Welcome back to Djembe! First of all I must thank all my loyal readers and also for your encouraging comments. Today’s topic is about A&R and it will be further broken down to other topics such as artistic identity,establishing a core audience and artist management.
We can’t talk about the personality of an A&R if we don’t know what it means, so what is A&R and who is an A&R? Let the discussions begin!
A&R is an abbreviation for Artist and Repertoire. This is a division of a record label who specializes in talent management. An A&R representative is an individual who works for a record label or music publishing company that sorts for music inclined individuals to with the aim to sign them to the record label.
They serve a unique role in record labels you can even call them recruiters because that’s their primary job description. Now the main gist for today, what is the personality of an A&R? What are their skills which are crucial for them to perform their duties? This is what you need to know.
1. People management skills: They are the best when it comes to relating with people you can easily call them the live of the party or those individuals who know how to communicate effectively.
2. Organizational skills: Is he/she meticulous to core while being in the music industry? They just might be an A&R.
3. Time management skills: Time is money, that’s the mindset of an A&R.
4. Networking skills: Remember I said they are life of the party? The main reason might not be because they want to party but because it is important to network. This networking leads to connections with other A&Rs,record labels upcoming artist that are not yet signed.
5. Selling skills: Socializing, networking isn’t just enough, you need to learn the craft of selling. An A&R knows that he needs to convince fresh artists on why their record label is better than others with proofs and then he needs to prove to the record label that the fresh artist is capable of delivering top charting records.
6. Continuous learning: He/she is always on the lookout to discover new updates in the A&R profession and music industry. They’re the definition of learning is a continuous process.
it’s obvious the personality of an A&R is a unique one and one has to be intentional about the profession. It can be tough sometimes but you need to find ways to solve those issues and bounce back as a good talent manager.
What else would you like to know about an A&R? Comment below and I will reply but if it’s a common question, I will blog about it. New Shows and awards coming up soon, turn on your post notifications.
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