Next Friday, 50 Cent – boxing promoter, soft-drink tycoon and, incidentally, one of the biggest hip-hop artists of all time – comes to the 02 for his first UK show in nearly half a decade. On the surface, it’s nothing remarkable, but the gig isn’t being bankrolled by an events behemoth like Live Nation; it’s being put on by an indie promotions company created by two young music fans just four years ago.
Musicalize was founded in 2011 by Ben and Sophie Anderson, a husband-and-wife team who had seen their fill of live events where hyped unsigned artists were let down by woeful production values. They decided to put on their own events instead. “We had no music industry experience,” says Ben, “but we thought: ‘How hard can it be?’”
It helped to have friends in high places. The Andersons befriended tastemakers including SBTV’s Jamal Edwards and a pre-fame Ed Sheeran, while Ben’s sister Sian is a 1Xtra presenter. But they wanted to create a space where industry insiders and fans could enjoy new music together, ideally in a slick venue. Their events lean heavily on a “networking” element, which has helped them build a solid fanbase and sell out shows by everyone from grime artist Ghetts to US stars Lil Kim, Eve and Ciara.
However, trying to establish a successful promotions company that puts on US and UK R&B, hip-hop and grime – the sort that would have been dubbed “urban” back in the stone age – isn’t without its difficulties. The notorious Form 696, a licensing requirement that demands that promoters detail the genre of their music event, seems to magically appear whenever largely black crowds are due to be in attendance.
Musicalize, however, has approached this hindrance in a more democratic way. In May 2013, when it was told it couldn’t put on K Koke, a young north London rapper the police had tried (and failed) to charge with attempted murder, its response was to march down to the local nick to negotiate. “In the case of K Koke, we got him to sit down with the licensing team,” says Ben. “He understood that [the police] wanted reassurance that anyone from his former life wasn’t going to show up. In the end, we got the go-ahead for one of his first London shows. The people who want to cause trouble are rarely the same people who pay to go to hip-hop shows and the police eventually acknowledged that.”
A lack of experience and a lot of front clearly still count for something. “Our naivety helped us,” agrees Ben. “We’d be told by industry people that we couldn’t have a grime show in central London, but we’d just go ahead and do it.” It was this same straight-talking that saw him phone up Ed Sheeran after Sheeran had dropped his first number one album and asked him to play a charity show with them. Sheeran said yes and Musicalize knew they’d arrived. In the face of calculated brand marketing, Musicalize’s approach is refreshingly old-fashioned and more in line with the music fan than business man. Live Nation and co should listen up.
50 Cent & G-Unit perform at The O2, SE10, on 17 July
