Chapter 261: The Backstage Clash

I'm unstoppable

I'm a Porsche with no brakes

I'm invincible

Yeah I'll win every single game

I'm so powerful

On the TV, Link, dressed in a shiny silver leather suit, his short hair dyed silver, was singing and dancing on a brightly lit stage with a dozen backup dancers. The fans in the audience erupted in waves of cheers, and many people sang along with Link, creating a lively atmosphere.

Beep!

A slender, pale hand reached out, picked up the remote control on the coffee table, and pressed the mute button.

On the LCD screen, Link's singing and the audience's cheers disappeared instantly. Through the screen, one could only see Link opening and closing his mouth, as if performing a mime, which looked a bit comical.

"Scooter, how is the poaching plan going?"

The owner of the pale hand put down the remote control and turned to look at the young man sitting opposite, Scooter Braun, who was also the president of SB Projects Entertainment Agency.

Scooter was 29 years old, a Hungarian-American. While in college, he shot a documentary about Nazi Germany, which was appreciated by the great director Spielberg and earned him his first pot of gold.

In 2002, relying on his family's connections, he entered the sports and music circles.

His first job was organizing celebrity parties, and many celebrities, including Eminem, Kanye, and Will Smith, were his clients.

Due to his outstanding abilities, he was appreciated by the vice president of Def Jam Recordings, the famous black rapper and gold medal producer Jermaine Dupri, and entered Def Jam Recordings as the marketing director.

In 2007, he left So So Def Recordings and founded SB Projects Entertainment, signing artists such as Ludacris and Kanye West.

Ludacris was a famous rapper and actor who later became popular for his supporting role in the "Fast and Furious" movie series.

Scooter, through his strong network, helped Ludacris get an advertising endorsement from Pontiac and facilitated the cooperation between Kanye West and Adidas, earning tens of millions of dollars from these two deals.

In 2008, through the introduction of Usher, he signed the Canadian boy Justin Bieber.

Starting last year, he spent a lot of money on marketing and promoting Justin Bieber, making him appear as an internet celebrity singer at major events such as MTV, the American Music Awards, and the Grammys, greatly increasing his exposure.

At the same time, he also used his connections in the industry to help Justin create his new album "My World 1.0".

His hard work paid off.

In November last year, "My World 1.0" was officially released.

It sold more than 1 million copies worldwide in just three months.

If it weren't for Lana Del Rey and Bruno Mars from Link Music, and Selena Gomez from Disney, Justin Bieber would definitely have been the brightest star in the music industry in the second half of last year.

Fortunately, Justin's new song "Baby" sold well.

With his strong marketing and promotion, this song also became the most popular song at the moment.

Justin Bieber also became the most popular singer in the music industry, with his popularity approaching that of Link Baker and Justin Timberlake in the pop music scene.

With this trump card, he and SB Projects also made a lot of money.

But Link Baker has been too popular these two years. Peers are enemies, and for every album Link sells, other singers of the same genre will sell one less.

With him in the music industry, it's difficult for Justin Bieber to become the No. 1 in pop music.

Link also became a stumbling block on Justin Bieber's road to success.

For this reason, he found Jay-Z, Kanye, Lil Wayne, and others, preparing to unite with them against Link.

Jay-Z served as the president of Def Jam Recordings from 2002 to 2007, cultivating artists such as Kanye West, Rihanna, and Ne-Yo. In 2007, he left Def Jam to found Roc Nation.

Scooter was an old acquaintance of his, and now they shared a common enemy. Just by mentioning "taking down Link," he gained the approval of Jay-Z, Kanye, and others.

Not long after they reached a consensus, Mr. Clive Davis, the vice president of Atlantic Records and a member of the Atlantic Records board of directors, called and said he wanted to talk to him about how to jointly acquire Link Music.

Scooter was very excited to receive this call.

Although his family was also billionaires, the Davis family's assets were tens of billions of dollars at their peak, and they had great influence in American politics, the media industry, and the real estate industry, making them a first-class wealthy family in the United States.

In addition, Clive Davis came from the same ethnic group as him, which was also the most united group in the world. He didn't need to doubt Clive Davis's intentions.

With his help, Link was doomed.

After talking to Clive Davis, their first move was to poach talent from Link Music.

Link Music was founded in early December 2008, with only two major shareholders, Link and Ms. Ivanka.

Link held 55% of Link Music's shares, Ivanka held 35%, and the remaining 10% was shared by several management personnel and producers.

Before 2009, Link Music didn't attract much attention, as there were thousands of similar record companies in the United States.

But in early 2009, after Link released his debut album "The Fighter"...

His single "Unstoppable" topped the Billboard singles chart, and eight songs, including "Chasing the Sun," "Fire," and "Never Say Never," entered the top 100 singles chart.

