The word “fan” is a relic. It belongs in a museum next to the 8-track tape and the physical record contract. For the better part of a century, the music industry was a one-way street. Artists created, labels packaged, and fans consumed. The relationship was simple, transactional, and fundamentally broken. As the Head of A&R for the resurrected Death Row Records, my job isn’t to find the next hit single. It’s to find the architects of the next paradigm. And that paradigm begins with a simple, ...

The word “fan” is a relic. It belongs in a museum next to the 8-track tape and the physical record contract. For the better part of a century, the music industry was a one-way street. Artists created, labels packaged, and fans consumed. The relationship was simple, transactional, and fundamentally broken. As the Head of A&R for the resurrected Death Row Records, my job isn’t to find the next hit single. It’s to find the architects of the next paradigm. And that paradigm begins with a simple, ...