Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Howard.
Jason, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’ve been involved with music since around 14 or 15, I had a fully analog studio in my room at that time. I’d record myself and other local artists and ended up starting a local mixtape series with a friend of mine, I was mostly engineering at that point. Fast forward about 20 years after stepping away from music and moving to Atlanta, I was hanging around some independent artists and saw a real need for artist development and exposing them to the digital side of the industry.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been really tough, I started with creating a promotional service mainly involving Spotify playlists. We really struggled to settle on a consistent marketing budget and keeping up with all of the day to day submissions once we reached 50k followers. We’re constantly trying to find new ways to improve our service and provide more value to our clients. It has been a tremendous struggle trying to try to link the three different businesses together, we really haven’t had a business model to follow so we’ve just continued to work really hard everyday.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Next Level Sounds / M37 Management – what should we know?
We have developed three different companies. 1st is our Management company M37, we provide guidance, promotion and booking opportunities for our clients. 2nd is Next Level Sounds (NLS) Playlists, it’s a group of Spotify playlists with close to 60k followers, we offer playlisting, email marketing and IG promotion to anyone who purchases a package and has a rap oriented song that we approve. 3rd is NLS Distribution, where we partner with artists on single releases.
I’ve partnered with Yaquan Hunter at Approval Entertainment, he has brought me on as an A&R. I’m also the Head A&R of North America for John Fitzgerald’s UK label Live & Dangerous.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
What sets us apart is our network. Me and my NLS partner Jamal Davis work extremely hard daily to work on marketing, client releases and playlist placements. We are creative and relentless at getting results for our clients. Yaquan and I have the same passion toward any promotional opportunities we get no matter how big or small the client is.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nlsplaylists.com
- Phone: 4707292118
- Email: nextlevelsoundsceo@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/m37_jase/
Suggest a story: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
