AN INTERVIEW WITH NEW YORK LAB
Founded in 2018 by Samori Coates, Zuri Campbell, Muhummad Elbadri, Isaiah Shimkin, Nate Antoine, Zach Bernagene (Gosha Guppy), and Kenza Ikli, New York Lab is a label that aims to create a space for Black people to creatively express themselves in any way that they want. They recently signed a collaboration with United Masters and currently have four artists under their belt: Mavi, Gosha Guppy, OPB, and Lundon Avery. The team at New York Lab talk to Teresa and Sam about building a label with some of your closest friends, launching music during quarantine, and the gatekeepers of the music industry.
Sam: Thank y'all so much for coming in and talking to us today. We're super excited to get into the interview, but why don't y'all just start by introducing yourselves?
Samori: I guess I'll start. So my name is Samori Coates. And with the rest of the gentleman here, we are New York Lab. I helped found New York Lab with my friends, and since then we've basically just been working really hard trying to make our dreams come true. And me, personally—I'm just the art person. That’s the summary of me, I just love art.
Gosha Guppy: Zach Bernagene, aka Gosha Guppy, assigned to Lab, a part of Lab. Managed by both Samori and Zay. It's a big family. I guess for me, like, my whole job is the creation of art, especially timeless art, and honestly my mission statement for what I wanted to do in Lab changes every day.
Lundon Avery: Lundon Avery, AKA Lundon Avery LA, whatever you want to call me. Chicago, Illinois in the house, Peoria, Illinois in the house, you know, shout out to the P. Managed by Double Media Management, Lab the label. And this is my family, my part of Lab is creation. I’m an artist and musician. So, I'm just trying to bring everything to the table to make the family the best possible.
Isaiah: I’m Isaiah Shimkin. I started up with Lab with everybody else, working towards operationalizing and getting to our dream of becoming a real functioning label, and I've been working steadily doing artist management and just really enjoying the process of seeing through creative visions and getting artists exposed—that deserve it.
Sam: Could y'all tell us a little bit about what New York Lab does? What is your mission?
Samori: Our mission, first and foremost, in relation to music… As a label—as a record label—is basically just giving artists the opportunity to receive full compensation for the art that they put out and creating a platform for a multitude of different types of art to exist in, in one cohesive space. We basically want to give, specifically, the undermined and overlooked people across the world an opportunity to feel like they have a space where they can express themselves freely and have a group of people who not only are saying that they want to give them their space, but also are fully committed and invested in defending that space and not simply just come up with a vision or an idea for money.
Teresa: Following up with that, what are some of the biggest problems that artists have that you guys have been trying to solve?
Isaiah: I think we see—one thing, just a base, period—is artists not having ownership and the freedom to release music on their own time without impediments, but also to make sure that they have a team. Because it's a major, major job and a lot of areas to take care of, from paperwork, and copywriting, and producer agreements, and making sure that artists have those assurances that come with them.
And then also handling shows, and touring, and—which is a little different with a lot of online stuff during Covid—virtual touring, and shows. To then the creative and content side and making sure that they have resources that they like and appreciate, from videographers to design—digital design—for their cover art, and that's a big thing that, you know, Samori does a great job and a lot of the Lab team and putting really cool creatives that mesh really well together to help support their artists’ content.
Sam: Yeah, and maybe Gosha or Lundon could talk about this, but where do you see resistance? Do you see a lot of forces in the industry trying to make sure that you guys don't own your work or do you see this as something that's really like preventing you from advancing.
Lundon Avery: I say, more and more now—since ownership has been brought up a lot now— people are trying to finagle different ways into seeming like you own your stuff. But when you come down to it, you don't really own your stuff, like 360s and all these crazy deals. But I feel like we're getting more and more into a better space.
Gosha Guppy: Yeah, I agree. I want to talk about 360s or even just, like, the initial contracts for you to get money, or for you to get paid, how many obstacles you have to go through, and even as far as having a solid team, and who's around you. Are they really ‘for you’ as an artist—as a person—or are they ‘for you’ working to get money back to the label? And that's really important.
Sam: Yeah. That totally makes sense. And I guess we've heard artists a lot, even going back to Jay Z, talking about like, you have to own your masters and all that. But I think that's not always felt completely genuine. How do y'all work to make sure that that's a genuine spirit that's always with the label?
