Andre BenzHis foray into the music business was unlike most. He didn't attend a music business program at a university, toil at an unpaid internship, or manage a local artist. Instead, he built his own YouTube empire at the age of 15.
Working out of his childhood bedroom in New Jersey, Benz created the YouTube channel Trap Nation, showcasing a curated selection of dance music and remixes of popular songs. “At first, it was just a hobby, but I think one of my pluses and minuses is that I become obsessed with what I do,” he says. “I just kept doing it and doing it until one of the uploads blew up — a remix of Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking Ball.'
By the time he graduated from high school, Benz had become an unlikely but important tastemaker in the world of electronic music. He expanded Trap Nation to a whole range of channels – Chill Nation, House Nation and Bass Nation – and says his flagship brand has grown to around 2 million subscribers. Today, it has amassed over 30 million.
At the same time, he met another student, Brandon De Oliveirawho went to a neighboring high school in New Jersey and had mutual friends. Their eventual collaboration led to Benz selling his YouTube channels to Create Music Group in 2022 and co-founding Broke Records with De Oliveira the following year. Now 27, Benz says his goal is nothing but to build “the best independent label in the history of the music industry” and is inspired by the digital approach of Mike Caren's APG and Elliot Grainge's 10K Projects, which he says showed him how indie success might look like.
“What we're doing wouldn't work at any other company in the music business — Republic, Columbia, Atlantic or Warner,” says Benz. “[Create founder] Jonathan Strauss and the entire Create team have given us complete trust, opportunity and accessibility to do what we believe is right for the company. That means making bigger deals and taking bigger risks.”
“Andre gave me this printed chart as a Christmas present to celebrate the launch of the company,” says De Oliveira, “so we could see it and understand the level of growth the company had over the next year.”
Jamie Pearl
Broke Records is distributed by Create and has a staff of eight full-time employees focused on finding and breaking artists. The label currently has London-based Angolan rapper Ndotz's “Embrace It” and Iranian-Dutch singer-songwriter-producer Sevdaliza's “Alibi” on Spotify's Global Top 50 chart and claims that its international roster, which includes Blackbear, Bread Beatz and Camelphat, generates more than 32 million streams per day worldwide on Spotify.
How does your YouTube marketing background and experience with algorithms benefit?
ANDRE BENZ That's our biggest advantage and the biggest difference between us and an older company — how we think about services for our artists. We don't have to rely on paying outside people to do this [digital marketing] for us. I think a lot of companies like to outsource work because it holds a third party accountable. If the artist complains, the label can say, “Oh, it's actually their fault.” Some of these other labels also have too much volume and can't control what's actually going on, so they outsource the work.
Why are you succeeding with TikTok creator campaigns at a time when digital markets say they are less effective than a few years ago?
BRANDON DE OLIVERA I think creator campaigns are now more influential than ever, but everyone is spending too much. We are constantly updating the list of creators we are [using]. Two or three years ago, labels used to think, “Okay, these are the big bills now. We'll just go to them.” The percentages of these creators continued to rise and as the market continued to saturate, these creators were no longer moving the needle. In some cases, we'll spend on bigger creators, but for the most part, we spend about $1,000 on 100 to 200 creators in really strategic markets — specifically Eastern Europe and Latin America. That's where we usually start most of our campaigns before moving into more premium areas.
“Lowly Palace was the first company I started, when I was 19,” says Benz. “We created a hardcover illustration book of our cover to showcase the brand and vision we had. I stick to it to appreciate the importance of progress and development over the years.”
Jamie Pearl
Why these areas?
DE OLIVERA Cheaper costs, and these purchases start many trends online. Many of the marketing campaigns start as packages. We distribute less money to a lot of tracks that have familiarity in whatever kind of video we're dealing with, whether it's editing, dances, lip-syncs and so on. And a lot of these bigger creators in the more premium areas – where we'd have to spend $4,000 for a post – just go for free. Why? Because at some point, there's a tipping point where creators jump in just because they see videos using that song getting bigger.
Andre, why was Create the right partner for you? Why not keep doing things yourself?
BENZ There were three or four years after I started Trap Nation where I was, for lack of a better word, a degenerate. I wasn't interested in music at all anymore. I couldn't find passion. I was so young when I started it and I felt like I had no one to relate to what I was building. YouTube was going down and our channels were slowing down. I had never gone through the process of growing up fast and then declining. I was like, “I'm out, I'm done.” I wanted a fresh start. The buyout was less monetary than a fresh start. I was like, “Okay, I can sell this company, move on, integrate into a new ecosystem and learn from other people who started their own company. Jonathan Strauss started [Create] around the same time I started [my company]. I thought, “I can learn from these people.”
How promising are YouTube Shorts and other features the platform has added?
BENZ I am very excited about YouTube Shorts. I think they're going to continue to push them from an algorithmic standpoint, and we're seeing that we're able to capture a lot of new audiences and revenue as well. We make a lot of money on YouTube Shorts for songs we put out because we have a really good content claim team [through Create]. And because of our background at YouTube, we understand the platform better than any other company. They also give us great support. Every time we have songs trending on this platform, they'll give us billboards in Times Square [in New York]in Los Angeles. They will show us on the home page. YouTube, of all the platforms right now, is by far the most powerful for boosting files.
Does Shorts virality translate to non-YouTube streams?
BENZ Not really. Brandon and I share the opinion that YouTube Shorts usually come last in terms of virality. It's TikTok, then Instagram, or TikTok and Instagram at the same time. Then it goes on YouTube a month later. But we see our songs go super viral for a while on YouTube Shorts. I don't think we've ever found a new viral song from YouTube Shorts — maybe once. We don't search for artists or records on Shorts. It's more of an audience marketing opportunity.
The gold Broke sweatshirt “was the first piece of merchandise we produced under the new label,” says De Oliveira. “We continue to give it to our artists and partners.”
Jamie Pearl
What do you do to ensure the longevity of these songs that go viral and, in the long run, build a catalog?
BENZ When we started Broke, the plan was to build an incredible digital marketing team and sign a lot of these viral electronic songs because that's what we know best. That's how we did it. And then we started moving into other genres: rap, alternative rock, pop. Then we hired a few more people. Now we need to start breaking artists and building bigger narratives around artists, not just singles.
In two years, we want to have four to five superstars [with] 30 million to 40 million monthly listeners, selling out arenas, selling out merchandise. Sevdaliza is our first chance to prove ourselves. It's a huge risk for our company because of the size of the deal, but I think it's a unique opportunity for us to go above and beyond. I want to prove to people that you don't have to be signed to Republic Records to make the top 40 [radio]. You don't have to sign to Island to be the next Sabrina Carpenter. I don't think anyone has proven that yet.
What does the label landscape look like in 10 years?
BENZ Many distributors will start acquiring and launching labels like ours. Many traditional labels will continue the distribution model, which I think is a race to the bottom. It makes absolutely no sense. It will be more fragmented, more democratized. You will have more independent market share.
DE OLIVERA There will be a lower barrier to entry with [artificial intelligence] — whether it's mixing, mastering, content production or the actual full production of songs. It will be really interesting and extremely saturated. So figuring out how to create experiences and truly personal moments between artists and their fans will be the key differentiator moving forward.
This story appears in the November 16, 2024 issue Bulletin board.
