The phrase “independent label” has rarely worked harder in the music business than it does today. But for Giant Music, it’s an apt description – whichever way you look at things.
The company was co-founded by Shawn ‘Tubby’ Holiday in 2022 alongside Irving and Jeffrey Azoff, its name a throwback to Azoff Sr.’s 1990s JV with Warner Music. Holiday is a veteran of Sony Music Publishing and major labels such as Columbia and Interscope, and has worked closely with the likes of Cardi B, Travis Scott, and Solange.
In 2024, Nate Albert was named President of Giant, working closely with Holiday, and bringing an A&R pedigree from Warner Records, Capitol, and Republic, where he worked with the likes of The Weeknd, Omar Apollo, and Teddy Swims. (Albert also boasts a rather less corporate footnote: he was a founding guitarist in ska-punk stalwarts The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.)
Giant sits within the sprawling Azoff empire, with the Los Angeles-based Azoff Company also spanning Full Stop Management, Global Music Rights (GMR), Iconic Artists Group, and Oak View Group.
“We’re not focused on market share, stock price, or managing a roster of 400+ artists.”
NatE Albert
Giant Music has already delivered a genuine breakout in Bronx “sexy drill” pioneer Cash Cobain, whose 2024 debut studio album Play Cash Cobain landed with cover art by Drake. Others on the label’s roster include the likes of Ruel and Empress Of, while it recently planted a flag overseas via a new UK footprint. Giant’s London operation includes A&R director Josh Stent, with local signings including Alfie Jukes, Hohnen Ford, and Blair Davie.
In January Giant took a strategic investment from Concord and a global distribution deal with Stem. (Concord, which owns Stem, is itself now merging into BMG to create what some in the industry are billing as a “fourth major.”) Giant retains full creative and operational autonomy.
Here, Music Business Worldwide speaks with Holiday and Albert about what a genuinely modern independent looks like, why they believe the traditional record business is “ending” – and their new bet on Britain…
Giant launched in 2022, at a moment when ‘independent’ had become one of the most elastic words in music. What was the founding idea – and how has it held up?
Holiday: Our vision continues to be based on one of the main principles of The Azoff Company: do what’s right for the artist, and success in business will follow. We started Giant to provide more choice to artists after years of consolidation. It’s a full-service, completely independent label, and there aren’t very many of us when you look around.
There used to be dozens, even if you just looked at the US and UK. Most labels that call themselves “independent” are attached to a major in some way – most are really A&R sources that rely on majors for marketing and distribution. On the other side, you have distribution companies that have started “labels,” but really all they do is provide money and pipes. Sometimes they’ll offer playlisting or digital marketing support when something really takes off.
“We’re committed to developing and amplifying artists, using the expertise we brought from our collective experience at the majors, combined with a label team optimized for the pace of the modern music business.”
Shawn ‘Tubby’ Holiday
Holiday: We’re committed to developing and amplifying artists, using the expertise we brought from our collective experience at the majors, combined with a label team optimized for the pace of the modern music business.
Albert: Giant provides real artist development and the full suite of marketing services to break an artist around the world. We can do that without having offices everywhere, because we’re focused and we know what to do in each market as our artists need it. It’s not a one-size-fits-all machine.
Holiday: What’s changed the most is that there’s more noise in the marketplace than ever, major-company rosters have only gotten bigger, and artists need more support than ever to break through. We’re fully committed to helping build the next class of global superstars, and we have the team and resources to do it.
You’ve both come up through the majors. So what’s the honest, fundamental difference between working inside one and working at Giant – and why should an artist pick you over a major deal?
Albert: Giant has a completely different set of goalposts than a traditional major. Our goals are geared toward creative excellence, artist development and long careers – we’re not focused on market share, stock price, or managing a roster of over 400 artists.
Albert: As for our own, more curated roster: our full-service marketing team can compete with any label on creativity, partner relationships, data insight and, often most importantly, speed. Our team comes with years of experience from both major and independent companies, so we can execute at scale based on the opportunity. Rallying around a micro-trend in UGC, a last-minute sync, an overnight boost in streams, or building out a physical retail and D2C rollout across global markets – these are the challenges we rise to every day.
Holiday: An artist should choose Giant based on alignment in long- and short-term goals. We don’t want to skip steps, and sameness isn’t interesting to us. We’re ready to put the work in and swing big.
You’ve just signed a global distribution deal with Stem and taken investment from Concord – rather than doing the obvious thing and cutting a major-label distribution deal. Why?
Holiday: Our imperative has always been to move with efficiency, autonomy, precision, and skill. We previously used FUGA, but when they were bought as part of the Downtown sale, we went looking for another option to stay independent. Stem is a natural fit, based on their speed, agility and data flow, and they share our commitment to nurturing artists. Concord helped provide capital to continue our journey.
“A talented, focused, bespoke label team is more powerful than an unfocused army of ‘global’ label reps.”
Nate Albert
Albert: We don’t believe we need a major-label distribution partner. A lot of people think you need the boots-on-the-ground system across the world that a major provides, but that just isn’t true anymore. There are real challenges with the legacy “global priority system” at majors when it comes to breaking artists locally, outside their home markets – and it’s expensive for an artist to use that system. We look at the whole world and decide for ourselves where to put focus, based on where the opportunity is for the artist.
