Music industry titan Darcus Beese has set the business to rights in a new interview with Music Week.
The legendary executive joined Warner Music UK in July 2021 in a dual role as EVP, WMUK and president of JV record label Darco Recordings after a spell running Island Records US in New York.
“The only thing that really drives me is creation," he said. "The journey to having a hit, being in the studio with an artist and hearing something amazing. That has put a Duracell battery in my back since I returned from America. I want to be wherever creation is happening.
“Warner has been a great partner and has been patient with Darco Recordings, considering how difficult the landscape is now. The backing they’ve given me, the label and its artists has been great, second to none."
Beese is fresh from penning his first memoir, Rebel With A Cause: Roots, Records and Revolutions, which tracks his journey from his childhood in West London to the top of the music business.
“I never sat down and said I wanted to mythologise my story in this way," said Beese, speaking in the August issue of Music Week. "When I came back from America in 2021, I was approached to write an autobiography, which I wasn’t keen on. Then the idea of a memoir came about. I was a bit emotional after coming back, but I also thought, ‘I’m not a writer, I don’t have the attention span for that.’
"I met [co-author] David Matthews, a contrarian just like my dad [the late activist Darcus Howe]. We met up every week and had hours and hours of conversation over nearly three years to the point where I found myself in the process [of putting a book together]."
If you look at the mix of people that are running the frontlines, you can say that there’s been change
Darcus Beese
Beese started out in the music industry in 1989 as an intern in the Island Records promotion department before making his move into A&R. He progressed through the ranks at Island Records UK, becoming A&R director, then co-president of the label in 2008, and president in 2013.
In a career spanning more than 30 years, Beese signed and guided the careers of stars including Amy Winehouse, Ben Howard, Bon Jovi, Demi Lovato, Dizzee Rascal, Jessie J, Florence And The Machine, Mumford & Sons, Shawn Mendes, Sugababes, Taio Cruz, The Killers and U2. He moved to the US in 2018 to take up the president and CEO role before leaving the label and returning to the UK.
Discussing his success at Island, Beese said. "I always knew that it was going to be a long play, and that it was about a skillset I had to develop. Music is art so if you’re going to curate art, then you have to take that seriously.
"None of my career happened by accident. When I got to a point where records needed to be made, I spent those 10,000 hours doing it, and I was able to go on and repeat with different artists and different levels of success. I never really thought it was just about me. I worked with amazing people on the way. It’s the same as a football team; you’ve got to have the balance.”
The 2019 Music Week Strat Award winner also reflected on the industry's progress on the issue of representation and discrimination over the last half-decade.
“I think five years on, if you look at the mix of people that are running the frontlines, you can say that there’s been change," he said. "But as much as I made that point five years ago, the music industry, or the model that I knew, was all born from breaking acts here and around the world.
"When you’re on this journey behind an act and going from 100-person capacity venues to 300, to 500, to 1,000, that’s where people used to draw their influence, their power, their passion, their excitement, and that’s what the music industry was. So, in the absence of that, it doesn’t matter how many people you have, how diverse it is – if no acts are breaking, then where does the excitement come from?”
On the current state of UK A&R, he continued: "In A&R culture, are there mavericks? There are A&Rs that give you culture, that give you amazing records. People that are going to change the dynamic of a room and care about something that 99% of the business doesn’t care about, like finding a young garage girl that turns out to be PinkPantheress, for example. There needs to be more of that, I’d say.”
Everybody’s making records for the algorithm rather than for communities. There needs to be room for more new and exciting music to show the world what we’re about
Darcus Beese
Furthermore, Beese, who was honoured with an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to the UK music industry, suggested the British industry has "lost its way" in terms of its offering on the world stage.
"We were very good at bringing different cultures and sounds together and we were very good at genre-bending club music that would somehow find its way up into a pop zeitgeist moment," he said. "This came from a hybrid world of garage, drum & bass, grime, four to the floor, hip-hop. We used to be able to bottle that and send it around the world.
"Everything feels homogenised now. Everybody’s making records for the algorithm rather than for communities. There needs to be room for more new and exciting music to show the world what we’re about. I’d also like to see more belief and investment in career artists and their communities.
"Investment in the pipeline that brings developing artists to the fore, especially live shows, is important too, as is the belief that everybody involved in the journey should have a fair and equitable slice.”
Beese famously signed Amy Winehouse to Island and A&R'd her two albums for the label, 2003’s Frank (1,153,525 sales, OCC) and 2006's 14x platinum Back To Black (4,412,361 sales).
“I remember going to the studio as her and Mark Ronson were starting to make Back To Black," he recalled. "I went to sit down, and the first record that Mark pulled up was Rehab. I told him to rewind it a few times! It was amazing. And Amy is sitting there going, ‘Do you think this is good?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ She says, ‘Do you think people will think I’m trying too hard?’ I’m like, ‘No!’ She was just one of those people who knew what she wanted and what she was going to do.”
Regarding the debate around the 2024 Back To Black film, Beese concluded: “Everybody’s got their opinion. It’s harder for me because I was front row for some of it, in the record-making process. But I thought Marisa Abela was fantastic as Amy, she got her nuances down.
"All I know is that the Amy I knew would never be intimidated by a room full of men, if that was insinuated. She was very strong willed, super smart, even funnier and more empathetic than in the film.”
Subscribers can read the full interview in the latest issue of Music Week – or access it online here.
Rebel With A Cause: Roots, Records and Revolutions (Nine Eight Books) is published on August 15
