At this year's Women In Music Awards, we celebrated the achievements of 13 game-changing executives and artists as the industry came together to honour their work. Music Week has spoken to all 13 winners to tell their stories.
Words: Colleen Harris
“We’re such a small company and we just want to make an impact as a hub that loves our artists, loves what we do and treats each other as family,” said Charley Snook at the Music Week Awards earlier this year. “We’re here to stay…”
Fast-forward to the present day and the EGA Distro MD, who was celebrating taking home the Independent Record Company gong from our event back in May, is now toasting another milestone, winning the Entrepreneur Award at Women In Music 2024.
Charley Snook’s story stands as an illustration of what’s possible in today’s music business. After initially starting as PA to EGA co-founder Colin Batsa, who was managing UK rapper Devlin at the time, she rose through the ranks to become co-manager, manager and subsequently MD when EGA Distro launched in 2023.
Over the years, across partnerships with Island Records, Virgin Music and Capitol Records, Snook has played a key role in a variety of campaigns with a range of artists including Devlin, Griminal, Meridian Dan, Rema, Aitch, Arz, Oh Wonder, Zoe Wees and more. Today, her roster includes D-Block Europe, Nines, Potter Payper, K-Trap, Skrapz, Lifesize Teddy, Sharna Bass, Kirky, Marnz Malone and former Music Week cover star Digga D, who Snook personally advocated to re-sign.
Now at the top of the UK’s first Black and female-owned distribution company, Snook is at the peak of her powers. To toast her success, Music Week meets the executive to dig deeper into her come up, her experience of motherhood and her vision for a better industry…
Congratulations! How does it feel to win this award?
“When I heard I actually cried, because I was just in complete shock. In the past, when I've been to the Women In Music Awards, I'm in awe of every woman that goes up and wins something, and I genuinely can't believe that it's me this year. I just never expected it to be honest, but I feel really grateful.”
What does being an entrepreneur mean to you?
“To me, it means independence. You're under your own rules. You're not set to any schedule, and it's down to you to make it. That's why I love being an entrepreneur, you're in control of your own destiny.”
You started as an intern with Colin Batsa, now you’re the MD of EGA Distro, the first black and female owned label in the UK. Can you trace your path up to this point and outline how you got here?
“When I left college, I found an apprenticeship scheme that was called ‘Dv8’. It was based in Walthamstow, and the course was called Live Events and Promotion. It was an apprenticeship, so I was able to still study but work at the same time. I lived in a little village outside of Colchester [Essex] towards Ipswich, so it meant traveling two hours into London every day. The day of my interview for the course, [someone said], ‘There's a guy upstairs in the office and he's looking for a PA. He works in the music industry, and he manages an artist by the name of Devlin.’ I didn't really know much about the music industry at all, but I was just so eager to be part of something that I said, ‘Yeah, okay, I'll go and meet him.’ I went upstairs, and it was Colin, I had a chat with him for about half an hour. I remember being in Asda that night in Colchester and getting a phone call saying, ‘Oh, you're gonna have to come back into London tomorrow because Colin wants you to start straight away.’ I had a week's trial, and then 12 years later here I am. I still did the apprenticeship course for a year and Natalie Wade was my teacher there when I was 18. So that's how I met her, and she became a huge role model to me as well. Her and Colin were both hard on me because I think they just wanted me to succeed.”
Charley Snook with some of her EGA Distro team members
How did you move from PA to MD?
“It’s a weird one because for so many years I had in my head that I was Colin’s PA and I realised one day that I was holding myself back. It took a while for me to gain that confidence to say, ‘I love being your PA, but I feel like there's so much more that I know that I am.’ He's always told me that anyway, so it's not like he's tried to pigeonhole me. I remember we had a conversation one day, Colin would say to me, ‘What is it that you want to do, or what do you feel you're good at?’ And I would be stuck thinking, ‘I don't know, because I'm not a marketing person, I'm not A&R, I'm not digital, but I just love leading the company.’ And he was like, ‘Well, that's what you are. You're the managing director, you lead the company, and you run things on a day to day, and you're great with the artists.’ I think it was five or six years in, they gave me a piece of the company and made me a director. I then fell pregnant at 23 which was not planned whatsoever. It was during that time that I realised how much I was valued. We were such a small company, and we didn't know how to deal with me going on maternity leave, but the way Colin and Victor [Omos, co-founder] supported me, I realised we're one big family, and I just knew, this is me for the rest of my life.”
