Music tips: Label Operations Manager

Music Tips

It’s been a really hot and sunny October.

Coupled with the occasional blind-sighting rain, of course. Always here and there, mostly unexpected, and sometimes it doesn’t even bother to bring you any breeze along, just floods, vibes, and inshallah.

Yet even in the midst of all this heat and paddling puddles, we never once forgot you, our darling readers. Instead, we’ve been stacking up some heat of our own.  We’re back with another interview and solid music tips, and if there’s anything we’ve learnt so far, it’s that there are so many hard workers involved in the total execution of an artiste’s story.

From artist managers to the men in black to creative directors and designers, everyone joins hands to help the artist tell a story, build the brand…achieve the dream.

Today, we’re highlighting another backbone in the mix, another strong shoulder to stand on.

And since we’re committed to giving you the best, today on our CiDAR hot seat, giving us all the tea and all the quips, we have Temi, our in-house ‘Label Operations manager’.

For a little sprinkle of context, Label Operations Managers are the multi-taskers of the music world. They’re the behind-the-scenes boss who keeps everything organised so the artists and creative teams can shine without chaos! They are constantly tracking streams, syncing teams, and making sure every beat, release or roll-out goes out smoothly, juggling all that magic like it’s a piece of cake. Now that we’re up to date, let’s dive in!

1. Hearing directly from this baddie’s mouth, in a nutshell, what would you say it is that you do at CiDAR Africa?

Temi: Well, I’m a Label Operations Manager. So I’m basically responsible for coordinating and executing operational processes involving our priority artists. Anything from distribution and releases to project management, coordination, dealing with data, that kind of thing.

2. Interesting. What is a typical day in your life?

Temi: A typical workday for me involves highlighting my priorities for the week or day, joining my daily stand-up meetings, following up with boss about the priorities  , and then executing the tasks

3.  What’s your favourite way to destress, and what’s your go-to song to listen to to help you start your day or to help make work feel a little sane?

Temi:  I destress by eating or sleeping, and I don’t exactly have a go-to song, but sometimes, whenever I’m tired, I just listen to unreleased music by a couple of our artists. It helps me get into the CiDAR space and kind of helps me remember why I’m there. I flow freely with it.

4. Let’s get right into that CiDAR space then. What’s the most chaotic day you’ve ever had managing an artist rollout?

Temi: Hmm, it was this day where my two bosses (Gafar and Bimbola) were unavailable, and we had a priority artist’s music release happening that day but I basically had no clue what the plan was roll-out wise. We had to come up with a plan in like, less than 24 hours. It was a super stressful moment but it definitely brought out some crazy creativity.

5. What are basic things that can easily go wrong behind the scenes but fans never notice?

Temi: Honestly, a couple of things, like the wrong version of a song uploaded, could be the version that wasn’t properly mixed and mastered, or it could be missing a detail, so if discovered earlier, the audio could be swapped and you wouldn’t notice anything. ‎

6. What’s the funniest or most unexpected artist request you’ve ever gotten?

Temi: Never really had anything crazy that’s worth remembering

7. What is your ideal experience working with an artiste? Are the artists who are surprisingly very organised behind the scenes and make your work easier ?

Temi: It’s pretty simple for me; I love working with artists who know what they want. I don’t expect you to know it all, but please just have an idea, because it tends to make my work easier.

8. How do you manage difficult artists, colleagues, and people with different temperaments? (DIY TIPS that can help other people)

Temi: Honestly, I haven’t really directly dealt with anyone who’s proven difficult to work with

9. What’s your favorite part of preparing a rollout?

Temi: It has to be the inception period (cooking) and seeing it actually convert to what you hoped and sometimes even better. Yeah it’s seeing it do what you want it to do.

10. What’s the most underrated part of label operations that people outside don’t appreciate enough?

Temi: Just the amount of work that goes into it, I find that to be really underrated because it requires you to stay on top of everything that involves the artist back-end, 10 toes on the ground.

11. As a label operations person, what are the 3 must-haves for you?

Temi: Ability to multitask, ready to build relationships and cool-headedness

14. What are specific traits or quirks you have that you think have helped you greatly in your line of business and make your work easier to do?

Temi: For me, it’s my eagerness to learn, my willingness to ask questions, and the fact that I’m never too proud to ask for help when I’m stuck.

15. That’s awesome. So tell us, how does label operations connect with marketing, A&R, and distribution teams? Where’s the cross, and where do you come in?

Temi: Label Operations serves as the bridge that connects all these departments. My role as a label operations manager involves staying on top of everything and ensuring that all matters related to the artist within any of these departments are handled seamlessly and remain airtight.

16. If you could manage a dream collaboration between any two artists, who would you pick?

Temi: Obedo and Olamide, Kunmie and Wizkid.

‍

Well, that’s certainly a dream I’d love to see come to life. Thank you so much for your time, and thank you, readers, for sticking through! See you next time.

‍