Category Archive

As you know, we’re big fans of theme weeks here at Nue. Fashion Week. Social Media Week. Advertising Week. All the weeks! And this week marks the return of the absolute cult classic, the dondada of the seven-day promotions game: Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week.” They say the music business is the most cutthroat industry in the world. Breakout rap star Cardi B told Howard Stern that she’s experienced more ruthlessness in music than she did as an exotic dancer. But …

How do you bounce back from eight days in the desert? You don’t. Staying awake until the sun rose over Massada on the final, crazy night of my “trip of a lifetime” felt like a Herculean accomplishment (as did coming into the office yesterday after landing in New York at 4:30AM). But being surrounded by illuminating, beautiful people that were masters of their respective crafts made it worth every second of lost sleep. There were Crypto Kings and futurists. There …

There’s a famous Warren Buffet quote that had me stumped for a while: ”The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” Far be it from me to question The Oracle of Omaha, but I think there are exceptions to this rule. That’s why by the time you read this, I’ll be deep in Israel on what’s touted as the tech trip of a lifetime. Sometimes, when the right opportunity …

Is it me, or was June the best month of music ever?!? Maybe it’s me. I always need that new-new and I always gravitate towards hot, about-to-pop hits. Ask my mother. My first word was actually “hot.” I know I’m not alone when I say I was obsessed with mixtapes. I started making them for people during high school and I never stopped. But like the Myspace “Top 8,” mixtapes fell off in time. Music may be as ubiquitous and …

As June wraps up, New York City continues to celebrate its second annual New York Music Month, a program built by the office of Mayor de Blasio to highlight New York’s music & nightlife culture. Last week featured the independent music scene with Indie Week culminating in the A2IM Libera Awards Show. I ended up staying longer than expected at Cannes Lions (hello to all my new friends from the south of France!) so I missed the awards show & …

Bonjourno from Cannes Lions. This week is the Cannes Lions Festival. The most glamours gathering of advertisers I have ever attended. This is my first time here and it’s been off to a fantastic start. We started the trip yachting through the south of France over the past few days, exploring both Monte Carlo and St. Tropez. The magic of this trip so far has been the serendipity and conversations. On Saturday night, in a small town outside of St …

June is New York Music Month, the official citywide celebration of New York City’s music industry, artists, and fans. This new tradition brought on by the De Blasio administration provides a great time to shine a spotlight on NYC’s music scene. As their press release reads – “Organized to coincide with other major NYC music events in June, the month’s calendar boasts both public and industry facing events, including Governor’s Ball, the Annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, the National …

Dear Summer, welcome back! It’s wonderful and very rare to spend a chill holiday weekend at home. I was supposed to head out east but after plans changed I got the chance to have a little staycation here in New York. I forgot how much I love The City on a holiday weekend. Amongst other things, I finished the book “Hit Makers, The Science of Popularity In An Age of Distraction” By Derek Thompson. I saw the David Bowie Exhibit …

Here at Nue one of the emerging sectors in culture that we are most bullish on is the utilization of voice recognition technology and digital audio. Everyone knows about smart speakers at this point. Over 40 million people in the US now have them and quite clearly it’s an arms race with Google, Apple and many more allocating a lot of resources to support the new technology. However, the content created specifically for this new platform is a long way …

I’m lucky enough to live and work in the greatest city in the world. In case you can’t tell, I am madly in love with the concrete jungle. The non-stop energy of NYC is contagious. Our sidewalks are runways, our hometown pride is unmatched and our people truly have the biggest hearts. It is especially incredible this time of year, when spring reaches full bloom. The city comes alive and fires on all cylinders. Something I’ve learned along the way …

About 10 years ago, when I first moved back to New York from a 2.5 year stint in LA, I wanted to re-acclimate myself in the scene. I was a big believer that tech in many ways was going to be the savior to the music business and therefore wanted to immerse myself in the then emerging NYC tech scene. I signed up for the New York Tech Meetup and went to see what it was all about. I found …

The most exciting thing in music right this minute is none other than Kanye West. Love him or hate him (as his methods are quite polarizing) Kanye triumphantly returned to Twitter a few weeks ago and ever since has been lighting the industry on fire with consistent commentary, ideas, and news about upcoming releases. Kanye has even trolled our president getting both his praise and retweets. It seems he is borrowing a page from the playbook of his “dragon brother” …

AdAge asked me to write an Op-Ed for their Music Issue that went live this past week and I decided to cover Blockchain, one of the most interesting topics of 2018. Music has always been a leader in culture. Not only through artists (the most dynamic and charismatic creatives you can imagine), but with the sound itself, which travels fast. This was the first industry the digital revolution decimated and we now have a chance to be a first mover …

This week marks a notable day that was vitality important to me back in the day. Now all of these years later, it’s back on my radar in spades. The holiday is 420. Nue keeps its eyes and ears open to some extremely BIG growth areas. We have always been on the mark when it comes to spotting hot trends, discovering artists, maximizing new platforms, breaking brands. What is coming down the pike now may be some of the greatest …

On my constant quest for self-improvement, I headed to the Catskills this weekend for a retreat, as part of a program I’m doing: Level Up. Level Up is a 3 month continuation of a weekend program I did last year called Camera Ready run by the TRL famed Quddus and his fiancé Carmina. I met Quddus 7 years ago (this weekend actually, realized that thanks to Timehop) at the first ever Summit at Sea. I’ve got to thank my former …