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Ethiopia Habtemariam, president of Motown Records, spent the last year helping her artists navigate the painful reality of life offstage as they restructured album release plans. Below is Time magazine’s interview with Ethiopia. (Photo: Camera Press / Redux)
HOUR
The pandemic shook the music industry. Live performances, which are a critical part of boosting business (and making fans euphoric) were quickly shut down last year. The concerts will take time to return. (Who’s willing to huddle alongside sweaty strangers, screaming at the top of their lungs?) Ethiopia Habtemariam, the president of Motown Records, has spent the last year helping her artists navigate the painful reality of life offstage while restructuring. album release plans. . He helped one artist cope with depression when a long-awaited record was postponed and, in the early days of the outbreak, advised another to take the virus more seriously. “There was a lot of misinformation about COVID and the communities it was affecting,” he said. Habtemariam remembers a young artist who was still hanging out in town saying, “Oh no, that’s a rich man’s thing.”
While the live shows failed, the music provided comfort to those trapped in their homes and apartments. Total audio consumption, which includes streaming and album sales, rose 11.6% in 2020, according to MRC Data. And for the 41-year-old Habtemariam, last year helped their continuing mission to make the legendary Motown brand relevant in today’s culture. In 2015, he signed a joint venture with Quality Control Music, an influential hip-hop label based in Atlanta, spawning a string of mega hits from hot young artists like Migos, Lil Yachty, and Lil Baby. Lil Baby, an Atlanta rapper, singer and songwriter, had the best-selling album of 2020, according to MRC Data, beating Taylor Swift and The Weeknd. And Lil Baby’s single “The Bigger Picture,” released after George Floyd’s murder, became an unofficial protest anthem played at marches and rallies across the country. He has over 112 million views on YouTube.
Habtemariam, who began her music career as an unpaid intern at age 14, recently joined TIME for a video conversation about the pressures of taking over a historic label, the dangers of social media for artists, and her favorite spots. Live.
(This interview with Motown Records president Ethiopia Habtemariam has been condensed and edited for clarity.)
So what have you been listening to to overcome the pandemic?
I went through a phase around April, May, when it was like going down memory lane from my childhood, remembering songs that I grew up on. High school, high school years. And it was actually therapeutic in many ways. It helped me get over many of the different emotions and feelings I was having, and it also reminded me why I fell in love with music.
Rumor has it that you were a huge fan of TLC.
I still think they don’t get the credit they deserve because they were so big! TLC, Aaliyah, Missy [Elliott], Lauryn Hill, I was also a huge Janet Jackson fan.
I’m a huge fan of music, period. I am the daughter of immigrants. My parents are Ethiopian and I am an Ethiopian American. I grew up in the south. So here I am, this young lady, with a name like Ethiopia; It was a bit extraterrestrial, but music was my salvation. It was my escape, but it was also a bridge to connect and build friendships.
How did the pandemic alter your release schedule? You still managed to have one of the biggest albums of the year, with Lil Baby’s My Turn.
I remember him vividly because we programmed some stores for him. I remember coming to Atlanta and making sure everyone had hand sanitizer. And then it all shut down, and we really had to come together to figure out how we were going to move forward.
We posted it on February 28th and it was huge. The response was incredible; everything was great. And two weeks later, the world turns off. One of the things that was in the plan was, of course, a great tour.
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