Topline
Scooter Braun, one of the most famous artist managers in the music industry has said he’s officially done with management, citing a desire to spend more time with his family and dedicate more of himself to his role as CEO of entertainment giant Hybe America, news that comes almost one year after rumors first started swirling that he was parting ways with longtime clients Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.
Scooter Braun and Justin Bieber on Jan. 27, 2020.
Key Facts
Braun, 42, whose management career took off in 2008 when he discovered a clip of 12-year-old Justin Bieber online, on Monday announced he would no longer work as a manager for his company SB Projects and would pass his client lists on to Allison Kaye and Jennifer McDaniels.
Braun said he’d been moving toward a retirement from management for about two years but made the ultimate decision last summer, when one of his “biggest clients and friends told me that they wanted to spread their wings and go in a new direction… Instead of being hurt, I saw it as a sign,” Braun said in a statement published by Variety.
Braun’s career in the music industry has spanned more than two decades and included the management of top-named artists, the founding of Schoolboy Records and the founding of Ithaca Holdings, an investment company that later acquired Big Machine Records and, with it, the masters of Taylor Swift’s first six studio albums.
Last August, rumors swirled that Braun had parted ways with his biggest talents—including Grande, Beiber, Demi Lovato and Idina Menzel—and news later broke that Grande and Lovato had signed with Brandon Creed’s Good World Management and that Bieber’s wife, Hailey Baldwin, was taking on a larger role in management of his career.
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Crucial Quote
“I never saw how this chapter would end, hell, I never even saw it happening,” Braun’s statement reads. “But it did. And I will cherish every moment of it. I made my plan… but it turns out I like God’s plan better. Cheers!”
Key Background
Braun started working as the head of marketing at So So Def, the record label owned by Jermaine Dupri, when he was 20 years old. In 2007, when he was in his mid-20s, he started an entertainment and marketing company called SB projects. The next year, he found Bieber and became his manager and helped guide him to his first record deal. He made a name for himself by representing popular teen artists like Bieber, Lovato and Grande, and produced the documentary film projects “Never Say Never” about Bieber and Lovato’s “Dancing with the Devil.” In 2019, the Brain-founded holding company Ithaca Holdings, which includes SB Projects, acquired Big Machine Label Group in a highly public, $300 million deal. Two years later, South Korean entertainment company Hybe (the company behind the mega-popular Korean boy band BTS) merged with Ithaca Holdings in a $1 billion deal. Braun has been Hybe America’s CEO ever since.
Tangent
The acquisition of Big Machine Label Group launched a very public feud between Braun and Taylor Swift. The contract under which she recorded her first six albums gave Big Machine the rights to her master records, and despite Swift’s claims that she “pleaded” to buy the masters back from Big Machine, they were never sold to her. Instead, the label was sold to Braun, who Swift says had spent years bullying her and orchestrating some of her most embarrassing moments. “Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy,” Swift said. “Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” In 2019, Swift announced she would re-record all of her original albums and own the masters herself. Months later, Swift accused Braun of preventing her from performing her old songs during a medley at the 2019 American Music Awards and said the music wasn’t allowed to be included in a Netflix documentary about her. She said Braun and Big Machine told her she would only be allowed access to her old music if she promised to call off the plans to re-record and stop talking about her original music all together. She released the first re-recorded album, “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” in 2019 and has since put out “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in 2021, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” in 2023 and “1989 (Taylor’s Version), also in 2023.
Surprising Fact
Braun is credited with brokering the 2013 deal between Kanye West and Adidas that later led to Yeezy. West left Nike to form the partnership, which led to the release of Yeezy Boost 750s and Yeezy 350s in 2015. The deal was extended in 2016 and the Wave Runner 700, one of the most popular shoes of the Yeezy line, debuted in 2017. The partnership continued through 2022, when Adidas cut ties with West over his antisemitic comments about Jewish people in interviews and social media posts. Adidas said it would donate $150 million from the sales of the shoe line to groups that combat antisemitic hate. At the time of the split, Adidas’ Yeezy stockpile was said to be worth $1.3 billion it broke off its partnership with West. Adidas earlier this year said it would release the remaining Yeezy inventory for sale.
Further Reading
Scooter Braun Officially Retires From Management (Variety)
How Scooter Braun Built One Of The Most Successful Management Companies In The World (Forbes)
