investors, operators, creatives and musicians to Empire's recording studio in the heart of San Francisco to showcase and connect the best people this city has to offer from tech to music. The future of San Francisco is vibrant and the culture spreads globally. The people here are the ones that will change the world and Brex is here to support all of that. Thank you to Alexandra K. Moore & Ghazi Shami from Empire for making this event happen and thank you to our Brex execs who showed up and to meet the future innovators of San Francisco Garrett Marker Scott Holden Jason Mok