Albert: We’ve launched campaigns out of the UK and Europe, Mexico, Southeast Asia and more, and grown them from there. Going through a traditional major distributor would make that approach impossible – their infrastructure, inherited label priorities, focus on local repertoire, and so on. Our view is that a talented, focused, bespoke label team is more powerful than an unfocused army of “global” label reps. In that way, we think of ourselves less as an independent option, but really just a better option.
Cash Cobain has become your calling card. What does his breakthrough tell you is actually possible outside the majors right now?
Holiday: Cash is a great example of what can happen with a focused, informed, collaborative approach. Across the first two albums, we identified his growing audience, surrounded him with A&R and marketing support to pour gas on the flame, and pretty quickly scaled viral moments into real breakthrough single campaigns.
Play Cash Cobain charted in the US, UK, Canada, and many other markets. We worked closely with our DSP partners on marquee global breaking-artist campaigns – Apple Music‘s Up Next, YouTube Foundry, Amazon Artists to Watch, iHeart and more – charted at US Urban and Rhythm radio as well as Radio 1 in the UK, and charted multiple songs on TikTok, Reels, and Shazam. That’s on top of bigger cultural looks with COLORS, the New York Times, Pitchfork, BET, and others.
Albert: The proof of concept, for us, is that across genres and around the world there are marketing, media and cultural targets that used to be the dominion of the traditional majors and can be achieved by independents. In-stores, fan activations – just in the last year we’ve done fan events in London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Seoul, Mexico City and São Paulo – global streaming, radio play, superstar collaborations. All of it can be done with the right artist, if the team is motivated and equipped. Which we are.
There’s a lot of talk about frontline versus catalog in the streaming era. How hard is it to break something genuinely new when you’re competing against the entire history of recorded music – and where’s that dynamic heading?
Holiday: The fundamental challenge of making and marketing music hasn’t changed much in a hundred years: there’s a sea of “good” and not a lot of “great.” Our job is to nurture the great.
Holiday: Audiences are hungry for anything that feels urgent, authentic and timely. People’s attention spans are limited, so we have to bring them artists and music that feel essential to the moment they’re living in right now. Helping break Cash Cobain out of the drill scene in New York and onto the world stage; presenting our Australian pop artist Ruel to multiple sold-out, label-produced fan events across South America during his Lollapalooza tour this year; launching a new album campaign with Empress Of on her fall tour with Lorde – the goal is to meet the audience in their lives and bring them something truly singular.
You’ve both spent years inside major-label machines. What did you take with you when you built Giant – and what did you make a point of leaving behind?
Albert: The goal has been to take everything valuable we learned at the majors and get rid of the rest. It takes grit and tenacity to break artists – weeks, months, years. We stay focused on the creative and marketing work artists need to build their careers, and tune out the noise. We have a smaller roster, so our artists get real, focused attention. We’re not making bets on a roulette wheel or throwing things against a wall to see what sticks. That’s what we choose to do differently.
Holiday: On the A&R side, we help our artists make the records they want to make. We put them in rooms with the people they want to work with and give them the time to develop their sound. We hear all the time that labels are only there for you once you start to get traction on your own – that artists have to do it all themselves now. That’s not how we think about it.
Holiday: On the marketing side, it’s the same nurturing, bespoke approach. We determine early on exactly what our goals are for each phase of a campaign – with the artist and manager – and go after them relentlessly. If we want to start by hand-selecting five ex-US markets to build first, we choose where we spend and which partners we work with. If we need to help an artist build out their touring infrastructure or merch business, we can do that too. Throwing significant spend behind a viral trend, a sync or a brand campaign – we focus on whatever’s going to move the needle.
You’re now building a real presence in the UK – Josh Stent on the ground in London, and signings in Alfie Jukes, Hohnen Ford and Blair Davie. Why bet on this market now, and what do you see in it?
Holiday: The UK has always been a cultural leader in popular music, and from an A&R standpoint it’s predicted and anointed global breakout artists for decades. We look at the world as one large marketplace, so it’s always made sense to focus there, both for signings and for our own staff.
Holiday: As for these three: they’re very different musically, but all of them are singular vocal talents with the potential to demand a broad global audience. We’re marketing and developing them out of the UK, but building toward the world. With Josh and the team on the ground, we can identify talent and find artists before they’re on everyone else’s radar, and start marketing them locally in an organic, informed way.
How do you see the UK sitting in the global picture today – and what role do you expect UK-signed artists to play in Giant’s international strategy?
Albert: There are cultural markers in the UK that continue to influence audiences and discovery around the world. Radio 1, BBC Introducing, festivals like Wireless and The Great Escape, venues like The O2, Brixton Academy and the Roundhouse – these still mean something, and our artists have touched all of them, across the roster.
Albert: As for the artists based there: Giant is a full-service label to them, not just with staff on the ground in London but with our global marketing resources coming out of LA as well. London used to have plenty of full-service independent labels; not so much anymore. We feel like we’re filling a need.
Looking ahead, then… what’s the future of the traditional record-label system, and where does Giant fit in it?
Holiday: I think it’s clear that the traditional record business is ending. And we think of ourselves as the start of the next phase.
If you could change one thing about the global music business, what would it be?
Albert: More transparency in how artists and managers receive information – streaming and social data, financials, recoupment. We’d love to help equip artists, managers and lawyers with as much transparency as possible. The more clarity artists have, the better everyone can operate and build their businesses – and the more artists are positioned to succeed.
All MBW+ subscribers get digital access to our Music Business Worldwide magazine, with six issues released each year. Music Business Worldwide
