Brazil-Based Music Distributor Poaches Republic Records Exec

Music industry veteran Jason Jordan is taking a post as the North America managing director of ONErpm, a Brazil-based global music distribution, label services and rights management company. Jordan, who has served as vice president of A&R at Hollywood Records and senior vice president of A&R at Universal Music Group’s Republic Records, will lead the company’s American and Canadian expansion, overseeing several departments including marketing and label relations out of its Brooklyn office.

ONErpm — which stands for One Revolution People’s Music and serves as a link between music creators and consumer-facing companies like Spotify and YouTube — thinks of itself as a “solutions company” rather than a label or distributor, CEO and founder Emmanuel Zunz told Rolling Stone earlier this month, stressing that “big companies keep trying a model that does not suit the interests of the artist.” The company offers marketing, analytics and other resources to artists, video creators and music labels in addition to distribution services. Zunz said this week that Jordan will “help us continue to redefine what it means to be a modern music company.”

“ONErpm is the only company of this size operating as a hybrid between recorded music and distribution that is truly 100% independent,” Jordan, who has signed artists such as Two Feet, Breaking Benjamin and BBMak in addition to launching a rights management company called SynchTank and presiding over the indie music publisher Imagem Music, tells Rolling Stone. “In all of my experience in A&R or in a leadership role, I was frustrated because I wanted everyone to believe in an artist as much as I did and as much as the artist and their team did as well. In this role, I can now speak directly to their needs and address them as a true partner.” 

Jordan says ONErpm aims to identify and sign new musicians from the U.S. and Canada who also want to operate successfully in the Latin America market — a burgeoning scene that “is important to every company with an international presence” — while also expanding beyond its established base in that market. “My challenge is to scale our business here [in North America] in a meaningful way across all genres, including Latin music,” Jordan says. He will manage teams based out of Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Nashville and San Francisco.