I look at a lot of people and men that I was around when I started, and I’m able to say, ‘I am now the MD of EGA Distro, I own my own company, I've been here for 12 years and I'm not going anywhere’
Charley Snook, EGA Distro
What's your opinion of the way the music industry looks after new mothers and families?
“My opinion can only go from how I was treated. The flexibility and support I was given made me feel like I could slot back in. I was so much more comfortable, but I can see why it is also really hard, because I did feel my own pressure of mum guilt - wanting to be there as much as I could at the company like I used to be but realising I can't anymore because I've got a little girl that I need to get back to. I was really lucky to have the support from my mum and dad. But there was added pressure to be like, ‘Okay, I really want to show my daughter that you can be a successful businesswoman,’ but also be a great mum to her and that's a battle that I'm still going through now.”
The Women in Music Awards is about celebrating women in the industry. But also draws inevitable attention to the barriers they face and inequalities of the past. What challenges have you faced, and how have you overcome them?
“At the start, I did face quite a few challenges. I felt like I had to prove to other people in the industry that I was important, and I should be heard as much as Colin, Victor and the other men around me. I found it really challenging when Colin gave me the [additional] role of becoming Devlin's manager on a day-to-day basis. I was going to a lot of the video shoots and promo with him, and [getting asked], ‘Can I speak to Devlin's manager?’ or, ‘You must be the makeup artist, you must be the stylist.’ It wasn't believed that I was the manager and there was not as much respect as if a man had come along and started talking to him. I found that difficult. I had to try and make myself more present than I needed to be.”
How did you get past those kinds of situations?
“I had to prove everyone wrong. This is why I feel so proud of where I am now. I started as a young 18-year-old from outside of London, and I was very quiet and reserved. I look at a lot of people and men that I was around at that time, and [I’m] able to say, ‘I am now the managing director of EGA Distro, I own my own company, I've been here for the last 12 years, and I'm not going anywhere.’ I put my work into the proof of that. That was my way of showing them, ‘You have to take me seriously. You have no other choice.’ I feel like we're the leading rap distribution company at the moment, and if you want to be part of that or do business with us, you have to take me seriously. Day to day in the office the women actually outnumber the men, there’s five women to four men, which is pretty unheard of in the industry.”
Your relationship with Colin is obviously really special. Can you sum up why and how it works so well?
“I feel like the loyalty and dedication I've shown him, and that he's also shown me through some of my most difficult times of being a single mum and things that I’ve been through, has played a massive part of it. I never saw EGA as a stepping stone in my journey. As business partners we both know our roles. I don't try to step on his toes, he doesn't try to step on mine. I know he's the president of EGA Distro. He does what he does with the artists, but then I know what I can bring to the table. We're very good at playing those roles well together. I'm not here to say that I want to be the president, I love being the MD. I like being the mother hen of the company and looking after the team. And when the artists need me at certain points, he knows when to bring me into things.”
Looking ahead, how do you want your career to evolve?
“I just want to keep building EGA Distro, turning the company into a global brand and that hub for artists. We want to branch out to EGA Publishing, EGA Films, and give people that don't usually have a voice an opportunity. [I want to] build a legacy [so] my daughter can look at me and say, ‘Do you know what mum, you really did it,’ so that she has no boundaries on what she can become. I asked her the other day, ‘What do you want to do when you're older?’ She said, ‘I just want to be you.’ I feel like I could cry thinking about it. That was such a lovely feeling for me. She’s seven. She doesn't even really know what I do, but she sees me working hard on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes I feel so guilty that I come home, and I might still be on a call, or I might have to do this at the weekend, but to know that she actually feels proud of me for doing it, it's a massive thing for me.”
Click here for more from Women In Music 2024.
