Dutch Delegates ARMC
Amier Kalaeli
Warner Music Benelux / Atlantic Records Benelux
Managing the brand of music label Atlantic Records Benelux, which was newly launched in 2021 and focuses on local hiphop from The Netherlands and Belgium. Previously worked for many years as an artist manager, booker, and label manager for various hiphop artists & labels.
Carlos van Erven
Sony Music
Carlos is currently working as an A&R manager at Sony Music Benelux, where he’s responsible for the creative support of their entire hiphop roster. He works with artists and labels like Boef, Ronnie Flex, Avalon Music and Rotterdam Airlines and many more.
Elvin Usidame
Friendly Fire
Usidame started his musical career as the frontman and manager of the band Hunting The Robot. After an internship at pop venue Effenaar in Eindhoven, he became a full-time venue booker, a position he held for four years. After this he worked at Paradiso Amsterdam, where he was responsible for the night programming, but also booked hip hop and electronically oriented shows. Elvin worked for ID&T, responsible for the music program of Milkshake Festival, Valhalla, Mysteryland and Amsterdam Open Air, amongst others. Since 2022, Elvin works as a promoter for Friendly Fire, focussing on the afro-pop/beats scene. In terms of ancillary positions, Elvin is, among other things, involved as an advisor to the Performing Arts Fund and a member of the Supervisory Board of Amsterdam Dance Event.
Koos Groenedijk
SEG Artists
Koos Groenendijk started his career as a promoter for concerts and clubs and flowed through to artist management. Over the years Groenendijk has organized European tours and booked shows for artists of the like of Lil' Wayne, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott and many more. Groenendijk was also owner and programmer of Holland’s oldest hip-hop festival 'Appelsap' till 2021. In 2020 Koos joined Sports Entertainment Group (S.E.G.) as Head of the Artist division. A new SEG division has come into being in addition to the existing branches Football, Cycling and Esports. SEG Artists focusses on artist management as well as bookings, providing PR and marketing services and creating brand partnerships.
Marloes Janssen
Loessoe
Marloes Janssen has been active in the music/event business since 2016. During her study she worked as a project manager at a record label, which soon led to her founding her own management company in the hiphop and afrobeat/afropop genre. Besides management she created and event called ’Colorful’, where we organized events across The Netherlands. Colorful stands for diversity and inclusion and is focused on female friendly club nights.
Mohamed Fouradi
La Foux Management
Mohamed Fouradi is currently Senior A&R Manager at the most established record labels in the Dutch Hip Hop scene, Top Notch/Noah’s Ark. From 2005 until 2012 Mohamed was an artist himself. Together with his younger brother, Brahim Fouradi, they formed the duo Fouradi. After being an Economics teacher for a couple of years, in 2015 Mohamed took the opportunity to work at one of the Netherlands’ biggest music publishers, Cloud 9. The Dutch hip hop scene was up and coming like never before. Many artists started to blow up and had little to no knowledge about the business side of things, such as publishing. Mo has played an extremely vital role in guiding these artists by sharing his expertise. Not long after in 2017, Mohamed and Brahim founded their own management agency, La Foux, where they continued to counsel rappers and producers.
Natasja Jagesar
Cloud9 Publishing
Natasja has experienced the huge development of Hip Hop, Latin, Oriental and Afro genre during a period of ten years at the biggest Urban radio station of The Netherlands, FunX radio. She was then active as radio producer of prime time shows, artist handler, event- and video producer. Nowadays Natasja has a growing network in the music industry and works as Head of the Urban division at Cloud 9 Music Publishing, one of the main independent Publishing companies in Europe, with a big roster of top urban producers, artists and songwriters from The Netherlands and the rest of Europe. She loves to discover and to develop Urban talents, she works with production companies and thinks along with them about their music careers, songwriting, studio sessions, branding, marketing- and release strategy’s etc.
Olga Heijns
Unmanageble Artists
After stints at Sony Records, SoSoDef (Atlanta/NY) and Mushroom Records (Australia) Olga spent the next few years managing the careers the likes of Roger Sanchez, Sander Kleinenberg and Youseff to name a few. She founded Stealth Records one of the early house labels key to the success of eg the Beatport platform. Established the Release Yourself series of events, radio show and CD series and since then went on to establish Mixmash Records which she co-owns with laidback Luke and also manages. As well as Next Era Publishing, representing writers behind hits by Chris Brown, Jay-z, Biggie, Laidback Luke, Faith Evans, Deorro and many others.
Pieter Tanis
Toemallang
As a young kid Pieter Tanis his love for music started with breakdancing. This grew further in starting a music industry education and doing internships for a big record label and management company in the Netherlands. In the meantime he was also managing talents to learn more about the industry. After his internships he started working as A&R for one of the biggest management companies in The Netherlands, NAMAM. From the beginning of 2021 he also joined a new adventure as A&R for Next Era Publishing, which is more internationally focussed. He combines this with his own management company Toemallang, where he works with a compact roster of producers and artists, including Bnnyhunna who's playing at Bushfire Festival.
