NOISEMAKERS:
A ROARING BUNCH
In our latest roundup of Noisemakers, we present eight more rising professionals from various parts of the biz whose dedication and effort make their superiors look good.
This week's entrants will also find their faces in our most recent mag. Lucky for them, this feature might—but will most likely not—get them a free oat milk latte from Starbucks.
Eli Piccarreta
VP of A&R, APG
Not only did Piccarreta sign influential rapper and streaming sensation YoungBoy Never Broke Again, the young exec also A&R’d every NBA album and mixtape, from 2016’s 38 Baby to the milestone 2019 chart-topper AI Youngboy 2—more than a dozen projects in all. In 2020, Eli handled A&R on two more Youngboy #1s, which led to the hip-hop star becoming the third-most-streamed artist of the year. Currently, the APG hitter and former DJ is working closely with another young rapper on the rise, Cico P, whose track “Tampa” is going viral.
Sara Gil
VP, Label Management, RECORDS
Gil has been with RECORDS since its launch six years ago, working her way up from executive assistant. Last fall she watched 24kGoldn’s “Mood” f/iann dior (Columbia) explode—it hit #1 at Top 40—from the comfort of her home, which took a bit of the sting out of the pandemic. These days she’s knee-deep in developing latest signing 44Phantom, to name just one of the projects crowding her plate. A classically trained singer who knows her way around an Italian aria, Gil boasts a skill set almost as diverse as RECORDS’ roster.
Sam Cohen
Director, Artist Marketing, 10K Projects
Cohen bears the distinction of being tied for first 10K employee with a colleague who now runs the label’s international operation; he’s had the pleasure of watching his career grow alongside the company’s fortunes. Presently gearing up for album releases from iann dior, Trippie Redd and producer collective Internet Money, he’s working to duplicate the massive success the latter enjoyed with last year’s “Lemonade.” Cohen was raised in L.A. but born in Paris and speaks fluent French, giving him the invaluable ability to ignore us in two languages.
Manos Xanthogeorgis
SVP, Digital Marketing, Columbia
Having made his way from Athens, Greece, to New York City, Xanthogeorgis is forever grateful for his dream job, running digital marketing for artists like Harry Styles, Lil Nas X, BTS, Polo G, Miley Cyrus, John Mayer, Labrinth and Chloe x Halle. Among his favorite campaigns are those undertaken on behalf of Styles’ 2019 album, Fine Line, and David Bowie’s swan song, 2016’s Blackstar. In 2015 Xanthogeorgis hand-delivered Adele’s 25 to the Brazilian CD-production factory to prevent leaks. He should trust his security instincts and avoid us at all costs.
Max Weinberg
VP, Marketing, Interscope
In addition to DJ Snake, Jacob Collier, Louis the Child, Gryffin, contradash, Cian Ducrot and Mura Masa, Weinberg’s stable boasts Machine Gun Kelly, Yungblud and LILHUDDY, artists he’s proud to see at the forefront of pop-punk’s return to the mainstream. His own claims to fame number two Guinness World Records, both attempted as marketing activations for DJ duo Dada Life: World’s Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Fruit (629 participants) and World’s Largest Pillow Fight (3,813). Speaking of fighting, Weinberg’s a second-degree black belt.
Lorena Garcia
Manager, Digital Marketing, Primary Wave
How does Garcia live her best life? By helping Melissa Etheridge launch her weekly live-performance platform, EtheridgeTV, which has hosted 285+ shows; assisting Fantasia mount her weekly Facebook Live “Taylor Talks” program (10m sessions logged); and getting Plain White T’s fontman Tom Higgenson on comedian Matt Cutshall’s “Emo’s Not Dead” series, which highlighted PWT’s “Hey There Delilah.” She’s now preparing for the 40th anniversary of Olivia Newton-John’s multiplatinum Physical. We hear Garcia is fluent in Spanish, too. No tienes idea de cuanto nos odia.
Danny Berkeley-Scott
Manager, A&R, Hallwood Media
When Berkeley-Scott moved from Toronto to L.A., he celebrated the arrival at #1 of client Yung Dza, a Serbian producer who achieved that feat with Cardi B’s “Up.” DB-S also handles German producer Elyas, co-credited with Young Thug & Gunna’s “Solid” f/Drake; producers DAYSIX (Czech) and Zypitano (Emirian), who collaborated on Rod Wave’s double-platinum “Rags2Riches”; and Bert (Spanish), who produced Popp Hunna’s “Adderall (Corvette Corvette) Remix” f/Lil Uzi Vert. In other baller news, Berkeley-Scott has been described as “probably the best Canadian basketball player working in music today.”
Jace Cohen
Co-Founder, Versa Entertainment
Pre-pandemic, Cohen presented EDM festivals globally, including Wuhan, China’s Vision & Colour Festival, which he’s working to reboot now. He recently brought electronic music to Nederlander Concerts’ Drive-In OC series in Anaheim, including multiple sold-out Kaskade and Gareth Emery shows. You’d think booking Drake at a private dinner for the rapper’s hometown show would be one of the most epic things Cohen’s done, but he also holds the Guinness World Record for World’s Largest Pillow Fight, an achievement he shares with fellow Noisemaker Max Weinberg.