It also achieved platinum sales in the United States within a month.

This powerful and surprising debut made everyone know Link and the small record company Link Music.

Last year, Link released two more albums in a row, with global sales approaching 20 million copies.

This achievement was too dazzling.

It made countless musicians envious and jealous.

But Link Music's impact on the music industry was far more than that.

Starting in October last year, they successively launched three singers of different genres: Lana Del Rey, Bruno Mars, and Wiz Khalifa.

In fact, when Link Music first introduced these three people, people didn't pay much attention to them.

The reason was simple.

Lana Del Rey was a musician who had failed in her debut.

Her first album sold less than a thousand copies, and she had posted many songs online, trying to become an internet celebrity without success, indicating that her songs had no market in the music industry.

The probability of such a singer releasing a successful album was not high.

Bruno Mars was also a failure.

He was first abandoned by Motown Records and then traded by Atlantic Records. He had no figure, no looks, wasn't black or white, and besides having a somewhat unique voice and some creative ability, he had no other special qualities.

There were many musicians like him under the five major record labels, and whether such people could become popular depended entirely on luck.

There was also Wiz Khalifa, who was initially a signed artist under Warner Records. His first album sales were average, and his second album was canceled by Warner, indicating that he wasn't a particularly capable singer either.

But...

In November last year, Lana Del Rey released her first album "Born to Die." The main singles "Born to Die" and "Video Games" both reached the top ten of the singles chart, selling more than one million copies worldwide and achieving platinum sales.

In December, Bruno Mars released his debut album "Doo-Wops & Hooligans." The main singles "Just the Way You Are," "Grenade," and "The Lazy Song" all reached the top ten of the singles chart, with "Just the Way You Are" becoming the No. 1 single at the end of December.

This album sold 787,000 copies in the United States in eight weeks of release and achieved platinum sales globally.

As for Wiz Khalifa, although his new album hadn't been released yet, he became a top rapper last year with "Black and Yellow" and "Roll Up."

And his new single "Black and Yellow" also entered the top ten of the singles chart this week.

It was foreseeable that his new album sales wouldn't be bad.

In this way, these three failures, after signing with Link Music, all became extremely popular.

This situation also amazed countless musicians.

Even "Rolling Stone" magazine published a comment at the beginning of the year, saying that Link Music has a knack for shaping singers, calling Link Music a "golden touch" in the music industry, with the ability to turn decay into magic, and the most promising label in the next decade.

Link Music's reputation in the industry skyrocketed.

This led many talented but unrecognized musicians to try their luck at Link Music.

If this situation continued, Link Music would become stronger and stronger, becoming a towering tree in the music industry, and Link would earn more and more US dollars through this company.

This was a result that Scooter, Jay-Z, and Clive Davis were unwilling to see.

After Clive Davis's plan to invest in Link Music failed, he contacted Scooter to launch the poaching plan.

The first step was to poach the three signed singers under Link Music: Lana Del Rey, Bruno Mars, and Wiz Khalifa.

Scooter arranged for his agents to meet with the three singers separately, offering them large contracts and promising to arrange multiple gold medal producers to tailor new albums for them after they signed with the new record company, and even agreeing to pay their liquidated damages.

Their conditions were very sincere, and the three contract offers were all very high, but Lana Del Rey and the others didn't even want to talk, as if they didn't care much about money.

This made Scooter very helpless, and he turned his attention to producers like Graham and David Kahn.

In more than a month, he did poach seven or eight songwriters, production assistants, sound engineers, etc., but none of the core members were poached.

Because they all came from major record companies, they knew the situation in the production departments of major record companies. There were too many talents, serious workplace struggles, extremely fierce internal competition, fighting for resources, and high work pressure.

And now Link Music was on the rise. Staying here would not only earn them a lot of money but also make them famous. It was a job that brought both fame and fortune, and only a fool would leave at this time.

"Not ideal!"

Scooter sighed softly and talked about the progress of the poaching work.

Clive Davis took a puff of a slender cigarette, squinted at Link who was leaving the stage on TV, and asked in a deep voice:

"How is the chart battle going? Are you confident in defeating Link in the music market and suppressing his album sales?"

"We have that confidence, but Link is not an ordinary singer, so it will be more difficult to deal with him."

Scooter shrugged and talked about the arrangements for the chart battle in March and April.

Currently, they had three cards ready.

The first card was Justin Bieber, whose second album would be released in early March.

Justin's first album sold more than 700,000 copies in North America.

The second album's main single "Baby" was a big hit in North America, and the second album was expected to sell more than one million copies, with a chance of reaching two million or even three million.

Both Justin and Link were pop singers.

If his album entered the pop music market first and drained the fans' wallets, Link's album sales would inevitably be affected.

The second card was Usher's sixth album "Raymond v Raymond."

