The Music Business Buddy

In this episode, I am joined by Hekta Music Group CEO Lucas Rizzo who also operates as a Fractional Partner Across Brands, Tech and Capital. Lucas shares insights from his unique journey through music, tech, and startups, highlighting the interconnectedness of these worlds and how they shape his approach to artist development and catalog management.

Keywords

music industry, startups, artist development, catalog acquisition, authenticity, creator economy, music tech, AI in music

Key Topics

Interconnection of music, tech, and startups
The importance of authenticity in music
Data-driven artist development strategies
The role of catalog acquisition in music
Balancing passion and business in music

Takeaways

Cross-industry experience provides a unique edge in music.
Authenticity remains crucial despite industry pressures.
Data and intuition together inform artist strategies.
Catalog management is a key to sustainable success.
Embracing being lost is part of finding your true path.

Guest Name

Lucas Rizzo

Sound bites

"The interconnectedness of it all."
"The DSP element is part of market fit."
"Getting lost is part of the process."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Lucas and His Journey
03:08 Interconnectedness of Music, Tech, and Startups
05:55 Realising Success vs. Fulfilment
09:00 The Transition from Artist to Business
11:52 Goals in Catalogue Acquisition and Artist Development
16:01 Navigating the Creator Economy
20:07 Wisdom from Parallel Lives
22:59 Authenticity in the Age of Social Media
25:59 Finding Your True Self Through the Journey

Resources

Hekta Music Group - https://hektamusicgroup.com
Chartmetric - https://www.chartmetric.com/
Ovo by Drake - https://www.octobersveryown.com/

Your music can be playing in thousands of real-world places right now: cafés, shops, gyms, pubs, restaurants, clubs and grassroots venues. The uncomfortable truth is that public performance royalties are still often calculated from surveys, proxies and best guesses, not from actual usage. That means creators can be underpaid or overpaid, and a lot of value ends up drifting into the black box instead of reaching the people who wrote and performed the work. 

I’m joined by Ryan Edwards, CEO of Audoo, a company building audio meters that help rights organisations measure what is really being played in venues. Ryan shares the moment he heard his own band’s track in a department store and realised he had no practical way to verify it on a royalty statement. We unpack the scale of the problem, including how limited sampling can distort distributions, and why accurate public performance reporting matters more than ever now that music catalogues are treated like investable assets. 

We also get properly technical. Ryan explains how Audoo creates a digital fingerprint in real time, matches it against a massive catalogue, and stays GDPR compliant by never storing or transmitting raw audio. We talk about adoption barriers, why some collecting societies move fast while others resist change, and what accurate play data unlocks beyond payments: touring strategy, marketing timing, cultural campaigns, and clearer insight into where music actually lives in the world. 

If you care about music licensing, PRO reform, royalty transparency, metadata, and fair pay for songwriters and performers, this one is for you. Subscribe for more deep dives into how the modern music industry works, share the episode with a creator who needs it, and leave a review telling me what part of royalty accounting you want decoded next.
https://audoo.com
Reach out to me !
Support the show
Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Music Business Buddy Brief for weekly insights on the future of the music industry, AI, artist development, rights and the creator economy. The podcast explains what's happening. The newsletter explains why it matters.
Join The Music Business Buddy Brief for exclusive weekly insights on the future of the music industry.
Subscribe: https://themusicbusinessbuddy.beehiiv.com
Websites
www.jonnyamos.com
https://themusicbusinessbuddy.buzzsprout.com
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/themusicbusinessbuddypodcast/
https://www.instagram.com/jonny_amos/

Email
jonnyamos@me.com
Newsletter Sign Up
https://themusicbusinessbuddy.beehiiv.com

Sync is meant to be simple: a great track, a clear brief, a fair fee, everyone gets paid. In reality, it can be weeks of chasing split sheets, conflicting PRO records, missing contacts and approvals that arrive too late to matter. I’m joined by hitmaker and builder Nathan Duvall to talk about what happens when the modern pace of content collides with a licensing system that still struggles to answer one basic question: who owns what, and where?

We get into what Nathan is building with SyncIt, including the unglamorous but essential work of collating rights ownership data at scale and reducing the friction that slows down music licensing for adverts, TV, film, games and social campaigns. We also explore why big brands like L’Oreal cannot wait for endless back and forth, how licensing terms can price music out of the market, and why AI is already part of the toolkit whether the industry feels ready or not.

Then we zoom out to sport and fan culture. Nathan explains Fanthem, an AI-powered fan engagement platform that lets supporters generate chants and anthems, and why FIFA is trialling it for the Under 17s World Cup. From there we move into artist strategy: building an audience while creating a licensable body of work, the shift towards visual-first music discovery, and the practical reality that expertise still matters when brands need cut-downs, mixes, masters and fast delivery.

