Billboard honors record executives at Music Biz event

Epic Records A&R President Tricky Stewart and Motown Executive Vice President of Urban Music Ethiopia Habtemariam, provide industry gems and music forecasts at the Music Biz 2013 40 Under 40 panel.

Record executives Ethiopia Habtemariam and Tricky Stewart were both honored at Music Biz 2013, a four-day music industry event jointly orchestrated by NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) and digitalmusic.org [major trade associations in the music industry]. Both honorees were participants on a panel hosted by Billboard entitled The Future of the Biz on the Future of the Biz last Wednesday. The event, which took place at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel, recognized individuals on Billboard’s 2012 40 Under 40 Power Players list.

Understandably thrilled about this distinguished honor, the two shared their excitement.

“Anytime that you’re being honored, or anytime someone thinks of you as a person of influence in your area, and believes that you have enough information for them to ask you questions, it’s always an honor,” says Stewart. “It means that you’ve done something great, and at the end of the day we all just want to be productive and looked at as being good at what we do.”

“It was great to be honored by Billboard; I feel extremely blessed,” says Habtemariam. “I don’t do panels that often; I’ve only done one other one recently for ASCAP and I was super nervous, but this one was great. I think it was great to be in this forum and have all of us kind of talk about the way we work together. I thought it was a very informative.”

After the event the Sentinel sat down with both honorees to trace their ascendance to the executive ranks of the industry, and chart the future of urban and pop music. Read more