Remi Wins AMP, Managers Talk Teens

It was the first hip-hop release to take out the A$30,000 ($23,160) prize in its 10 years. “It’s absolutely crazy,” 23-year-old Remi Kolawole said of the win.

“We put everything we could into this album and to get this kind of recognition is amazing. I mean, we made this album in (producer) Sensible J’s spare bedroom so to be nominated at this level is pretty mind-blowing.” Raw X Infinity was chosen from a longlist of 65 Aussie albums by a panel headed by Dave Faulkner of the Hoodoo Gurus.

The AMP ceremony, at Sydney Paddington Town Hall March 4 before 200 invite-only guests, also included a Q&A session with John Watson (Gotye, Missy Higgins,Cold Chisel, Silverchair) and Scott MacLachlan (Lorde). The discussion included how to achieve the visions of teen clients. The three members of Silverchair were 14 years old when Watson, who as head of A&R at Sony Music Australia signed them in 1994, was asked by their parents to manage them.

Higgins and Lorde, aka Ella Yelich-O’Connor were both 17. MacLachlan admitted that many in the New Zealand industry told him he didn’t know what he was doing and he’d screw it up for her. “My role with Ella was, she had a vision and I was just clearing the way for her to come through.

Whether people bought into that or not, I didn’t really care,” MacLachlan said. “I think she and I were so on the same page, we didn’t want to do it any other way anyway. If it was a failure, we would have been happy with it the way it was done.” Watson discussed the “patronizing attitude” many execs showed in dealing with teen talent.

“They often assume they’re clueless when, in point of fact, teenagers are often extremely confident about what they do and don’t want.” He said the duty managers owe to ensure teens had time out for friends and normal activities often means declining lucrative offers. “It can be very tricky to work out which of those invitations are ‘opportunities’ and which ones are ‘temptations.’

“Often older people on the business side struggle to understand those choices so you end up spending a lot of time saying ‘no’ to people who think you’re nuts for not just grabbing every penny regardless of artist burnout.”