We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ritch Esra. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ritch below.

Ritch, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?

One of the biggest trends in the music industry is the enormous growth of Independent Artists and their ability to connect with an audience on their own rather than having to sign with a record label. There are many examples of this over the last several years including Chance The Rapper, Bad Bunny, and Laufey, just to name a few. It has completely democratized the music industry in that it has put the power back into artists hands in a way that they have never had before. As such, what is required of an artist to build a career today – especially in the early stages is a level of enormous commitment and a work ethic that will truly separate the artists who will from the artists who won’t have a career.

The other big trend that I see is the staggering growth of Int’l music markets around the world. When you look at South America, The Middle East, Africa, and SE Asia among others. For seventy years, it’s been said that “One of America’s greatest exports is its culture” It’s Films, TV Shows, Books, and of course, its music. Well, now so many international territories are producing their own musical stars that are connecting with audiences around the world, such as Bad Bunny (Puerto Rico), Karol G (Columbia), Tayla (South Africa) J Balvin (Columbia) Nancy Ajram (Lebanon) Amr Diab (Egypt) just to name a few.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As a teenager, I always loved music. When I turned 18 in December 1977, I decided to move to Los Angeles and get a job in the music business. My first job was an unpaid internship at A&M Records in the radio promotion department. I contacted radio stations to see what records they were adding and dropping from their playlists. This was a very valuable lesson in how records moved up the charts. In 1981, I went to work for Arista Records in A&R (Artist & Repertoire – the division of the record label that discovers, signs, and helps Artists make their records. I worked with various artists at the label such as Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Dionne Warwick, The Thompson Twins, and others. I worked extensively with the publishing and songwriting communities to find great songs for the artists on the label. I also coordinated music for the “Ghostbusters” and “Perfect” movie soundtracks.

In 1987, I left Arista and started teaching courses on the music industry at Trebas Institute of Recording Arts – a Recording Engineering School, as well as at UCLA Extension. During this period I also produced an award-winning educational video for artists and musicians, entitled “How to Get a Record Deal. At the time, it was the only video of its kind examining the frequently misunderstood process from five different perspectives: record company executives, A&R personnel, artist managers, record producers, and 16 major artists including Phil Collins, Kenny Loggins, Mark Knopfler, Mick Fleetwood just to name a few.

In 1992, I formed The Music Business Registry, the music industries leading publisher of contact information. Our publications include The A&R Registry, The Publisher Registry, The Music Business Attorney Registry, the Artist Manager Registry, and The Film and Television Music Guide. Our various publications and databases give our customers the vital, accurate, and most up-to-date information that you need to contact the entire A&R, music publishing, artist management, legal, and film and Television music communities. Our subscribers are record company executives, music publishers, managers, agents, attorneys, studios, and other various music business professionals in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, Chicago, Atlanta, Toronto, London, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Stockholm, Sydney, and Munich.

After many years of teaching at various schools and institutions, I felt that I wanted to take this type of education out of the classroom so in 2012, I formed MUBUTV – Music Business Television with my business partner Eric Knight. MUBUTV is an educational channel for recording artists on YouTube. Through a series of extensive video interviews and podcast conversations with various music business professionals from all areas of the music industry, we educate artists on what it realistically takes for them to build a career as a music artist in 2024. Today, artists who are starting out have to be educated and aware of what it takes to realistically build a sustaining career for themselves as recording artists.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

In 2010 I was asked by the Chair of the Music Business Studies Department at the Musicians Institute, where I taught to moderate an A&R Panel in a few weeks. On the night of the panel, my future business partner was in the audience. Later that week, he emailed me and said that he really enjoyed the panel and could we possibly meet. We had a meeting at my home where we discussed our various backgrounds, the current state of the music industry, etc. He told me of an idea he had for a company he had that would integrate various elements of the music business for an artist. Over the next 2 years, that evolved into MUBUTV – Music Business Television. We saw where the internet was going and what was becoming possible to build and achieve regarding MUBUTV.
We have been building it ever since.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

When it came to putting the initial capital together for the business, we spent about two years developing and refining our business plan to raise money for MUBUTV. When we started going for finance, we were told that to raise the money we were looking for we would need to show that this was already a viable business. In other words, we would have to start with our own money and build it, which is what we have been doing. It hasn’t been easy, but nothing ever worth doing is!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mubutv.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mubutv/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MUBUTV/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4619245/
• Twitter: https://x.com/mubutv
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/mubutelevision
• Other: https://www.musicregistry.com

Image Credits

N/A