TINKU BHATTACHARYYA: Muthas
Within her extensive management experience with Detroit soul star Amp
Fiddler, Tortured Soul and Incognito, Tinku has become known for developing
unique management models around marketing for album releases and live gigs
and is the brains behind M.O.I. (Muthas of Invention). She previously worked
as label manager with back catalogue specialist Strut Records, managed all
of the booking for Detroit’s Movement festival/ DEMF in 2003 and 4 under the
auspices of Derrick May and Carl Craig, and served as booker and marketing
manager at London¹s Jazz Café. She has also provided key production and tour
management services for top level touring including India Arie, Mattafix,
Moodyman, and Grandmaster Flash amongst others.
2007 saw Tinku relaunch her management company as Muthas - a radical new
company taking full advantage of the emerging digital landscape to maximise
the marketing and revenue opportunities for artists, labels and catalogue
owners. Offering clients the tools and expertise to operate in todays
fragmented entertainment ecosystem, Muthas help them develop and exploit
their copyrights while retaining their artistic freedom and financial
independence. The distribution services offered let rights owners keep
control, while maximising reach across different channels and territories.
Muthas also use the full power of social networking and digital
word-of-mouth to increase profile, develop fan-base, and create new rights
vehicles for driving promotion and revenue.
Particularly adept at marketing through specialist communities, Muthas
deliver music to the grass-roots the music-lovers and obsessives who
value music most and act as important tastemakers. While experienced in
traditional music business techniques, Muthas are also able to apply powerful
strategies from the wider world of relationship marketing.
Taking a holistic approach to an artist or catalogue, Muthas recognise the
increasingly diverse ways it could be monetised. And crucially, Muthas still
believe in proper taste, quality control and good old-fashioned music-biz
cunning. Current clients include Amp Fiddler, Stephanie McKay, Morley and
the Coopr8 network of independent artists (www.coopr8.net).
Through a partnership with K7, Muthas launch Muthas of Invention (MOI) in
July 2008.
First out the stable is Stephanie McKay a long term collaborator of
Amp Fiddler with her debut MOI album "Tell It Like It Is". MOI has also
attracted to the stable the band Drugs, the authentic progeny of the
Parliament/Funkadelic family, where Amp Fiddler and Stephanie McKay first
met. The brainchild of Drugs, Robert "Chicken" Burke will be releasing a
slew of albums following on from Drugs Prescription for Mis-America of new
and established Americana talent, with offerings from Drugs vocalist Joey
Eppard as well as his own self titled album.
Chicken is currently making a name for himself with a string of film credits
under his wing, including the successful "Paris" soundtrack released in January
2008 which topped the French music charts and the US film "The Rocker" released
internationally this summer. When he's not busy doing this, he has also been
busy being the executive producer on Stephanie McKay’s new album and is coproducing Amp Fiddler's third artist album.
Stable mate Amp Fiddler will also be featuring on another K7/Strut project
"Inspiration Information" with reggae legends Sly and Robbie in 2008.
New additions to the management roster this year were Bugz in the Attic and
the legendary Coop family of West London producers. We will be expecting
releases from Bugz in the Attic in 2008/9 (their second remix album and
their second artist album) as well as retrospectives and new artist albums
from West London luminaries such as Kaidi Taitham, Afronaut, Phil Asher,
Domu amongst others. The retrospective will be titled "Exposed". These will
be a consolidation of these artists' numerous projects and pseudonyms. All
of these releases are only possible due to the cooperative management model
of development each artist is working through with Muthas.
Past sales figures (approx):
Amp Fiddler (150k plus on Waltz of a Ghettofly - 65k on Afrostrut (though
this was caught up in PIAS/WOS merger and we departed the label before the
full album cycle was completed.)
Stephanie Mckay (we've had difficulty getting figures from EMI as both her
albums were released and then subsequently caught up in label consolidations.
Drugs - this was only ever released on the underground in France and USA totally approx 10k sales
Bugz in the Attic - last remix album 20k, last artist album 25k
Kaidi, Phil Asher etc - I have not got exact sales figures but my understanding
from Goya is that titles released through them all did between 5k-10k
depending upon the artist and project.