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

Hi Lily, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I saw fellow musicians struggling to get out of these really intense contracts when there was a huge abuse of power or just unfair contract stipulations. I had previous business experience in the race horsing industry. I wanted to marry that experience with my love for and experience in music as an artist myself. It inspired me and encouraged me to create a music label that looks out for its artists. We’re in the formative years but we’ve started seeing an increased interest from fans recently. Some of my goals are to eventually provide sliding-scale mental health resources for our artists in-house, for example, if someone reaches Madonna’s levels of fame under our label they pay a little more than someone just starting out at our label, who might not even have to pay at all. I saw a huge need for mental health care and access, especially for our artists in the Korean Entertainment Industry, we’ve seen too many idols, and too many bright singers with so much potential end up committing suicide due to the pressures and isolation that can come with fame. This can be helped with label-based support. We’re just not doing enough as a society to look out for the people who bring us joy, laughter, and our own emotional outlets through music, television, movies, and other performative endeavors. One thing that really sets us apart is that we don’t put up boundaries for our artists, we take the classical music approach if you want to sing a foreign language, as long as you’re respectful to the country/countries that speak that language and the people in those cultures you can sing whatever you like. Music is a universal language in my opinion and experience. I also don’t put stipulations on where an artist is from or what religion, sexuality, or gender expression they practice. If you’re dedicated and have the basics down you can audition and be seriously considered without bias or prejudice, that’s my promise to our applicants, artists, and fans. I aim to treat each individual with equity to achieve equality, we each need different things and accommodations after all. We’re creating a safe haven for artists and fans alike. I really hope that everyone stays tuned for our upcoming projects everyone is working so hard to give our fans the very best.

Lily, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Lily Merrick, I’m 26 currently. I got into music because I had a crush I wanted to impress so I started to learn how to play the guitar so I could surprise her. I ended up falling in love with writing songs, it became a huge outlet for me and a way to process my mental health issues. With the horses I fell into it as a legacy, my dad worked in the industry for 20+ years before I was even born. I spent most of my childhood at the racetrack. Products we produce are mainly in the normal realm of what you would expect from musicians, social media content, music videos (plans to shoot this summer), digital singles, EPs, mini-albums, full albums, and even massive anthology albums. Merchandise is also available at this point for specific groups and soloists, we’re starting to offer physical albums with unique features including photo cards, messages from the artists, and photobooks. There’s a chance your album may even have a poster or special signed photo card, even event tickets in the future. We also work gigs and provide filming, recording, and photoshoot solutions and packages for clients that have an idea they need help bringing to life or staffing. I want our fans, followers, and potential clients that we put our heart and soul into all of our work. We have a hugely strong work ethic and drive at YNA Entertainment. You can also check out our services by following this link: https://www.ynaentertainment.com/services

We also have special opportunities to invest in specific projects or in the company as whole, if interested you can find that on the following page, we’d love to work with anyone interest and can work with small or bigger investments: https://www.ynaentertainment.com/invest

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Having high-quality, work that got better over time, giving fans an underdog to root for and connect with establishes a loyal following. It’s worked wonders for one of our groups THORA(X).

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We’ve been in this since December 2018, we saw the company through COVID, and had a massive artist change over due to so many factors, but we’re still in this pushing through as best we can. And all we can keep doing is to try.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ynaentertainment.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yna_entertainment/?hl=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq2eRl2bSp23SuQrDI51DDA