BIG YELLOW DOG DONS HARVARD CRIMSON

Big Yellow Dog Music, the Nashville-based indie pubco and artist-development incubator founded by Carla Wallace and Kerry O’Neil, has launched a label in partnership with Atlantic through WMG Nashville.

During its two-decade existence, BYD’s roster has racked up 34 chart-toppers, four Grammys and four ACM Song of the Year awards, among other milestones.

The first release from the Big Yellow Dog label is “Time of Our Lives” a single from singer/songwriter Brynn Elliott. It drops today—which is also Elliott’s graduation day from Harvard, where the brainy newcomer majored in philosophy.

Elliott’s debut EP, scheduled for release later this year, juxtaposes the Atlanta native’s undergraduate studies with her burgeoning career. Each of the five songs on the EP was inspired by a particular philosopher or set of ideas, with “Time of Our Lives” drawing on Heidegger and existentialism and “Might Not Like Me” working the feminist critiques of Descartes into a timely anthem of empowerment.

Can any of your roster acts make a similar claim?