{"id":2441548,"date":"2019-03-11T07:01:43","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T13:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=806339"},"modified":"2019-03-11T07:01:43","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T13:01:43","slug":"why-an-indie-music-distributor-wants-to-manage-artists-careers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/why-an-indie-music-distributor-wants-to-manage-artists-careers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why An Indie Music Distributor Wants to Manage Artists\u2019 Careers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ditto Music has made a name for itself over the last decade as an indie music distribution service<\/a> used by artists from Ed Sheeran to Stormzy to Chance the Rapper. It\u2019s now ready to expand, and the direction of its growth offers a good insight into the trajectory of the music business at large: On Monday, Ditto becomes the first indie distributor to offer artist management services.<\/p>\n

The U.K.-based company will add Ditto Management as a standalone management company available to artists around the world, and acts already on the roster include DJ Nathan Dawe, R&B artist Bobbi Lewis and singer-songwriter Nathan Brooks. Ever since Ditto launched as a distributor in 2006, \u201cthere were so many artists that we saw and felt like were an opportunity passing by,\u201d Ditto CEO Lee Parsons tells Rolling Stone,<\/em> adding that the idea of a management arm has been in the works for several years. \u201cWe saw artists coming through who were awesome, but we didn\u2019t have much to do with them apart from distribution. We\u2019d see them take other management deals. But it\u2019s a very different skill to manage artists, so we had to find who I think is the best manager in London.\u201d<\/p>\n

His pick is Matt Dodds, formerly an A&R manager at U.K.-based Jem Music Group, who will run Ditto Management \u2014 a service that will operate as a separate entity, available but not mandatory for artists who go through Ditto\u2019s core distribution service. \u201cMy vision is that artists will use Ditto to get their music up on Spotify and Apple Music, and we can work with some of them and keep hold of them,\u201d Dodd tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cIf you have a management company as part of your service, it means you can find those artists, the Ed Sheerans and the Sam Smiths, and nurture them from an early stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The evolution of a music-distribution service into an artist-management service is an unusual one, but it reflects the status quo in the music industry<\/a>, which has been rocked by changes in recent years that are not usual in the slightest. As digital streaming services overtake CD sales and downloads as the most popular way people listen to music, the industry is finding itself with its old hierarchy \u2014 of record labels at the top and everyone else below \u2014 upended. While streaming companies are technically distributors in the way that record shops and the iTunes store are, their playlists\u2019 and algorithms\u2019 incomparable hit-breaking abilities means they hold as much sway these days as the companies that make and release music. Artists, too, are realizing that labels are no longer the sole gatekeepers to success.<\/p>\n

Ditto\u2019s new direction falls in line with many industry spectators\u2019 expectations that 2019 will see a further surge of smaller companies becoming holistic (or \u201cfull-stack<\/a>,\u201d as some call them) power players, seeking to capture a larger segment of artists\u2019 careers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe space is going absolutely crazy at the moment. In this landscape, everybody is diving into everything \u2014 there\u2019s SoundCloud adding distribution, Spotify and distribution,\u201d Parsons says, referring to recent announcements by the two streaming companies of new capabilities that either allow artists to sign direct deals with the companies or zippily upload their music<\/a> onto their platforms without going through an intermediary, like a label. \u201cI\u2019d rather focus on the long-term. For me, it\u2019s more about A&R than building out technology. It\u2019s hard to label what Ditto is with distribution and management together, but I\u2019d say it\u2019s like a very fair record label. This is a brand-new infrastructure that hasn\u2019t been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Parsons, Ditto recently purchased a new building in London\u2019s Shoreditch area that will serve as a \u201chub where artists can come and write and create,\u201d and his ambition is to build similar spaces in each of the 20 countries in which Ditto operates.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ditto Music has made a name for itself over the last decade as an indie music distribution service used by artists from Ed Sheeran to Stormzy to Chance the Rapper. It\u2019s now ready to expand, and the direction of its growth offers a good insight into the trajectory of the music business at large: On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2441548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 06:39:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2441548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2441548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2441548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2441548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}