We close with a straight-talking look at masters ownership, multiple income streams, and the contract details artists overlook, especially retention period and consent clauses. If this helps, subscribe, share it with someone navigating sync licensing or label deals, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.
https://syncit.ac
Reach out to me !
Support the show
Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Music Business Buddy Brief for weekly insights on the future of the music industry, AI, artist development, rights and the creator economy. The podcast explains what's happening. The newsletter explains why it matters.
Join The Music Business Buddy Brief for exclusive weekly insights on the future of the music industry.
Subscribe: https://themusicbusinessbuddy.beehiiv.com
Websites
www.jonnyamos.com
https://themusicbusinessbuddy.buzzsprout.com
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/themusicbusinessbuddypodcast/
https://www.instagram.com/jonny_amos/

Email
jonnyamos@me.com
Newsletter Sign Up
https://themusicbusinessbuddy.beehiiv.com

You can feel it happening: a quiet revolt against the feed. When music becomes something we scroll past, count, and optimise, we lose the part that actually nourishes us. So I sit down with Keith Jopling, former Spotify global head of strategy and one of the UK’s sharpest music industry thinkers, to talk about the surprisingly radical idea at the heart of his book Body Of Work.  

We start with the album and why it refuses to die. Keith breaks down what campaigns like Charli XCX’s Brat reveal about culture, timing, and the return of album-era moments, especially among younger fans. From Taylor Swift to Billie Eilish to Olivia Rodrigo, we explore why cohesive projects still matter even when “album consumption” is difficult to measure in the streaming era, and why physical formats like vinyl and CDs can be part fandom, part merch, and part a genuine route back to attention and meaning. 

Then we get practical for creators: what constitutes a hit record in 2026? We look at how charts have become more industry-facing, what streaming numbers can and cannot tell you, and why the most honest metric might be the song your crowd sings back the loudest. We also challenge the obsession with measurement, including the growing pressure to treat music as a set of financial metrics, and land on the real antidotes: live music, better craft, and rituals like listening parties that make music communal again. 

If you care about the future of the music business, the creator economy, and the health of music culture, press play. Subscribe, share this with a music obsessive, and leave a review with the last album you listened to front-to-back.
https://www.songsommelier.com
https://www.songsommelier.com/body-of-work
Reach out to me !
Support the show
Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Music Business Buddy Brief for weekly insights on the future of the music industry, AI, artist development, rights and the creator economy. The podcast explains what's happening. The newsletter explains why it matters.
Join The Music Business Buddy Brief for exclusive weekly insights on the future of the music industry.
Subscribe: https://themusicbusinessbuddy.beehiiv.com
Websites
www.jonnyamos.com
https://themusicbusinessbuddy.buzzsprout.com
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/themusicbusinessbuddypodcast/
https://www.instagram.com/jonny_amos/

Email
jonnyamos@me.com
Newsletter Sign Up
https://themusicbusinessbuddy.beehiiv.com

A song can be great and still miss its audience, simply because nobody knows where to place it. That problem sits at the heart of my conversation with Zotz - the strategist, music executive, and CEO of Rocketship Music, a new platform built to help artists understand exactly where their track fits before they spend money promoting it. 

We talk about the practical reality of modern music marketing for independent artists: choosing a “single”, defining genre and mood, writing targeting, and making decisions with tiny budgets while the industry often waits for TikTok or streaming algorithms to pick winners. Maxwell explains how Rocketship compares your music to similar releases across decades, then uses that historical context to point towards likely audiences and smarter next steps. The goal is not to replace taste or creativity, but to stop creators shooting in the dark and to reduce wasted spend on the wrong channels. 

We also go deep on what responsible AI in the music industry looks like. Rocketship is not an AI music generator, and Zotz breaks down the legal and ethical hurdles of building “AI that listens” without training on copyrighted recordings in the way most people assume. From there we explore where AI genuinely helps musicians today: saving time on workflows, improving planning, and freeing artists to focus on writing, recording, and performing. 

Finally, we look ahead to a market where AI increases the volume of new music and raises the stakes for human artists. Our shared takeaway: fandom, live connection, and knowing who truly resonates with your work becomes even more important. If you enjoy these deep dives into A&R, artist development, and music tech, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review. What’s the one question you wish you could answer about your audience right now?
https://rocketship.music
Reach out to me !
Support the show
Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Music Business Buddy Brief for weekly insights on the future of the music industry, AI, artist development, rights and the creator economy. The podcast explains what's happening. The newsletter explains why it matters.
Join The Music Business Buddy Brief for exclusive weekly insights on the future of the music industry.
Subscribe: https://themusicbusinessbuddy.beehiiv.com
Websites
www.jonnyamos.com
https://themusicbusinessbuddy.buzzsprout.com
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/themusicbusinessbuddypodcast/
https://www.instagram.com/jonny_amos/

Email
jonnyamos@me.com
Newsletter Sign Up
https://themusicbusinessbuddy.beehiiv.com