AWAL has named Amazon alumnus Aniket Parpillewar its new Head for India and South Asia, as the corporate touts its rising position within the area’s indie music with a slew of latest signings.
Parpillewar can be based mostly in Mumbai and report collectively to AWAL COO Paul Hitchman and Vinit Thakkar, Managing Director of Sony Music Leisure India.
He joins AWAL from Amazon India, the place he served as Head of Music at Prime Video and Amazon Studios. His new position can be to “proceed to unfold the AWAL mission of empowering independent-minded artists within the area,” the corporate stated in an announcement on Tuesday (March 11).
The corporate additionally introduced a variety of new “high-potential” signings, together with Zanai Bhosle, Anumita Nadesan, Dino James, Wolf.Cryman, Shreya Jain, Euphoria, Utsavi Jha, and D Imaan.
Parpillewar’s appointment comes two years after AWAL expanded into India with the acquisition of OKListen, a Mumbai-headquartered digital music platform for indie labels and musicians, and 4 years after Sony Music accomplished its acquisition of AWAL.
AWAL’s enlargement in South Asia is going on with the help of Sony Music Leisure India, the corporate famous on Tuesday.
“AWAL has all the time been international in outlook and, with Sony Music’s help, we are actually capable of take a big step in extending the AWAL mannequin and providers to artists in India and South Asia,” AWAL CEO Lonny Olinick stated.
Credit score: Yuri Hasegawa
“With Sony Music’s help, we are actually capable of take a big step in extending the AWAL mannequin and providers to artists in India and South Asia.”
Lonny Olinick, AWAL
Added Olinick: “Aniket brings a wealth of music expertise within the Indian market to the AWAL group and has hit the bottom operating with the signings of each established and breaking artists. We sit up for working carefully with Aniket and his group, and our companions at Sony Music India, to empower artists in India to succeed in their full potential each within the South Asia market and past.”
Sony India’s Thakkar added the corporate is “thrilled to help AWAL’s enlargement” in India.
“Aniket’s management and AWAL’s distinctive method to artist growth completely enhances our personal dedication to nurturing native expertise,” he stated.
“We consider this partnership can be instrumental in empowering unbiased artists and driving the expansion of the Indian music trade on a world scale.”
“We consider this partnership can be instrumental in empowering unbiased artists and driving the expansion of the Indian music trade on a world scale.”
Vinit Thakkar, Sony Music Leisure India
Parpillewar added: “That is an thrilling time for music, with artists having extra energy and prospects than ever earlier than. At AWAL, we consider in serving to creators keep true to their imaginative and prescient whereas enabling them to make their expertise seen and heard worldwide.
“India is bursting with expertise and untold tales. I actually consider the subsequent wave of worldwide music will come from right here, led by fearless, boundary-breaking artists. Our imaginative and prescient is to empower these artists with freedom and assets they should craft their very own narratives, redefining success on their very own phrases.”
Parpillewar’s appointment comes within the wake of a collection of strikes by Sony to broaden its presence within the quickly rising South Asian music market.
In 2024, Sony inked a deal with Maddock Movies, a Mumbai-based movie and internet collection manufacturing firm. The deal contains producing movie soundtracks and indie pop singles.
“India is bursting with expertise and untold tales. I actually consider the subsequent wave of worldwide music will come from right here, led by fearless, boundary-breaking artists.”
Aniket Parpillewar, AWAL
A yr earlier, Sony inked a publishing deal with Indian label Massive Bang Music, underneath which SMP administers and promotes Massive Bang’s songs globally.
In 2022, Sony Music Leisure fashioned a three way partnership with Sony Footage Leisure, dubbed ‘Sony Leisure Expertise Ventures India’ (SETVI), an leisure firm centered on creating “ventures for media expertise in India”.
Most just lately, Sony Music Publishingprolonged a partnership it initially signed with India’s Suggestions Music in 2023, which provides SMP the rights to Suggestions’ catalog of greater than 23,000 tracks. The brand new deal extends to distribution on YouTube worldwide, excluding India.Music Enterprise Worldwide