Samori: I think one of the key things that I feel like we first and foremost focus on is the actual sharing and spreading of information. One of the benefits of, for instance, being able to work with someone like Isaiah, is in places where, because of the powers that be, for instance—I'm just going to say Black because that's what I am—Black artists and Black people who are in a creative space tend to lack access to certain information so they don't understand, ‘Okay, well, there is this amount of people that just right for me because of how they created the music or how the music was created, they have rights to this part, or this part of the music, this amount of money, this type of money. This is where different parts come into play.’
A lot of that is kind of in obscurity until you actually get to the step and it's like, ‘oh my gosh it's a whirlwind!’ And I feel like we've been just trying to create a space where, at the very least, information is constantly being flowed, and people are constantly learning about various different ways that people can make money in the music industry, that people can obtain ownership and maintain ownership. I think that's one of the first keys for sure.
Isaiah: A kind of kickoff to that was, you know, finding a way to get the artists’ music heard and become a platform. And that wasn't, maybe, driven by a major label that almost always takes ownership of masters, was finding a distribution outfit, like United Masters, that would sign artists to a New York lab to facilitate that, to a deal where they had full ownership over their masters. They have all their rights, publishing rights, and it's only taking a portion of the artists’ streaming revenue that New York Lab also doesn't take any portion of.
So New York Lab doesn't collect the portion of streaming revenue, also doesn't have any ownership of masters. Really, New York Lab is working to build its platform to work towards some of those social justice mission, and to, you know, build a reputation and larger platform for artists to utilize through this through this base, and to make revenue from brand partnerships, or facilitating merch deals and merch distribution—all stuff that's outside the boundaries of the distribution contract.
Teresa: Yeah, so with that being said and what you guys are trying to do, what do you think is the future of the record label, or even like the artists collective? And how do those two sometimes merge?
Samori: I can't really speak from an artist’s perspective, but from more like an industry, business, or creative perspective, I feel like the opportunity for somebody who's creatively interested, like me, but also business minded at the same time, to be able to not only just become an employee like you can actually now create on record, they need to start to figure out, learn how to do these things that years ago might have seemed impossible.
It's just a more democratized way of going about things now that gives everybody opportunities that they may not have had before: to learn things, to do things, to open up the floor to other people. I mean there's definitely been huge change.
Sam: Going off of that: as a label, I know that y'all must have your eyes on what's going on, like around New York and around the country in general. In terms of music, what direction do you see the New York music scene taking, or have you seen a specific direction that you feel like it's moving in the next couple years?
Gosha Guppy: You can quote me on this. And I’m gonna die on this hill. New York drill is dead.
So it's not going to go that way. But I do think that lyricism is going to eventually make its comeback. I think that we're in a bit of a rough spot, musically, like we're a bunch of artists—underdeveloped artists—are coming to the main stage, especially in New York, and don't have all the necessary skills. It's just a lot of swag and charisma, which can only take you so far. But I do believe that the skills are gonna come back in the same way that people were like, ‘oh I think that music is a bit too serious and has too much of a message, and we want something lighter.’ We've had that for a very long time.
Lundon Avery: And I’m gonna hop on that too. I come from Chicago, like seeing the transformation, and Chicago after drill—now you get the G Hairbows and Apologies. It’s still street music don't me wrong, but it’s a little bit more lyrical, and… At least tried to have more substance and stuff like that.
Sam: What do y’all think killed New York drill?
Gosha Guppy: I think the death of Pop Smoke for sure, right? If you think about it, he was—there was you know many drill scenes in New York, with like Tutu and GDM and BDB thing, but Pop Smoke really kind of changed the formula a little bit and made it less so like, I'm gonna kill you, into like, let's all party, and then maybe we kill each other afterwards. And so from doing that, he was able to really boom it. But because he passed away, the person who's leading the path—there is no one else who's even good enough in New York to follow him up, you know?
Sam: Yeah, that totally makes sense. And I know that part of being a label is doing a lot of A&Ring, and seeing what artists are out there. What do you guys feel like is the power of having Black A&Rs, because I know historically it's been a lot of white A&Rs going into Black spaces.
Samori: One of the things that I really appreciate about the setup that we have right here is like, Black A&Rs, I feel like, when it comes to things that are specific to black art and culture, are going to have a better understanding, in some cases, of what resonates more so at home. But obviously that changes too from, you know, economic backgrounds as well. And so that is also something that we have to pay attention to, in terms of making sure like, ‘is this something that I'm not really supposed to be touching, like that's not my place?’
