A PERFECT FIT
Interview by Jamie Mitchell
Given her experiences in various sectors of the music business, it’s hard to imagine anyone being more qualified to lead the Music Business Association than Portia Sabin. After getting her Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in 2004, Sabin played drums in NYC punk band The Hissyfits before moving to Olympia, Wash., to research her dissertation. There, her ongoing passion for music inspired Sabin to start her own management company, Shotclock Management, and take a job at indie label Kill Rock Stars, where she met her future husband, label co-founder Slim Moon. In 2006, she left her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington to run Kill Rock Stars, and five years later, relocated the bustling label to Portland.
Thanks to her deft performance as an indie-label head, Sabin’s stature in that sector of the business steadily grew, and in 2017, she was elected to a three-year term on the board of A2IM (American Association of Independent Music). Although she succeeded Jim Donio as President of the Music Business Association in September 2019, as a result of the pandemic, Music Biz 2022 will be Sabin’s first convention as the head of the trade organization.
You have a fascinating history. How did you go from drumming in a punk band to running the Music Business Association?
I’m a music fan who became a music-business fan during the course of my career. After I was in that punk band, I managed other bands, and I ran Kill Rock Stars for 13 years. And then I was on the board of A2IM for 12 years, dating back to the beginning of the organization. I was on the RIAA board, and I served on the Recording Academy Board of Governors for six years. I also started a podcast about the music business back in 2015; it was called The Future of What? I met a lot of people through that podcast, and I got really interested in the issues facing the music industry. So when this job came open, it seemed like a good fit.
What we do at the Music Biz conference is bring everybody in the industry together to talk about the important issues in our industry. It’s a crowdsourced conference, which means the industry puts forward the topics they want to talk about, and then we facilitate that. So it is a great fit because that’s what I’ve been doing for the last several years—discussing the issues in depth.
There was no convention in 2020 or 2021 because of the pandemic. Will you be making up for lost time?
Actually, I think we did an amazing job during the pandemic because it hyper-charged us to try to figure out who our members are and how we can best serve them. We ended up doing over 70 virtual events during the last two years that focused on the various aspects of our membership.
For example, we created Let’s Talk Physical, which is a quarterly virtual event for the physical-business folks—the retailers, the distributors, the labels. We’ve just funded a study on consumer behavior around vinyl purchasing. The results will be revealed at the conference. We helped put on two Couch Camp conventions for Record Store Day retailers, which enabled us to leverage the connections unique to this organization. We brought Discogs and Shopify to one Couch Camp to talk to retailers about how to build websites. Some retailers were adamantly brick-and-mortar before the pandemic, but then the world suddenly changed and they had to figure out how to sell online. But it does seem like everyone is excited to get together and be in person again.
What are some of the challenges facing the industry, and where are we in overcoming them?
In the past, the music industry has gotten into a lot of trouble by ignoring advances in technology, and the pandemic has made it clearer than ever that we’ve got to embrace technology; we have to try to be, if not ahead of it, at least in step with it. What Music Biz is thankfully well-positioned to do is be a place where people from every sector of the industry can come together to talk to each other. Roblox is giving a fireside chat, and we have blocks of programming around gaming, NFTs, the metaverse, web3—really critical issues that the industry needs to get ahold of now, because playing catchup has been the MO in the past. The NFT phenomenon is a great example. It was like Napster all over again; people were suddenly selling NFTs of music they didn’t even pretend to own. How are artists going to get compensated? I think the industry has heard that message, and that’s where we’re going.
If streaming hadn’t been the lifeblood of the music industry over the last two years, when it grew to about 85% of the overall business, we might not be having this conversation.
Some things work out in a weird way. It’s not perfect, obviously; the metadata behind streaming is still problematic. But Music Biz did two virtual Metadata Summits during the pandemic, and those were among our best-attended and biggest-money-generating events because people need that information in this ever-changing landscape. We’ll have a Metadata Summit at the physical conference, of course, but we’re going to continue doing that several times a year because the data changes all the time.
The program for the convention looks extremely interesting and especially diverse this year. Let’s start with the reimagining of the Bizzy Awards. Why was that necessary?
When I was on the A2IM board, I spearheaded the creation of the Libera Awards, which is now in its 12th year and a big moneymaker for that organization. They had been talking about having an awards show before I came onto the board, but nobody wanted to step up and spearhead it, so I did. I was, like, how hard can it be? And I found out it was really hard! But when I came to Music Biz, I looked at the awards we’d been giving and thought, especially in light of the pandemic, they were no longer as relevant. We need to do awards that are relevant to our community, that are going to be positive and inspirational.
One of the coolest things about this organization is that we’re super-diverse in terms of the sectors of the industry we bring together. So I wanted to do an awards show that would celebrate people for what they do every day—to give people a chance to nominate their peers and their own companies. Because if you, your boss or your company get an award, you have more skin in the game. Plus, I wanted to highlight the things that people are doing for positive change in the industry. We were very proactive about diversity, equity and inclusion during the pandemic. We maintain a high standard of DEI for our company and for the people around us, and one of the ways we can celebrate the changes happening in the industry in that regard is to spotlight them, to give people an award when they’re doing a good job.
And exhibiting your commitment to diversity gives you a louder voice in calling for others to become more diverse.
Exactly. Our Agent of Change Award is specifically for that type of leadership. The nominees are making videos about what they’ve done, which we’ll play during the ceremony. We’re trying to do an “If you build it, they will come” kind of thing—to make this an award that people want to receive. We want to encourage them to do good things not just for their own sake but so they’ll be eligible for the award, which may seem a little crass, but, hey, I think anything we can do to help in any way is worthwhile.
