As 2022 comes to a close, Horus Music Brazil reflect on a jam-packed year, focussed on supporting and developing our artists and growing our presence within the Brazilian music market. From the suave bossa of Mafalda Minnozzi to the alternative hip-hop of Disstantes, we had the opportunity to work with a diverse roster of musical styles and artists from Brazil and beyond.
Having spent 2 years under pandemic lockdown, the artistic sector has became a lot more savvy about their needs from a music distributor. As more DSPs appear within the digital age, our artists increasingly pay more attention to their revenue streams and the time and expense involved in creating content for social media, alongside the continued struggle to stand out from the crowd to break into the mainstream scene. With much food for thought, this provided us with an opportunity to analyse our services including what makes us stand out as a distributor and how we can continue to support and develop artists at all stages of their career.
With a primary focus on Brazilian artists, we started the year strong releasing Mafalda Minnozzi’s Cinema City – Jazz Scenes from Italian Film. Spending much of this year on tour covering Europe and the USA before returning to Brazil for a series of local shows, the importance of fans being able to consume music from all corners of the world has been highlighted whilst Mafalda continues to develop and grow her audience across the globe.
Meeting with Gilber T and Homobono mid July brought about one of our top projects from 2022. Having been involved in the music scene in Rio for many years, the duo ventured into forming a new project, ‘Disstantes’ and signed to Horus Music Brazil to release their album ‘Apocalipto’ in September 2022. A mix of hip-hop with a strong alternative vein, the album was embraced by local blogs and radio through our Brasil Calling service. Utilising multiple services we have to offer at Horus Music Brazil has seen Disstantes gain significant traction within the Brazilian market and we look forward to continuing to support them into 2023.
Switzerland based duo Da Cruz signed with us early 2022 and have gone on to release 3 singles and an album during the year. Also benefitting from our Brasil Calling marketing service, the releases made an impact both in Brazil and abroad, with regular coverage in international blogs and radio, especially amongst the world music community. Working with international artists to break into the Brazilian market and also mainstream fields is at the core of what we strive to achieve at Horus Music Brazil so it has been an absolute pleasure seeing Da Cruz garner great international success following their 2022 releases.
One of the most gratifying cases of the year was introducing the work of Canadian self-professed movement Amai Kuda et Les Bois to the Brazilian public. The first single, Eshu, was perfect as the song topic spoke to Brazilian culture. We promoted the track initially to the local music sector, with over 1000 local artists and music professionals receiving information on the release. Within days we could also ready see messages in Portuguese on her YouTube feed. Having finally released their long-awaited album EmUrgency! at the end of November, we also supported Amai Kuda in receiving editorial playlist placement across a number of major DSP’s.
The power of collaboration has been at the forefront of Horus Music Brazil and it’s been fantastic to witness a series of collaborations for some of our artists. From Rio de Janeiro, Muse Maya recorded with UK fashion icon Tino Kamal and in the UK, Ricardo Rawal teamed up with Yazzy B, CompreHend, Parko & Hytz for the Play Bout It track. Our internal work with our international offices allows us to champion collaboration, but also help our artists enter new markets, which without our connections and support, would not have been possible.
One of our top signings for this year is Sigmund Records, a student-operated record label at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos), in Porto Alegre who have been developing projects since 2012. Since 2017, these projects have been social-cause oriented, releasing artists from Haitian-refugee communities, indigenous peoples, and other underrepresented groups. Our first project with the university is Damas, Espadas & Coroas, a compilation of the new generation of female singers from the south of Brazil.
Our partnership with Sigmund Records has extended further than just supporting their distribution and marketing needs as we joined forces to host several educational workshops, including a recent live discussion on LinkedIn. With plans to further develop these educational workshops in 2023, we look forward to continuing to work with the label and supporting young musicians within Brazil.
Final highlights from 2022 include our attendance at a several international music conferences and events including Indie Music Week Canada and Music Norway. We were delighted to be asked to participate at NATIONxNATION, a global music export initiative held after Indie Music Week Canada. We selected 6 Canadian artists from a selection presented by IMWC to host a series of meetings between the artist and our Head of Horus Music Brazil David. David spent time educating the artists on the Brazilian music market and Horus Music Brazil’s services to help look at ways we could support them in entering a new market and further develop their careers.
As 2022 comes to a close, we’d like to thank our artists, labels, partners, collaborators and team for your continued support and we look forward to a successful year ahead.
