Solange
Raphael Saadiq
Erykah Badu
Stevie Wonder
Mary J. Blige

Raphael Saadiq Embarks on New Journey with Forward Artist Management

John Dody
03/06/24 12:13PM

Raphael Saadiq, the Grammy Award-winning titan of the music industry, has charted a new course in his illustrious career by signing with Forward Artist Management. This strategic partnership with the Los Angeles-based firm highlights a pivotal moment for Saadiq, following his recent landmark achievement: co-writing and co-producing Beyoncé’s groundbreaking country hit, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which soared to No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart.

🎵 A Legacy of Musical Excellence: Saadiq’s contribution to Beyoncé’s success with “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” underscores his versatile genius. Additionally, his Grammy win for best R&B song with “Cuff It” further cements his status as a pivotal figure in modern music. As a founding member of the iconic R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné!, which recently reunited for a sell-out tour, Saadiq has left an indelible mark on the music landscape.

🎤 Collaborating with Legends: Throughout his career, Saadiq has collaborated with a who’s who of the music world, including Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Usher, Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige, and Solange, showcasing his ability to blend seamlessly across genres and generations.

📀 Forward-Thinking Partnership: Under the guidance of Forward Artist Management’s Tyler Childs, Saadiq is poised to continue his trajectory of musical innovation and influence. Childs praises Saadiq’s unique talent and looks forward to propelling his career to new heights, emphasizing the excitement within the FAM team to support Saadiq’s creative vision.

🌟 Continued Creative Pursuits: With his most recent solo project, 2019’s “Jimmy Lee,” and his contribution to the Academy Award-nominated song “Mighty River,” Saadiq demonstrates his enduring relevance and creative dynamism. Represented by Tim Mandelbaum of Fox Rothschild, Saadiq’s journey with Forward Artist Management promises exciting new chapters in a storied career.

Raphael Saadiq’s alliance with Forward Artist Management signifies not just a new managerial relationship but a commitment to furthering his legacy as a groundbreaking artist, producer, and songwriter in the ever-evolving music industry.

More on New Signings

See all New Signings

Digest News

Music 2 mins read

Prince Royce Signs With Wasserman, Continues His Reign as the Bachata Globalist-in-Chief

If there’s one thing Wasserman knows how to do, it’s take global icons and make them slightly more global. Prince Royce, the Bronx-born bachatero who made heartache sound like a dancefloor proposition, has officially signed with Wasserman for worldwide representation (minus the part of the world where bachata was arguably born). Because why not expand your empire—selectively?

Royce’s team remains a steady triangle: Walter Kolm Entertainment on management (the Latin music whisperer), Nieman Group on PR (because someone has to craft the headline when your heart gets broken in 4/4 time), and now Wasserman to handle the booking side of his eterna career trajectory.

This isn’t a case of artist-trying-to-make-a-comeback. Royce has never really left. He first broke out in 2010 with a bachata rework of “Stand By Me” that somehow turned a 1960s soul classic into the unofficial slow dance anthem of every quinceañera between Miami and Queens. He followed that up with “Corazón Sin Cara”, which was less a single and more a gentle reminder that beauty is skin-deep but charisma is eternal.

Since then,

Read More
Music 2 mins read

Trey Songz Signs With IAG

Trey Songz—the man who helped a generation of R&B fans confuse love with texting at 2 a.m.—has officially signed with Independent Artist Group (IAG) for representation. Yes, that Trey Songz. The inventor of the “Sex Playlist” energy before streaming platforms made those literal, the crooner who somehow made the phrase “Neighbors Know My Name” sound like both a flex and a zoning violation.

With over 8 million monthly Spotify listeners, and core fanbases across Sydney, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Atlanta, Mr. Steal Your Girl is still very much on the playlist and in the bloodstream. His latest single, “Say the Word”, dropped this month as an independent release—because when you’ve already spent years signed to Atlantic and sold millions, sometimes you just want to whisper sweet nothings directly to your audience with no middlemen.

Trey, whose real name is Tremaine Neverson (which already sounds like a lost member of the royal family who moonlights at Drai’s),

Read More
Endorsement Deals 2 mins read

Dua Lipa Puts Her Gloss Where Her Voice Is — With YSL Beauty

YSL Beauty has tapped Dua Lipa—global pop star, fashion maximalist, and walking serotonin dispenser—to front its campaign for the new LOVESHINE Plumping Lip Oil Gloss, a product that sounds like it was named during a sugar rush and a brainstorm session in equal measure. Naturally, Dua Lipa is the face of it. Because if you’re launching a product that promises shine, heat, and a little bit of chaos, you don’t cast a minimalist.

The campaign leans heavily into Lipa’s entire public thesis: bold color, playful energy, slight vintage callback, unapologetic glamour. This isn’t a subtle gloss. This is a disco ball in oil form. “Lipstick is my go-to beauty product,” Lipa says in the official statement. Which feels like a helpful clarification for anyone who’s ever seen her walk a carpet and thought, “This woman definitely loves math.”

This isn’t Dua’s first ride with YSL. She’s been a beauty ambassador for the house, and this campaign marks a natural extension—like if Studio 54

Read More
Endorsement Deals 2 mins read

Kendrick Lamar’s Stars In New Gatorade Ad About Losing. But You Know, In a Cool Way.

Kendrick Lamar’s latest Gatorade campaign, part of the brand’s 2025 “Lose More. Win More.” initiative, isn’t about sports drinks so much as it is about existential sweat. This is Gatorade-as-haiku. And Kendrick, of course, is the narrator of your inner monologue after a personal failure and a 12-minute run that made you reconsider everything.

