Ahead of following up last year's FM!, Vince Staples has announced that he has a new label home.
The Long Beach MC has inked a deal with Motown Records via Blacksmith Recordings, a multi-genre label launched by industry vet Corey Smyth. The announcement came at Capitol Congress 2019, a label event for employees and industry figures.
Smyth served as executive producer on Staples' 2015 full-length debut Summertime '06 and 2017's Big Fish Theory. Billboard notes that last year's FM! completed a three-album deal the pair had signed with Def Jam.
"Today, more than ever, artists are evolving their professional identities in multi-faceted ways. My mission through Blacksmith Recordings is to nurture young and new talent from the ground up and enable them to expand their vision of success," Smyth said upon launching the label last month. "We are looking at the big picture, thinking about how a musician evolves across genres, what success looks like in the first year and a decade later and what happens after the first album, the second and the third. Our goal is to reinforce career longevity and boundless potential in the artists we represent, while growing global brands around them."
Motown welcomed Staples to the roster on Twitter, while Billboard quoted the new signee promising new music would arrive in "a week, two weeks."
Staples recently appeared in Lil Nas X's video for viral smash "Old Town Road."
The Long Beach MC has inked a deal with Motown Records via Blacksmith Recordings, a multi-genre label launched by industry vet Corey Smyth. The announcement came at Capitol Congress 2019, a label event for employees and industry figures.
Smyth served as executive producer on Staples' 2015 full-length debut Summertime '06 and 2017's Big Fish Theory. Billboard notes that last year's FM! completed a three-album deal the pair had signed with Def Jam.
"Today, more than ever, artists are evolving their professional identities in multi-faceted ways. My mission through Blacksmith Recordings is to nurture young and new talent from the ground up and enable them to expand their vision of success," Smyth said upon launching the label last month. "We are looking at the big picture, thinking about how a musician evolves across genres, what success looks like in the first year and a decade later and what happens after the first album, the second and the third. Our goal is to reinforce career longevity and boundless potential in the artists we represent, while growing global brands around them."
Motown welcomed Staples to the roster on Twitter, while Billboard quoted the new signee promising new music would arrive in "a week, two weeks."
Staples recently appeared in Lil Nas X's video for viral smash "Old Town Road."
.#Vincestaples, newly signed to #motown, says new music coming in "a week, two weeks." #capitolcongress2019
— billboardbiz (@billboardbiz) August 7, 2019