Universal Music Group Shuffle

Universal Music Group has reorganized its East Coast recorded music operations — re-establishing Def Jam Recordings, Island Records and Motown Records as stand-alone labels within the UMG family. Effective immediately, IDJ will cease to exist, and the other label brands previously associated with IDJ will be realigned under the three flagship labels — Def Jam, Island and Motown. With this new structure comes some executive changes: Steve Bartels has been named CEO of Def Jam Recordings. Bartels had most recently served as President & COO of IDJ. In addition, Dion “No I.D.” Wilson and Kyambo “Hip Hop” Joshua have been appointed Executive Vice Presidents and Co-Heads of A&R for Def Jam.

Ethiopia Habtemariam has been upped from SVP of Motown Records to President of the label. Motown will also return to Los Angeles, the label’s longest-serving home, where it was based for nearly 25 years beginning in 1972. Motown will be a freestanding label within Capitol Music Group, alongside such iconic labels as Blue Note, Harvest and Virgin Records, among others. Habtemariam will continue in her current role as EVP/Head of Urban Music at Universal Music Publishing Group.

Island Records, under the leadership of David Massey, will expand its own marketing, publicity and A&R departments to grow the Island brand and produce the best in rock, alternative and pop music. Island will also have the ability to draw upon the promotional resources of UMG’s Republic Records, the No. 1 U.S. label in 2013 based on current album market share.
Karen Kwak, EVP/Head of A&R for IDJ has been promoted to the newly-created position of Executive Vice President A&R, U.S. Recorded Music. In this new position, Kwak will serve all of UMG’s labels in the U.S.

Concurrent with this transition of IDJ into three stand-alone labels, Chairman and CEO, East Coast Label Group, Barry Weiss has decided to step down from his current position in order to enter into discussions with UMG about a new venture together.