Pim Lauwerier
Nine and a Half
Pim Lauwerier is the owner of boutique record label Nine And A Half and distribution agency Backboard. After working for almost a decade at the Dutch hip-hop label Noah's Ark, he started his label Nine And A Half focussing on Dutch artists with international potential. In addition he founded distribution agency Backboard in 2021; representing a select group of independent artists. He is also one of the hosts of the weekly podcast Funx Base.
Solomon Kifle
Top Notch / Noah’s Ark
Started in this industry at a young age, first behind the camera and then step by step more into the industry. After the first years at an independent record label that was found by friends but later started at Sony Music as a product manager for international hip hop rep, after a while he switched to A&R – that gave him the eyeopener that he wanted to focus more on local rep – to practice this even better he made the decision to switch to Top Notch/Noah’s Ark/Universal Music. Where he now works for over 4 years.
Sophia Van Wijk
Custommade Agency
From a very young age Sophia has been determined and committed to be successful in the creative industries. Custommade Agency was established in 2015 as an idea to target and help the young upcoming creatives in the Dutch music industry. Sophia has a wide expertise and experience in the legal field. Before she started working as an artist manager she worked as a legal secretary for organizations where she gained most of her experience. Sophia has been busy becoming a label-owner and setting up her own enterprise 'Fierce Music'. The aim is to boost female professionals and entrepreneurs and support them in the Dutch music field. Besides that, Sophia has established her bookings office 'Get Gigs' in 2021, which takes care of the event bookings for artists based in the Dutch industry.
Stijn Kierkels
MOTEL Artist management
Stijn studied Theater & Technology at the Amsterdam School of the Arts. After his study he worked as a technical producer for Lowlands Festival, Down The Rabbit Hole and Into The Great Wide Open. Currently, the focus is on managing artists within MOTEL Artist Management, the management company that he set up together with business partner Froukje Bouma in 2020. Within MOTEL he represents Bente, Joya Mooi, Shadi and Sim Fane. Other artists within MOTEL are S10, Froukje and Wende.
Tasha Slagtand
House of Knowledge
‘Tasha's World’ is the stage name of Rotterdam recording artist Tasha Slagtand. Tasha's World has released three successful albums with which she has won various awards. She toured the world with her band and has played over 400 shows all over the globe. From the world famous Jazz Café in London and S.O.B's in New York to Ahoy, Rotterdam and North Sea Jazz Festival, as well as Cape Town international Jazz fest. In 2008, Tasha took a break from artist life. During that period she was asked to become a board member for the Your World foundation and became artistic director of ‘Yourspace’. Tasha is the creative director of House of Knowledge, where she supports young, extraordinary talented artists in the Urban Performing Arts through tailor-made, long term development processes.
Vivian Donders
SEG Artists
After working in the Amsterdam nightlife scene for some years she was recruited by Yellow Claw as label manager for their international label and day 2 day manager of the act + some of their label artists as well. After almost 4 years Vivian was recruited by the team of DJ Snake and moved to London to join their team in 2018, as label manager of DJ Snake's boutique label and international marketing coördinator. After working and living in London for a year she moved back to Amsterdam and started working as an independent artist developer on several projects within the Dutch urban market. At the moment Vivian is working as Creative & Media manager of Dutch/Ghanaian artist Frenna and upcoming afro r&b talent Delany, next to working with SEG Artists as Artist Manager for Rotjoch: presenter of 101 barz & media producer.
Wesley Texel
Paradiso / Dj Waxfiend
For over a decade this DJ from Amsterdam quickly became one of Europe’s most sought after and respected DJ’s. Combining music from genres like HipHop, Dancehall, Amapiano, Gqom, Afrobeat, House, Soul, R&B and more he curates a unique sound that captivates worldwide audiences in the clubs, and on the radio and the internet. He is the brain behind long lasting successful club nights and festivals such as Encore, Ziongate and Jamrock. Wesley also works as a programmer for Paradio and their new club Parralel.
Angelot Bromet
Afrolosjes / Prospect Eleven
For the past 26 years Angelo Bromet has been contributing to the development of Urban Culture. This goes from adding to the Hip Hop scene in de 90's and early 2000, to becoming the architect of the Afrobeats scene, with the club concept Afrolosjes. They started at the Amsterdam Open Air Festival and worked their way to the club scene, where they became the biggest platform for Afrobeats Music and Culture. Out of this came artists such as Amartey and Berano, but also DJ's suchs as Giordan Chase, Jean Jeansen and Ricks. With working for the icon Melkweg in the center of Amsterdam, his impact on the city became even more evident. If you ask around in Amsterdam and especially the Southeast side (aka the Bims), his name will speak volume.