MA: It’s what you said: a balance of everything. It’s what backs us up and ties in with the numbers in the end. LM: For myself, I pay attention to the culture. He’s extremely forward-thinking, so that really plays a role into everything at Columbia, and he’s built a team to reflect that.Ī&R is a combination of data and gut intuition, how do you balance the two things? MA: Ron is very creative and innovative with the way he thinks. How has he changed the culture of Columbia in his time there? He just gives us that extra edge to be on top of things. Ron Perry is an A&R first, so it always puts us at an advantage because he’s super involved in everything. LM: I feel like we come from an A&R-centric CEO.
Signings are so competitive these days, what do you think Columbia offers as far as A&R that puts it above the rest? MA: Columbia is super collaborative, so if we have ideas, we always share them with each other, and Lu and I really balance each other well. It’s not even just music, just his personal life as well. We both pick Tjay’s beats, we both mix his music along the whole development process, so we work very closely with everything. There is no ego or pride, we both have the same goal for Tjay: to see him grow as an artist. LM: The whole thing about Columbia is unity. It’s just been a process over these last three years of growing and pushing him to the next level.ĭo you work together generally - how do you collaborate? What’s your process? It was an interesting process in terms of signing Tjay, and then Lu joined, and we both worked very closely together and see very eye-to-eye on his career and his sound. Maria Arangio: When we first found Tjay, he had a few songs out on SoundCloud, and what we noticed was each song was getting performing better after each release. She discovered him at Columbia I discovered him at a different label but we ended up partnering up. Then, when I went over to Columbia, Maria and I started working on him together. I was a mentor figure at first and worked alongside him. I discovered him early on, and he just became a good friend. I started working with Tjay when I was actually at a different record label.
Luis Mota: Our journey was a little different with Tjay. Tell us about signing Lil Tjay, Fivio Foreign, and what were your roles specifically? Mota and Arangio, who report to Perry and executive vp and general manager Jenifer Mallory, spoke with Variety about their new positions, developing Lil Tjay and where they hope to take Columbia’s A&R department in the future.
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