News African music enjoys breakthrough on Shazam’s Global Top 200 Chart Twelve tracks by African artists reached the Shazam Global Top 10, with three reaching the No. 1 position.
News From Concord’s $1.76 billion ABS transaction to Universal Music Group’s EU scrutiny… it’s MBW’s weekly round-up The biggest music biz headlines from the past few days, all in once place.
News Germany’s recorded music sales grew 1.4% in the first half of 2025, marking a significant slowdown The country's recorded music industry trade group is urging the EU to create the conditions needed for an AI licensing marketplace
News Anthropic beefs up legal team ahead of showdown with Universal Music Group (report) A blog called chatgptiseatingtheworld.com said the judge’s recent decision sets the stage for larger damages in Anthropic’s two legal cases.
News Music industry backs reintroduced ‘RAP Act’ that would bar lyrics from being used as evidence in US court trials ‘Freddy Mercury did not confess to having ‘just killed a man’ by putting ‘a gun against his head...'
News Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos talks up ‘Kpop Demon Hunters’ as fictional groups dominate Spotify charts Seven of the top 15 tracks on Spotify's most-streamed tracks in are by virtual artists from a Netflix movie
News Nicki Shamel appointed Head of TuneCore, US Former AWAL exec joins TuneCore as company 'continues its pivot to artist development for self-releasing artists'
News Former Spotify exec Jérémy Erlich launches ALTA Music, signs K-pop star JENNIE The Los Angeles-based company has struck a partnership with THEBLACKLABEL, founded by BLACKPINK producer Teddy Park.
News Update (2): Three former HYBE employees receive sentences for insider trading on BTS’ military enlistment (report) Two former employees and a current staff at the company were fined between KRW 51 million to KRW 231 million each.
Interviews ONErpm’s Emmanuel Zunz: ‘There are no more distribution companies, there are no more record labels. There are just companies providing solutions to creators.’ ONErpm founder Emmanuel Zunz on hitting $300m revenue, the Universal/Downtown deal, and why traditional music industry categories are dead to him
News Recognition Music Group plans $372m bond sale – as value of catalog once known as Hipgnosis Songs Fund continues to balloon Blackstone-owned Recognition owns the portfolio of music rights built by Merck Mercuriadis at HSF
Interviews Naoshi Fujikura on breaking global superstars, Japan’s culture of superfans, and UMG’s positioning in the world’s second-largest music market… MBW's World Leaders series meets Naoshi Fujikura, President & CEO of Universal Music Japan
News ‘Super listeners’ make up just 2% of an artist’s monthly streaming audience, yet buy 50% of concert tickets, Spotify says Spotify may have just identified the 'super-superfans' who truly drive an artist's career
News UMPG signs Grammy-winning songwriter, producer and musician Joel Little to exclusive global admin deal Little’s songs have amassed more than 25 billion global streams to date
News Alejandro Duque takes on dual role as President of ADA and President Of Warner Music Latin America Duque has served as President of Warner Music Latin America since 2021.
Analysis The UK government just unveiled a new ‘label-led’ initiative to improve pay for legacy artists, songwriters and session musicians. Here’s what that means… UK songwriters will be the first in the world to receive a per-diem from labels for attending songwriting sessions
News Jim King promoted to CEO of AEG Presents UK and European Festivals The live entertainment company also promoted Steve Homer to President, UK Touring, reporting to King.
News Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and heavy metal pioneer, dies aged 76 "It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning," said his family in a statement