The spot, released May 25, leans hard into monochrome minimalism—black-and-white cinematography, meditative voiceover, controlled pacing—before erupting into splashes of Gatorade color like a Jackson Pollock

Read More
Product Collaborations 2 mins read

The Weeknd Joins Forces With Nespresso

The Weeknd has joined forces with Nespresso, because of course he has. If you’re a multi-platinum, genre-shattering global superstar with a taste for icy falsettos and atmospheric dread, what’s the logical next move? Launch a coffee brand named after your mom.

Enter “Samra Origins,” a limited-edition Ethiopian blend created in collaboration with Nespresso that promises to be “best enjoyed over ice,” which, frankly, is also a pretty good tagline for The Weeknd himself. The collection

Read More
Film/TV 2 mins read

Beau Mirchoff Has Signed With Principal Entertainment For Management

Beau Mirchoff has signed with Principal Entertainment for management, because when you’ve gone from teenage heartthrob in a high school hoodie to grown-man cowboy navigating family drama on horseback, it’s probably time for a team that can wrangle both ends of your IMDb page.

He still rides with IAG for agency rep, but Principal steps in now to help steer the broader narrative—which is important when your career begins with Matty McKibben on Awkward (yes, the moody, mysterious one) and winds up with you starring in Hallmark’s Ride, roping cattle and emotions in equal measure.

Mirchoff has always been something of a shape-shifter. He played the new kid on Desperate Housewives during its late-stage chaos era. He showed up in The Fosters and its spinoff Good Trouble, playing the kind of emotionally unavailable boyfriend that lives rent-free in Freeform viewers’ heads. And then there was Now Apocalypse, a fever dream of a show that dared to ask: what if sex, aliens, and existential dread were the same thing?

In film, he’s popped up in places you probably

Read More
Film/TV 2 mins read

Dan Soder Has Signed With Range Media Partners For Management,

Dan Soder has signed with Range Media Partners for management, which feels like the natural next step when your resume reads like the streaming era’s Swiss army knife—stand-up comic, prestige drama actor, former voice of satellite radio degeneracy, and, crucially, still a guy who loves telling jokes about his mom.

He stays repped by UTA, because sometimes you don’t fix what’s working—you just add horsepower. Range, after all, is where people go when the plan isn’t just to do gigs, but to architect a career. And Soder’s career is weird in a good way: he’s not the kind of comic whose audience forgets him after the next Netflix drop. He’s the kind that builds mythologies. The guy your friend insists you have to see live because “he’s actually really smart.” (He is.)

You might know him as Mafee on Billions—the junior trader with a soul, which in that show is basically science fiction. Or from his HBO special Son of a Gary, where he turns childhood trauma into a tight 58 minutes of catharsis and fart jokes. Or maybe you caught him during the Bonfire era on

Read More
Film/TV 2 mins read

Lupita Nyong’o Has Signed With WME

Lupita Nyong’o has signed with WME, because eventually even the most decorated talent on the planet needs someone to manage the gravitational pull of their own career orbit.

The Oscar winner, best-selling author, podcast host, and face of Afrofuturist excellence is trading up on the rep front—and not because she had to, but because this stage of the game calls for boardroom heavyweights, not just publicists with taste. She’ll continue to be repped by ID PR, but now with WME on deck, we’re officially in strategic expansion territory.

And Lupita’s résumé? It’s less “career” and more “galaxy.” She debuted by sweeping award season with 12 Years a Slave like it was a team-building exercise. Then came Black Panther, where she became the emotional anchor of a global juggernaut. Then Us, where she played both victim and villain and made it look like a TED Talk on duality. And this summer, she’s adding “Shakespearean lead” to her already-unfair résumé—playing Viola in Twelfth Night for Shakespeare in the Park, opposite Peter Dinklage and Sandra Oh, like

Read More
Basketball 2 mins read

Li Yueru Has Signed With First Pick Management

Li Yueru has signed with First Pick Management, because even when you’re 6’7″ and dropping 20/20 stat lines on international hardwood, you still need someone to negotiate the fine print.

The Chinese basketball star—known for redefining what it means to be “dominant in the paint” with the subtlety of a freight train—joins an agency that reps Kaela Davis, Erica Wheeler, and Ajsa Sivka. But this isn’t just a client pickup. This is a declaration that First Pick knows where the future of global basketball is headed: tall, tactical, and from Changzhi.

If you’re wondering whether Li’s career reads more like a spreadsheet than a highlight reel, think again. She’s been anchoring Team China with Olympic poise and FIBA fury, casually racking up 22-point, 23-rebound games like she’s organizing pantry shelves. Her Tokyo Olympics run? Nearly 15 points and 8 boards per game. Her domestic dominance with the Guangdong

Read More
Sports 2 mins read

Jimmie Johnson Has Signed With WME

Jimmie Johnson has signed with WME, because when you’ve tied Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for the most Cup titles in NASCAR history, there’s not much left to do but build an empire around the legend.

Seven-time champion. Two-time Daytona 500 winner. Eighty-three career checkered flags. Jimmie Johnson is what happens when longevity meets peak performance and never lets up. He didn’t just win—he engineered one of the most dominant eras motorsport has ever seen, including an absurd five straight Cup Series titles between 2006 and 2010. And now, in his post-full-time-racing era, he’s shifting lanes—from “GOAT” to “mogul.”

WME will represent Johnson in all areas, which is less about finding him work and more about building scaffolding for what’s already in motion. There’s Legacy Motor Club, the Cup Series team he co-owns and occasionally drives for. There’s the SiriusXM podcast, “Never Settle,” which he co-hosts with ESPN’s Marty Smith, a southern-fried deep-dive into sports, stories, and human drive. There are brand partnerships, media ventures, ownership

Read More