The Deals: RCA Records Partners With Chinese Hip-Hop Label, EMPIRE Invests in un:hurd music

RCA Records Greater China, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, signed a strategic partnership with Chinese indie label and music collective IRIS Chengdu, founded by Chengdu, China-based producer, DJ and recording artist Andre Grant, a.k.a. HARIKIRI. During his career, HARIKIRI has worked with artists including American rapper Jay Park and Chinese hip-hop group Higher Brothers. Over the next year, five albums will be spawned from the partnership, including new releases from female Chinese rapper Vinida Weng, rapper/singer/songwriter Haysen Cheng and HARIKIRI himself, among others. According to a press release, Chengdu “has been widely regarded as the epicentre of China’s evolving hip hop music scene and touted as the city raising China’s new generation of rappers.”

EMPIRE formed a partnership with automated music marketing and promotion platform un:hurd music that includes an investment in un:hurd to support the development of new tools and will give EMPIRE access to un:hurd’s tools and services. The partnership came amid un:hurd’s ongoing fundraise, which has drawn investors including Willard Ahdritz, Dan Runcie’s Trapital Ventures and Mindset Ventures MusicTech. According to un:hurd CEO/founder Alex Brees, the platform boasts a community of more than 125,000 artists and record labels.

Bria, a generative AI platform for visual images that claims to be built on 100% licensed data, closed $40 million in Series B funding, bringing its total capital raise to $65 million. The money will be used to scale the company’s visual generative AI platform and widen the application of its patented attribution engine to music, video and text generation. The company says its attribution engine “bridges the generative output and the training dataset, so data owners are programmatically compensated according to their overall influence on each generated output,” according to a press release. In a statement, Bria founder/CEO Dr. Yair Adato added, “Enterprises can use our source code and API platform to integrate visual generative AI inside their products and access previously untouchable premium branded content. By broadening our attribution offering to all types of content, including music, video, and text, we are helping to usher in a truly sustainable creative economy.”

Japanese talent management and production company Asobisystem teamed up with blackx, described as a leader in music investments in Asia, to help expand the J-pop genre globally. According to a press release, the companies “will expand artist portfolios, venturing beyond traditional music to explore innovative IP such as cross-industry collaborations, introducing J-Pop to new global audiences and reinforcing Japan’s leadership in the entertainment sector.” Asobisystem’s roster includes Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Atarashii Gakko!, Fruits Zipper and Yasutaka Nakata.

Synch platform SourceAudio struck a deal with AI-powered music analysis platform Cyanite to integrate Cyanite’s AI music tagging and search capabilities directly into the SourceAudio licensing ecosystem. Through the deal, SourceAudio’s music libraries and content owners can opt in to access Cyanite’s AI tagging and search system within their existing workflows. Cyanite has also chosen SourceAudio as its delivery platform for new and existing customers, meaning all Cyanite users can now benefit from SourceAudio’s hosting and licensing solution, allowing their audio files to be automatically tagged and optimized for search, discovery, pitching and monetization.

Celebrity Coaches, a luxury transportation services provider for the entertainment industry, acquired BandWagon RV Rentals, which specializes in mid-level tour transportation. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition expands Celebrity’s fleet to more than 120 vehicles.

Nightlife and entertainment company Ministry of Sound signed a deal with DICE that will see it leveraging the latter’s mobile-first ticketing technology. Through the agreement, Ministry of Sound will gain access to DICE’s analytics and marketing tools, allowing for real-time insights into audience behaviors, event performance and sales attribution.