Job Title:  A&R @ Stellar Songs

“In 2015 I attended my first Ultimate Seminar and I’m honestly so glad I did! Not only did I gain an immense amount of insight into the music industry, but it also led me to sign up to the Cre8ing Vision mailing list which landed me my first internship-turned-permanent role in Advertising. The music industry is constantly growing and developing, and I truly believe that the Ultimate Seminar will continue to be a space where people can gain the knowledge that they can execute throughout their career to stay ahead of the curve.”

After moving out of London as a teen and having a pretty miserable existence until my early 20’s, Music was the only positive mainstay in that period. I always longed to get back to London and have always been career minded so I made the decision that Music was what was going to make all these things happen for me. I started to build up my own knowledge of the business side of things and immersed myself in research in to what Record Labels did, who worked at them and in particular the roles of successful A&R’s behind some of my favourite artists. I went to gigs and events in the hope of meeting someone in the industry that I could have a conversation with and applied for any work experience roles or Internships I could find but was never successful. A friend of mine told me about Cre8ing Vision and I was lucky enough to be accepted in to an A&R Music Surgery at Island Records, where I was in a room with Alex Boateng, Ben Scarr and Darcus Beese, weirdly 3 of the people I always thought I’d connect with if I ever got the chance to meet them given their track records.

A few months later I bumped in to Alex at an event, he recognised me, we had a brief chat and exchanged details and he invited me to come and meet him at Island. After literally a few minutes he suggested I spend a week working with him, which turned in to a month and when that was up I was put in touch with HR at Universal. A few anxious months passed and after 2 interviews I was offered an Internship at Polydor in the Promotions department. It was the breakthrough I’d been hoping for and I made every day count, it was an invaluable Year and I loved the team but A&R was always the goal and after telling everyone I possibly could, with my hard work and timing being on my side, I was offered an A&R Assistant role by my Boss and Co-President of Polydor Ben Mortimer.

My day to day role consists of booking studio sessions, setting up our releases, commissioning remixes and getting our records mastered. I’m also lucky enough to work closely with Rich Castillo and Jamie Spinks, 2 of the best A&R’s in the business who have already had and are right now enjoying huge success with acts such as Stefflon Don, RAYE and Mura Masa. They give me so much of their time and let me have an opinion on all of their records, which allows me to see first hand and actively be involved in the A&Ring process, that’s definitely the best thing about what I currently do and what I hope to be doing with my own roster in the near future.