Usher was a top singer in the rap and blues genres.

In 2004, Usher released his fourth album "Confessions," which sold 1.1 million copies in its first week in the United States, breaking the record for the highest single-week sales by an R&B male singer. It also topped the Billboard album chart for nine consecutive weeks, and the single "Yeah!" topped the Billboard singles chart for 12 weeks.

His status in the music industry was no less than that of Kanye.

The new album contained 23 songs, jointly created by 12 gold medal producers.

This album was expected to sell 10 million copies and become a diamond record.

Released at the same time as Link's third album, it would definitely affect Link's album sales.

The third card was Drake's new album "Thank Me Later," expected to be released in mid-April.

In December last year, Drake released his first mixtape "So Far Gone," which reached number six on the Billboard album chart in its third week and also won the Juno Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year and Rap Recording of the Year.

The producer lineup for his new album was equally strong, including Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Alicia Keys, Timbaland, and Nicki Minaj, all top figures in the rap world.

In the album's listening session, 30 industry insiders gave it a high rating of 8.8, and it was expected to sell no less than 1.2 million copies in the United States.

As for Link's third album, due to confidentiality reasons, they hadn't yet found out the name of the album.

Judging from the leaked song "All of Me" last year, it was likely to be a love-themed album. This type of album was too mainstream, released every year by every famous singer. Although such albums had a market, it was difficult for them to achieve high sales.

Using three trump card albums to besiege Link's love album, Scooter had absolute confidence in defeating Link on the sales charts.

What was worrying was that Link wasn't an ordinary singer.

This guy was a master of hype.

Just because Kanye said something bad about him in the media, he seized the opportunity and created a series of explosive news, almost causing a major social incident.

Even Scooter, a marketing expert, was impressed by this kind of publicity method.

Link was also a very talented guy, known as a "musical genius."

He first dabbled in pop music and then crossed over to rap, suppressing all the rappers in the rap world with just two songs.

To deal with such a person, saying that they could win 100% was deceiving themselves.

So when answering Mr. Clive Davis's question, Scooter didn't make any absolute statements, expressing confidence in defeating Link but also acknowledging the possibility of unexpected events.

"Do your job well, and leave the rest to me."

Clive Davis leaned back on the sofa, cigarette between his fingers, and said in a calm voice.

"I understand, Mr. Davis."

Scooter nodded seriously.

"Call me Clive, we're friends, Scooter!"

Clive Davis said with a slight curl of his lips.

"Okay, Clive!"

Scooter nodded and smiled.

Clive Davis crossed his legs and looked at the awards ceremony continuing on TV. "Guess how many awards Link can win at this Grammy Awards?"

Scooter also looked at the TV. The awards for children's albums were being presented on stage. He thought for a moment.

"Four general awards, Link has four nominations and two wins. The remaining Best Pop Male Vocal Performance will most likely be his. 'Give Me Everything' and 'See You Again' have a great influence. Link might also win Best Rock Song, Best Rap Song, and the chances of winning Best Rap/Sung Collaboration are also relatively high. I guess 5 to 6."

"I guess two."

Clive Davis raised the corners of his mouth, a strange smile appearing on his face.

"Two?!"

Scooter looked at him in surprise and then turned to the TV.

---

Staples Center, after his performance, Link returned to the locker room in the stadium to change clothes and reply to a few messages on his phone.

After winning the Producer of the Year, Non-Classical award, he received dozens of congratulatory messages on his phone from Emma Roberts, Kristen Stewart, Paul Walker, Joaquin Phoenix, and others.

Even Elon Musk sent him a message congratulating him on winning the Grammy for Best Album, saying it was amazing and that he wanted to invite him to be a spokesperson for Tesla.

Link also responded enthusiastically to Elon Musk. If he wanted to get more Tesla or even SpaceX shares, he still needed to start with Musk.

Moreover, Musk was young and intelligent, and such a person could be regarded as a long-term business partner.

In addition, Musk had extensive connections in the business world. For example, the two founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, were also his friends and angel investors in Tesla.

Through Musk, he could meet more business tycoons and get more investment opportunities.

There were many benefits.

Knock, knock!

"Come in!"

Link said as he fastened his belt.

Creak~

The door opened, and a golden skirt floated in, paired with high heels and stockings, revealing long and shapely legs.

Link looked up in surprise and saw the voluptuous Beyoncé walking in, locking the door behind her.

"Coming to drink with me again? Aren't you afraid of being seen?"

Link said helplessly.

Beyoncé didn't say anything, just reached out and pulled, and her skirt fell to the ground like a golden parachute.

"What's this, giving out benefits?"

Link looked at her figure and chuckled.

"What do you think?"

Beyoncé, with her long curly hair loose, walked up to him, biting her red lips, and pressed herself tightly against him.

(End of Chapter)