And I feel like we're opening up the space for Black people to really get to dictate their culture and really have control over the narrative and be able to to further push things that they know resonate with people and resonate with people in the right and positive ways. And that's really what we appreciate about that.
Teresa: I know that before the pandemic, you guys started off as sort of a party-centric model almost? Like, you would host all these events, right? So, how has the pandemic forced you guys to switch it up? And have you found something that has replaced that physical aspect of artists inclusion, or have you taken the pandemic and just pivoted towards something else?
Isaiah: I think there's nothing that's quite replaced the live scene. I think there was a real type of energy with that that is unmatched. And that's including the business in touring and people are trying to see if they can get a head start now on booking and setting up tours because nothing really has replaced it. We've done some, like live streams with Twitch and Move Forward Music that Lundon did a great performance on. So did Mavi, who you both spoke to. And that was great, and there was engagement.
But it's not the same kind of energy that I think Guppy can definitely speak to. Doing lots of performances at these raw Lab events—one was in a gym with a boxing ring, and just performances, and DJs in the middle of the boxing ring. And there's also more of an artistic element of curation for those live events that's much more prominent—I know Samori can speak to—with all that goes into making sure that it's an experience. It's not just a party, it's not just a concert, it's an experience. That's what Lab’s always talked about.
Gosha Guppy: Yeah, I'd say for the artist side, I think one of the beautiful things about the party is, you know, it does bring people together and then what you share is music. So, with the parties, the end goal was to somehow perform and get some of your music out there. So not only are you like, ‘Am I going to, as Gosha Guppy, bring my music to you, but I'm also going to be able to party with you,’ and it's more intimate in that setting, like the party concert type environment.
Lundon Avery: Yeah, I just, I agree with a lot of what everybody was saying, in terms of the feeling—the vibe—that you get from the parties and concerts, especially the way that we were kind of setting them up. The raw energy that was received from them, I don't think, necessarily, can be replaced. I think that we've definitely found alternative ways to give people experiences, but I, like Isaiah said, I just feel like the experience that we created in those physical spaces cannot be replaced, or really matched, with something that's not in those physical spaces in the same way.
So that's one of the reasons I'm really excited to see how we can adapt and move forward with live shows or just that kind of experience looks like in the future.
Sam: Most definitely. Yeah, we definitely can't wait till those parties resume. And I was wondering, it seems like in the next couple months, New York is going to start opening up, hopefully, and I was wondering—it seems like your release schedule kind of corresponds with that. Could you tell us a little bit about what the release schedule of upcoming releases looks like and if you guys have anything planned for maybe next summer?
Isaiah: I mean Lundon, he's got a fantastic, fantastic album that's going to be coming out very very soon. The intro, titled Intro, was already released and has been hitting ESPN, it played during the Lakers game, on X Games content, and we’re really excited with that start. There's nine other amazing songs left to go, that's all coming really soon. And Guppy is going to be releasing a very anticipated underground single from the time of throwing events before Covid hit, with an album coming out right after, that they're really working hard on.
Sam: Yeah, and from both an artists’ perspective, and maybe a label perspective, how has it been different to put together an album during this time of Covid and also just everything changing in terms of album releases?
Lundon Avery: Well as far as content creation, it's like a love hate relationship because you have a lot of time to create content. But as far as inspiration, sitting in four walls is not very, you know. It doesn’t paint a very vivid story. But it’s love and hate, like I said. But, as far as having time to create and be very creative, I appreciated the time Covid gave. But it’s time to get the fuck out of here with that. It's time to party, enjoy music.
Gosha Guppy: Yeah, I agree. I think it's honestly been a lot of love for me, one, I've been able to really explore influences. Like okay, ‘Yo, I like Lauryn Hill, so who inspired Lauryn Hill? Oh Bob Marley.’ You know, ‘Let's go deeper.’ I do agree that the inspiration part can kind of be tough sometimes, but I guess the way I was able to avoid that problem was by reading and surrounding myself with different stimulation. Like, you know, let’s watch Italian movies, so now I want to be like a made man, right? So a bunch of cool little stuff like that has expanded my creative process.
Teresa: Yeah, and I think that one thing we can all relate to is we're all students. So, how do you guys balance being creative—especially now that school has started again, I feel like a different person now. How do you guys work to balance New York Labs and being a student?
