Exclusive: Kevin Shivers Begins New Chapter At Wasserman Music

While there are plenty of superstar agents, few this year could beat being voted biggest “Poach of the Year” by Assistants vs. Agents, the popular music industry social media account/meme machine. Kevin Shivers, however, is a rare breed, and when Wasserman Music announced he was joining the agency as EVP and Managing Executive from WME (alongside colleagues James Rubin and Cristina Baxter), much of the live industry was shocked.

Shivers, who has represented top talent throughout his career including Tyler, The Creator; Kali Uchis; Snoop Dogg; Lil Baby; Kid Cudi and more, previously served as a senior partner at WME and co-director of the Hip-Hop/R&B team alongside Rubin. With the move, Tyler, The Creator, whose recently launched “Chromakopia: The World Tour” this week landed at No. 7 on Pollstar’s APX chart, joins Wasserman Music with Shivers, though the tour was still booked when Shivers worked at WME.

Shivers spent 17 years at WME, working up from the mailroom (after a spell working at Austin’s famed Stubb’s Bar-B-Q for Charles Attal). But, after so many years, he felt it was time for a change of scenery. As he looks ahead to his future at Wasserman Music, Shivers notes he has a lot of ideas in mind for how the music industry can expand.

Pollstar: Along with being voted the “Poach of the Year,” your colleagues voted you as the third nicest agent – the nicest music agent – why do you think that is?
Kevin Shivers: I think I was voted third nicest because I make time for people, and I’m grateful to have room for growth! I never forgot the people who made time for me when I was coming up, so when people write me on LinkedIn or Instagram, I always take the time to respond. I used to meet people for coffee, but that got too overwhelming because I always say yes. Doing things like that on a daily basis is what I think of as an easy way that I can help create positivity.

How do you practice kindness in the workplace?
I always try to treat people with respect. I call people back in a timely manner. I make myself available to mentor people. I come from a place of always being of service. I’ve been sober for 21 years, and one of the main things about being sober and in AA is being of service, and being of service is the through line for a lot of things in my life. I’m just grateful for the opportunities that I’ve gotten, and I try to pay it back where I can. People are always like, “Oh, he is just super nice,” but the truth is I just do my best to be positive every day.

Speaking of just getting started, you were at WME for the majority of your career (17 years). That’s a big transition and a massive life change. How did you come to that decision?
It was a hard decision to leave my previous job, but I was there for a very long time and I realized that I needed to make a change and go somewhere I could truly grow beyond the point I’d reached, and where there was more room for me. I wanted more opportunity, and that presented itself through [Wasserman Chairman and CEO] Casey Wasserman and [Wasserman Music President] Lee Anderson, who understood and came with a clear path to making those things happen.
Like leaving any long-term relationship there have been lots of feelings — sadness, excitement, uncertainty — but in my heart I always knew it was the right move, and I’m even more sure of that now that I’m here. The only constant in life is change, and I’ve experienced so many things and been sober for so long that I’m not really scared of much.

There’s a strong support team here at Wasserman that have really helped me make the transition: Lee Anderson, Marty Diamond, Brent Smith, Casey Wasserman, Sam Hunt, Sara Pullman, Jamila Lyndon and many others. I also came over with two great agents and friends from my previous job, Cristina Baxter and James Rubin, which has also helped and made it feel more like an evolution than a hard change.

What was it about Wasserman Music that appealed to you at this time in your career?
Wasserman has such a great roster, an amazing group of core agents, and the leadership has been really strong under Lee, who I respect a great deal, and of course with Casey at the top. There are just some solid human beings that work here. I love the entrepreneurial aspect where you get treated like an adult and are given the freedom to run your business, but with tons of support and services from the agency.

If you need to do something, you just have a conversation and people are supportive. People come back to you in a timely manner, and they pick up their own phones when you call. As successful as it is, Wasserman Music is still a young company so they’re always in the mindset of building and creating in smart and innovative ways. And if you think something might work a better way, I’ll just go have a conversation. There’s always an open dialogue where people are encouraged to speak up, which is a good thing because I’m never short on ideas.

You were able to retain a lot of your clients in this move. How have you built those relationships to have them want to stay with you?
I’m proud of the relationships I’ve built with clients and managers, which are 100% about mutual trust, and that’s something you earn every day. I’ve been together with many of them for more than a decade, with me believing in them from the beginning, doing the work all day every day, and just being a solid citizen. I’m generally at my desk by 7 a.m., if not before, and go well into the evening, and then maybe a show. I’m the one thinking about the bouncing balls in the middle of the night. My friend Meredith gave me a nickname: Shivers Delivers. For me, that’s the highest praise you can get.

What are you hoping to accomplish in this next phase of your career?
I want to help artists and staff blossom and reach their full potential. I want to help grow Wasserman’s business even further and expand into things we haven’t even imagined yet. I want to help find new and better ways of doing things and bring more opportunities to more diverse people. Not just as agents, which isn’t for everyone. You can help place people into the entertainment world as allies in positions across the industry because it’s a big sandbox and there are lots of opportunities to help shape the next generation of leaders.

What are some of your ideas for how the industry can be better?
We need to bring more opportunities to more kinds of people — women, LGBTQ+, people of color. The main way for us to become stronger is by investing in people across underserved communities and spreading opportunities to reflect the world we live in. I’d also like to expand into more global markets and go even deeper with touring to places like Africa, India and China.

What are your thoughts on the current state of the hip-hop and R&B business? Wasserman Music has a solid presence with acts such as your own, as well as Kendrick Lamar and SZA.
We need to help build more stars with long careers. There are tons of stars in the hip-hop world, but we always need new voices to keep it exciting. If you go out to restaurants, bars, wherever — hip-hop is what you’re hearing and what people are talking about, and it’s our job to help find and nurture those new voices. Wasserman is the perfect place for that because between music, sports and entertainment it’s always at the center of what’s happening across our culture.

Hip-hop has also been crossing over with many other genres, including country.
It’s exciting to mix around with different genres, pick up new audiences and cross cultures that wouldn’t seem like a natural fit. Real artists don’t want to be limited by confined spaces, they want to impact the culture through whatever means. They let everybody else put labels on them, but they are always thinking bigger than that, and there’s nothing better than helping them get where they want to go.