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17.08.12 MusicWeek 11
DUBZ BE GOOD TO ME
JONATHAN’S SHALIT’S INVOLVEMENTS with the multi- MOBO-winning N-Dubz has led directly to mainstream awareness of the band – whether through Dappy’s appearances on Never Mind The Buzzcocks or Tulisa’s BBC Three series My Mum & Me and her subsequent appearance on The X Factor. “You have to admire their talent,” he says. “Dappy’s
behaviour might be slightly erratic – he is mad, but he’s also a genius. People laughed at N-Dubz to begin with. It took a long time, but they’ve all individually proven themselves to be massively talented.” He adds: “Tulisa is a great model precisely because
she’s not perfect, and she doesn’t claim to be. She’s had to fight for everything she’s got. And she’s a great example to young people: if you fight hard and work hard and focus, you can achieve anything.” Fazer, the third member of N-Dubz, is set to
embark on a solo career with strong support from Radio 1 in the bag.
Simon Cowell and LA Reid. I could get them to be the first urban act to have regular appearances on This Morning and Daybreak.” Shalit reveals a career maxim that he says has
often helped attract some of his younger acts to ROAR’s Global stable: “It’s not cool to be poor.” If that sounds a little too focused on bank
accounts rather than artistry, Shalit openly considers monetary prosperity as a key metric of an artist’s career. “Some acts will look at me and think, ‘He’s a
heathen, he’s the devil, he’s too commercial for us,” he acknowledges. “That phrase always makes me laugh. The positive of artists being true to where they’re from is that people believe in them, but that only takes you so far. Liam Gallagher goes to The Ivy. He might look rock and roll, but the fans don’t see him hob-nobbing with the good and the great.” He adds: “The market moves forward very
quickly: Mika and Corinne Bailey Rae were huge – where are they now? If you’re happy to have your moment and then go and work in Sainsbury’s, that’s fine. But if your ambition is to have a long life in entertainment, you need to be willing to diversify and work with people who can take you to a bigger platform – people like me.” Shalit likens ROAR’s cross-entertainment setup
to major US agencies like William Morris or CAA, opening up TV opportunities for music clients which wouldn’t exist elsewhere. He recently picked up the management account for Simon Cowell’s Britain’s Got Talent, and now represents Pudsey the dancing dog.
His recent 50th birthday party at the V&A was
his little black book come to life. Attending the bash were friends and clients of ROAR including Myleene Klass, Tulisa, Kelly Brook, Lorraine Kelly, the Home Secretary and a Sugababe or two. More interesting still was the subsequent national media coverage – kind, visual and fulsome. Tellingly, top editors of The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Mirror were also in attendance at the party, as were ITV controller Peter Fincham, Sky News chief John Ryley and Sony Music chairman Nick Gatfield. “When you’re young and caught up in the scene,
you think it’s important to be seen in the right night club,” says Shalit. “But as you get older you realise the important decisions in the entertainment business aren’t made at 3am. I am proud to work with everyone we’ve signed to ROAR – but you don’t need to be friends with your acts. You never want to hear bad news from your friend. ” If Shalit’s traditional music magnate appearance
harks back to a more refined era, there’s nothing outmoded about his understanding of the record business. He has kind things to say about the likes of David Joseph, Doug Morris, Lucian Grainge, Nick Gatfield, Lyor Cohen, Christian Tattersfield and Ashley Tabor – and especially about Matt Cadman and Cris Nuttall, the duo whose part- independent All Around The World label worked with Shalit to break N-Dubz. But when it comes to top execs from years gone
by, Shalit is less complimentary. “The record industry now is playing catch-up for the ignorance of the people who ran the business 10
“If you’re going to be globally successful, you’ve got to enter the global game – and the global game is controlled by people like me JONATHAN SHALIT
or 15 years ago,” he says. “They created massive damage. Steve Jobs was able to take advantage of their idiocy. He was a genius – but those who could and should have challenged him didn’t have the balls or the foresight to do so.” The one and only time Shalit bares his teeth in anger during our interview – and, incidentally, the one and only time he curses – is when discussing the amount of money that filters down to artists themselves. “The whole system is set up so that
artists don’t get fairly remunerated,” he says. “We can talk about Spotify or record labels or iTunes ripping musicians off, but it’s about more than that: it’s the culture of society to think musicians shouldn’t be paid properly for what they do. “Music is undervalued by the British economy and Government. You can go to
some parts of the world where the only British products are songs written by a Brit, produced by a Brit or sung by a Brit. And yet we’re underrepresented in Government and with funding. The department that does music is called the Department of Culture Media and Sport. Why the hell are we and sport together? It’s an absolute insult to both. “All I want is for talented musicians and artists
to get the recognition they deserve, and to receive the wage they deserve. In spite of my outer appearance, music is at the core of my being. “Perhaps, after all, that’s why I ended up in this
job in the first place.”
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