Gosha Guppy: Okay. For me, I built my schedule around NY lab, so I wake up early, like 7am, and then I have an 8:30, and then by 1:30 I'm done. So from 1:30 to like, 11, I can do what I need to do, whether it's record a song or talk to Zay or Samori or post a photo or, you know, go shopping or, you know what I'm saying? It does suck, though. Being in school does suck because it drains the life out of you.
I don't do homework. I don't study for tests. I barely pass my classes. *Laughs* No, no. But you definitely have to like - I kind of do like 25% school like 40% Lab and then like, keep the remaining percentage for, you know, friends and family and myself.
Sam: Yeah, that sounds like a great balance to have. What do y'all see, and it could be from an artist perspective or a label perspective, as being the future of New York Lab? What is your end goal?
Samori: I don't really necessarily want to speak from just a label perspective, because I think, ultimately, New York Lab should fulfill everybody's personal objectives in terms of what they want to see in the creative world. Like, what kind of changes they want to see made. So I think that's a very broad goal, but I think, at least personally, I just want to see a world where New York Lab represents the artist’s ability to take agency, if that makes sense. I feel like, we haven't really seen a home for artists who claim a space to say like, ‘This is mine, this is where I belong’ without somebody trying to kind of tailor their image to whatever they want it to be, but I want New York Lab to be that place where you can be whoever you want to be.
Lundon Avery: And to piggyback off that—since we're given this space to be very creatively free, my whole thing as an artist is to really push those boundaries and like, get out of the box. Since we have the freedom to do what we want, we own our own things without worrying about a label telling us we have to put this type of music out because that's what they want. We have the freedom, and it's our mission to really push on every boundary because we can and we have the opportunity that a lot of people don't have. So that's my goal in every aspect, socially, music wise, like everything.
Teresa: Yeah, and I think that one thing that really makes like your team work is that you guys are also all friends. And so, me and Sam are also really close friends, and we started the Q. But definitely our working relationship is different from our friendship. So, how has learning how to work together with your close friends changed your relationships and also how do you separate your friendship from like, ‘Okay, we have to like sit down and do work’?
Isaiah: I think balancing the two really helped us spend even more time understanding how one another functions on multiple levels. Because there is a lot of give and take to when people feel most effective. Balancing schedules, from artists recording and making art, to balancing school or any other additional responsibilities. Also, figuring out the ways to bring out the best in each other and kind of keep each other hungry. Push one another.
So I think that's been a big part of it and as we've added that structure and started to operationalize through a distribution deal with United Masters, we’ve had a lot of product commitments to get in. Paperwork, rollouts to be made. And it's really allowed so many different outlets for people to get deeper into the music business that we had to make adjustments and understand how we work best because we had deadlines and responsibilities.
Sam: I think that's something that we've definitely had to learn too. And moving beyond the label, just as people, what music have you been listening to? What's been inspiring you?
Lundon Avery: Mostly Guppy. Marly. Young OPV. It’s on repeat, really.
Gosha Guppy: For me, I'd say, I listen to a lot of older albums, like the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, or, more recently, like a lot of MF Doom. And then what I'm trying to create and borrow from is like the EDM era. So like, the development of house and stuff, like from Chicago and all that cool stuff. So, those combinations. And, of course, I listen to a bunch of underground artists like Hook and BK and, like, so many people.
Lundon Avery: I’m always going to do this every time you mention house and mention Chicago. Don't forget house was born in Baltimore too. Give Baltimore its credit, all I gotta say. Other than that, I'm listening to New York Lab artists. And for spiritual education, I've been listening to a lot of Sufism oriented music just to keep myself spiritually balanced.
Sam: I think those are most of the questions that we have for y’all. But what should we, I know you mentioned Lundon’s album, but what should we look out for from y'all in general.
Samori: A lot of videos coming soon. Content everywhere. Just be looking out. You’re gonna see it sometime, I promise you.
Isaiah: I think getting to planning, for, you know, Covid willing, there being shows and live events come some point, maybe midway through the summer or even if it's the fall. Getting ahead now because there are plans in the works for live shows.
But I think, also, a lot of great video content. Guppy just finished up a video that's going to be coming really soon for a song called Trap a Lot. Mavi is shooting videos tomorrow and the next day with Lone Wolf. One is going to be for an album, and another is going to be announced soon come.