Your Presidential Award is going to Julie Swidler this year. Why did you choose her?
When I was the chair of the board of A2IM, I put together an executive committee; it was the treasurer and secretary of A2IM, Julie Swidler from Sony, Jeff Harleston from UMG, Paul Robinson from WMG and me. We’d meet with the RIAA people and some other folks and discuss issues in the industry. So that’s where I met Julie. To be a woman in such a senior position is not an easy thing to pull off, but Julie has so much poise.
So I was really impressed by her as a person. And what she’s been doing at Sony is very impressive; she started a diversity program for lawyers that supports people of color who are coming into the legal profession, specifically at Sony. It’s an incubator support program where they get funding and training. When I first talked to Julie about it, she said, “It’s not a big program; only two or three people.” And I was, like, “This is amazing. If you support three people and those people go on to have meaningful careers in the music industry, that’s huge. And if you do that every couple of years, it adds up.”
Give me your perspective about women, and women of color, getting a seat at the table.
We made a big effort to diversify our own company when I got here. At the time our board was 13 white men and two white women. Now we have a 26-member board plus an advisory board and a junior board, and we’re at 70% women and 40% people of color. We’ll continue to make those numbers move as we go along; it’s a never-ending process. We have a number of different types of organizations on the board, in addition to the usual suspects, plus retail, plus distro. We’re diversifying in every category so we can get as many voices into the conversation as possible. And the last three hires at our company were people of color, so we’re really trying to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
How is the Music Business Association addressing LGBTQ+ issues in the industry? What are some of the initiatives for full inclusion?
We’ve run programs throughout the pandemic on queer issues, queer representation, visibility, support… It’s just as important as any other aspect of diversity, equity and inclusion for us, and we’ll have folks in the room who can speak to it.
What do you see as some of the noisemaker panels coming out of this year’s convention?
We’ve actually made a point of doing fewer panels this year in favor of other formats. Our Community Hub, for instance, is new this year. We’re having a room where our partners—which include Color of Change, the Black Music Action Coalition, Women in Music, Gender Amplified and Queer Capita—can come each day to interact with folks and share what their organizations are doing. We’re also making two rooms available to our partners to host their own programming.
There are better ways than panels to address some issues. Panels serve a certain purpose, but what if you could have a Q&A session, a fireside chat or a roundtable discussion? So I think the Community Hub schedule is something everyone’s going to want to take a good look at. There’s so much amazing programming going on in there—along with the results of the vinyl study, we’re having Women in Vinyl, Women Behind the Boards and several gender/equity/diversity topics that are going to be really relevant and interesting. And again, it’s crowdsourced, so we’ll actually be able to get on top of what everyone’s really talking about instead of just what we think everyone wants to talk about.
There are blocks of programming on gaming and catalog valuation, which is one of the biggest things people in the industry are talking about right now. How do you sell your catalog? When do you sell your catalog? Do you even sell your catalog? Is this a bubble? What is the true nature of venture capital investment in the music industry? Is it positive or negative? How is this going to affect us in five years? Is it gonna be a disaster or is there a long-term benefit?
Our conversations are usually higher-level, but not even executives fully understand NFTs or the metaverse. So we’ll start at the 101 level and then showcase what our companies are doing in those areas.
Your keynote speaker this year is Jon Platt. What does he bring to the convention?
We’re very excited to be able to talk to him. In terms of catalog evaluation and acquisitions, publishing is in a very different place today than it was even five years ago, and as the head of Sony Music Publishing, he has unique insight. And as one of the highest-ranking Black executives in the music industry, Jon has a singular perspective to impart. I did an interview during the pandemic with Jeff Harleston about that exact thing, and I think it’s tough sometimes for people of color at the top to speak candidly about their experience. But it’s so important for younger people of color to be able to see examples of folks in positions of power.
Our first-night Keynote Panel will be entirely on DEI, with the chief diversity officers of the three majors, and I don’t believe they’ve ever been on the same panel before, so that’ll be exciting. It’s one thing to diversify the pipeline; it’s another to see representation throughout the entire industry, from the top to the bottom, and that’s what we’re going for.
More than a quarter of the people who come to our conference are C-suite executives, so Music Biz is the place where people go to meet the people who can actually make change. And we absolutely want to capitalize on that.
What else have you got up your sleeve for the conference?
We’re going to have the Song Suffragettes play at the awards dinner. Song Suffragettes is an all-female program that’s been running in Nashville for around 10 years. It was created because women in Nashville are drastically underrepresented. And though I can’t reveal specifics yet, we’re having an artist of color for the CMA brunch, as well as our first queer artist, who’ll be doing a fireside chat during our catalog-valuation programming.
Tell me about some of the efforts you’ve made to make the conference more global.
I put together a board retreat in January of 2020, and one of the things that came up was the idea that we could become more global. People from over 45 countries participated in our virtual events during the pandemic, and we’ll see that reflected at the conference this year. For instance, we’ll be welcoming 15 people from Finland, 20 from Norway and a contingent from Germany.
And because of the work we’ve done with retailers over the last two years, we’ve been getting so much feedback about the global nature of the music being consumed in the U.S., not just streaming but also vinyl. Carl Mellow from Newbury Comics told me that last December they sold more BTS vinyl than any other title.
I guess that’s not surprising given their popularity.
Absolutely, but when I was a 13-year-old buying vinyl, I wouldn’t even have thought of buying something from South Korea. But now, with the global nature and reach of music, the crossover possibilities are amazing.
What’s next for Music Biz?
Oh my God, how about a vacation?! We’re so slammed right now, but things are getting really exciting. I was at the Grammys this year, and practically everybody I met told me, “We’re coming to your conference in May.”
