Monday, February 3, 2014

Lyor Cohen's 300 Record Label Will Use Twitter to Sign New Artists

Lyor Cohen and Kevin LilesBen Gabbe, Getty Images

Is Twitter the next frontier for hot artists? Lyor Cohen hopes so. The music industry veteran will join forces with the social media network to sign new talent to his 300 label.


“In the modern A&R business we are all looking for talent in various places, and certainly Twitter is a terrific place to look at talent,” Cohen said during the Midem music conference. “If you want to get signed, you have to engage with Twitter, and of course YouTube, and we’ll be looking to try and develop tools that the rest of the music community can utilize.”


Cohen, who spent many years running Def Jam and Warner Music Group, has helped with the development of artists like Jay Z and T.I. He’ll be joined by Kevin Liles and Todd Moscowitz at 300.


The 54-year-old, who says his “drug” is looking for the artist that will change his life and change formats, explains what he’s setting out to do with 300. “The mission statement is to create a lasting reputation for high quality and artist development,” he shared. “It’s a creative hub that goes beyond the creation of music and songs. It’s a place where artists, managers, agents can access experience and tools so they could be highly participating in the artist development process.”