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Pioneering music marketplace Artist Republik is announcing an impactful acquisition to its ever-evolving marketplace with the introduction of Featured X.
Read about it in Pollstar here.
A leading site for musicians to successfully work together with other musicians, the collaborative platform perfectly rounds out Artist Republik’s 360 degree offerings. Originally inspired by the alternative Warped Tour scene, Featured X is best known for their roster of alt rock, indie rock, hardcore, pop-punk, and metal musicians. Some key players include Kellin Quinn of well-known rock band Sleeping With Sirens, Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills, and Shane Told of Canadian rock band Silverstein. The founders of Featured X, Jeff Menig and Ryan “Tuck” O’Leary, launched the platform with an understanding of the ways in which the old school rock ‘n’ roll mentality doesn’t translate to the modern model. Jeff’s extensive experience in building brands and bands for the digital age combined with Ryan’s network built from six years of touring with his band Fit For a King leave the duo nearly unstoppable.
“Featured X is not just a platform but a community. These individuals are my friends and together we were able to support each other through one of the most difficult years for a touring musician. It was incredible to see what we were all capable of when we stuck together and that’s what Featured X is really all about. The table is large, everyone is invited and everyone can eat,” says O’Leary.
The acquisition comes off the heels of Artist Republik’s latest adoption of Elite Reviews, which gives artists the opportunity to pay for established acts to review their music before it even goes LIVE. The news about Featured X comes as no surprise as Artist Republik continues to partner with major brands in order to establish itself as a leading marketing resource center and social networking platform for musicians all over the world. Featured X originally went LIVE in hopes of providing rock musicians with a legitimate way to make money while ultimately encouraging artists to adopt a more productive, collaborative mindset. “This partnership was a no-brainer for us. Our biggest motivation has been unshackling artists from ‘the way it’s always been’ structure, giving them the freedom both artistically and monetarily they’ve always deserved. This deal will allow us to bring that reality to fruition for our community and beyond much faster than anticipated, and we cannot wait to continue to help artists value themselves more than ever before,” says Menig.
The acquisition comes as music start-ups are feeling more competitive than ever during COVID. With the rise of popular networking hubs like Clubhouse, quarantine has sparked a new wave of interest in easy to access tools. These tools are allowing artists to continue to release new music as well as expand their networks with ease while live shows are still not a possibility. With now over 75k users from around the world, Artist Republik is committed to its platform and the ways in which it hopes to challenge older models and instead, help artists to be successful without the help of a record label.
ABOUT ARTIST REPUBLIK:
Artist Republik broke the mold this year with its debut of a new indie music business marketplace valued at over $5M and counting. Its simple yet pioneering tech-driven premise caught the eyes of major industry players like independent rapper Hopsin (see Forbes article here) as well as top investors David Beirne (a founding general partner of Benchmark Capital, known for lead stakes in eBay, Twitter, Instagram, OpenTable and Juniper Networks) and respected pro-sports and Hollywood wealth advisor Humble Lukanga. CEO and Founder of Artist Republik Nick Cianfaglione chose to introduce the new talent-controlled platform to return career control and expenses back to the artist.
Their 75k+ are committed to this platform because of its all-inclusive offerings. Its one-stop shop format makes it easy for the artist to navigate their needs while keeping everything, including distribution, all in one place. Cianfaglione plans to widen the opportunity funnel by enabling self-represented music talent and industry stakeholders to sidestep controlling agents, gatekeepers and management when it is not necessary. Its value proposition for the burgeoning $2B global indie music industry (Raine Group Forecast, Rolling Stone, March 16, 2020) transforms how performers, musicians, technicians, producers and venues support vendors by creating direct business connections, spending less on marketing, and by retaining more revenue. “The indie music industry needed its own ‘LinkedIn meets ASCAP’ social community to affordably bring talent together to make deals.” explains Founder Nick Cianfaglione, “Artist Republik accelerates this business building by dismantling industry conventions that bottlenecked careers.”
Artist Republik is free to join and allows users to use all of the resources they need in areas such as production, distribution, marketing, live shows and more.
ABOUT FEATURED X:
Featured X is an artist collaboration platform aimed to kickstart a revolution of artist synergy across all levels, and all genres of the industry. Co-founded by longtime friends Jeff Menig and Ryan “Tuck” O’Leary during arguably the hardest year for artists ever it not only began the journey towards that revolution but it enabled dozens of artists to survive during an otherwise throwaway year. Less than 8 months since launch Featured X already has over 1,000 active vendors and has seen 400 collaboration requests. We foresee a future of every unseen barrier being broken and creating a community of endless creativity.
