Excel Entertainment Starts Its Own Record Label, With Universal Music As Shareholder
Excel Entertainment's label Excel Music will release its own soundtracks and court outside films, with Universal Music taking a stake and handling distribution.
Excel Entertainment, the Mumbai production house run by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar, launched a record label called Excel Music in early August. Universal Music Group has taken a stake as a strategic shareholder and will handle marketing and distribution.
The banner behind Dil Chahta Hai, Rock On!!, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Gully Boy has spent more than two decades making films whose songs outlasted their theatrical runs. Until now, those songs went out on other people's labels.
What the label will do
Excel Music will release soundtracks and background scores from Excel's own productions. It also plans to work with other filmmakers and production houses around the country, so it is meant to be a working label, not an in-house release desk.
Its first album was the soundtrack to Mirzapur: The Movie, the big-screen continuation of the streaming series, due in cinemas on 4 September. The lead single brought in Haryanvi rapper Dhanda Nyoliwala for his first Hindi film song.
"Music has always held a special place in our creative journey," Sidhwani and Akhtar said in a joint statement, calling the label "a natural extension of that passion".
Sanujeet Bhujabal, Universal's managing director for India and South Asia, said the company wanted to help build "a distinctive destination for exceptional music across genres". He pointed to Universal's roster, catalogue and distribution reach as its contribution.
Who keeps the masters
A hit film song earns for decades, on streaming, YouTube, radio and in syncs. A producer who licenses the rights away at release gives that up. A producer who keeps them adds to a catalogue with every film.
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Universal's position is unusual too. It is not buying soundtrack rights film by film here. It holds equity in a producer's label, which gives it a stake in Excel's future slate, while the records carry Excel's name.
The Mirzapur album had a second use for Universal. It became the first Hindi film album released under the company's "Hear It First" window, which gives paying subscribers new music 72 hours before free listeners.
Within days, Yash Raj Films opened a label of its own. YRF's is for independent artists outside its films. Excel's first job is to keep its own film songs at home.
(Source: official press release)
