News : Issa Rae’s Raedio Label Teams With Google for Emerging Artists Program

Issa Rae‘s Raedio label has partnered with Google to launch a new emerging artists program, Billboard is exclusively announcing on Thursday (Jan. 13).

The Raedio Creators Program Supported by Google is designed to provide underrepresented independent artists with more resources as well as bring more representation of women of color in the music industry, which the actress critiqued in a now-viral Los Angeles Times interview. “It’s probably the worst industry that I have ever come across. I thought Hollywood was crazy. The music industry, it needs to start over,” Rae said. “Conflicts of interest abound. Archaic mentalities. Crooks and criminals! It’s an abusive industry, and I really feel for artists that have to come up in it.”

She started Raedio — “an audio everywhere company” with a record label joint venture with Atlantic Records and four more branches dedicated to publishing, live events, music supervision and a music library — in October 2019. Rae’s venture into the music business has proven fruitful in breaking new, mostly female and/or POC artists in the R&B and hip-hop space, including Baby Tate and TeaMarrr.

Rae has given emerging and established artists opportunities to secure lucrative sync placements by placing their music in her hit HBO series Insecure, which came to an end last month after a successful five-season run. In an interview with Billboard last fall, Raedio president and Rae’s longtime business partner Benoni Tagoe described the show as “the starting point, but it’s definitely not the finish line” for artists signed to Raedio, which has been working on music supervision for series such as Epix’s Godfather of Harlem, Starz’s Power and Rae’s upcoming HBO Max series Rap Sh*t about two struggling rappers in Miami, which is co executive-produced by City Girls.

The partnership was brokered by UTA Entertainment & Culture Marketing, the brand consulting division of UTA, which represents Google.