Republic Records’ Monte and Avery Lipman on How Taylor Swift, Post Malone, Prince, Partnerships and Persistence Have Made Them the Top Label of the Past Decade
It seems incredibly corny to say that Republic Records’ ethos is contained in the label’s first-ever monster hit, Chumbawamba’s 1997 anthem “Tubthumping”: “I get knocked down, I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down.” OK, it is incredibly corny — but it fits. Republic and its founders, brothers Monte and Avery Lipman, have been the most successful label of the past decade because of their entrepreneurship, ferocious work ethic and the fact that they just don’t give up.
“It actually goes back to our childhood,” Avery says. “When we were little kids, we had a lemonade stand, and when no one came around, we actually went to people’s doors and knocked. I mean, imagine answering your doorbell and seeing a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old selling lemonade — how do you say no?” he laughs.
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“But it was the sense of resourcefulness,” Monte chimes in. “When we were kids, we were flat broke, but our feeling was, rather than just sit there and wallow in the fact that we didn’t have any money, let’s do something about it. Let’s figure this out.”
That ethos has not only led Republic to lead market share nearly every year for the past decade-plus — it’s been Variety’s Hitmakers label of the year four out of the last seven years, and appears headed to a fifth — they’ve also attracted an almost impossibly long list of the world’s biggest artists: Taylor Swift, Post Malone, Ariana Grande, Drake, Morgan Wallen, the Weeknd, Lil Wayne, Pearl Jam, Nicki Minaj, John Mellencamp, Florence + the Machine, John Legend and Metro Boomin, along with Prince, Amy Winehouse and even Stevie Wonder. And earlier this year, the Lipmans were elevated by Universal Music Group chairman-CEO Lucian Grainge to head a new division, Republic Corps, which includes the titular label as well as the iconic Def Jam, Island and Mercury labels and the Imperial independent division.
What is even more remarkable is the fact that the company — which was launched in 1995 from the kitchen table of the Lipmans’ shared Manhattan studio apartment — followed previous jobs that the brothers, well, might not consider glorious successes.
“My very, very first job out of college in 1986, was at Arista Records — I got fired,” says Monte, who started out in radio promotion. “Then I got hired at SBK, which became part of the EMI label group — got fired. Then made my way over to Atlantic — got fired! So that was my track record.”
Avery had better luck — ironically at Arista Records, where he worked as Clive Davis’ assistant. “I just got the job because I could type,” he laughs, “but just being around Clive, you learn so much.” Next, the brothers decided to try their hands at management, until “we realized we were probably the worst managers known to man, and so we realized that we should do a record label,” Avery says.
The fledgling label was launched with the rather inglorious name of Cheese Factory Records, in a thematic tie-in with its first release, the “Dingleberry Haze” EP by Pennsylvania prank-rock act the Bloodhound Gang (the label’s name was changed to Republic soon after). Released independently in 1995, the EP was picked up by Geffen Records via a savvy young A&R exec named Wendy Goldstein — who is now president of Republic Records — which led to a larger deal with the label and with what is now Universal Music Group. That company ultimately acquired the label in 2000 and appointed the brothers to top executive roles that have gotten bigger and bigger as the years and successes have piled up.
But the first song that truly put the label on the map was the aforementioned “Tubthumping,” an indelibly catchy — and anomalous — track by the British anarcho-pop collective Chumbawamba. The song topped the charts in multiple countries, reached No. 2 in Canada and No. 6 in the U.S., where it was certified triple platinum in 1998 (the last time its status was updated).
“That just took us into overdrive,” Avery says. “It really introduced us to, ‘Oh my God, this is what success feels like.’”
The success continued through the 1990s and into the 21st century with pop and rock hits from Jay Sean, Three Doors Down, Godsmack and, later, Winehouse. But the key deal during the label’s first decade was a partnership with Cash Money Records, the powerhouse founded by Ronald “Slim” Williams and Bryan Williams (who goes by “Baby” or “Birdman”) that drove the careers of Lil Wayne, Juvenile, Hot Boyz and later Drake, Nicki Minaj and Tyga. Although they say every arrangement is different, the partnership that the Lipmans struck with that label set the mold for similar deals over the years, with Lava Records (Lorde, Greta Van Fleet), Big Loud Records (Morgan Wallen), the Korean companies HYBE (BTS, Tomorrow X Together, New Jeans) and JYP (Stray Kids), most recently Jelly Roll and BMG and more — even Swift, who is in many ways her own industry.
Monte is quick to highlight the collaborative nature of those partnerships.
“We want to be good partners, and that goes back to our relationship with Wendy when she was at Geffen,” he says. “She treated us with a level of respect and support that we hadn’t seen before and was always a good listener. She’d say, ‘Guys, your instincts are spot on. Whatever you’re doing, it’s working, so keep going, and let us know how we can help.’ It was so simple but profound at the same time, and we try to do that as well.
“For example,” he continues, “we’ve been with Cash Money for 30 years, and Slim, in particular, in every single conversation, would say at some point, ‘What do you think?’ He never had the attitude of ‘We’ve got all the answers’ — he’s curious, ‘Is there another way to do this?’ That’s a big part of it for us too, because we learn from our partnerships. We’ve got a strategic alliance with the two biggest companies in South Korea, JYP and HYBE, and they’re doing things that we hadn’t seen before, with their commitment to fans and fan engagement. We’re still students of the game.”
That ethos is being put into practice with the Lipmans’ new roles as heads of Republic Corps (with longtime lieutenant Jim Roppo as president-COO), which includes the Republic label (under Goldstein), Island (whose co-CEOs Imran Majid and Justin Eshak are lighting up the charts with Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan after just three years in the job), Mercury (under Post Malone’s longtime A&R Tyler Arnold), Def Jam (under Tunji Balogun) and Imperial (under Astralwerks veteran Glenn Mendlinger). In past interviews, Monte has described the brothers’ role as “coaching the coaches,” and that approach has continued with their broader purview.
“We’re field generals — we’re not [giving orders from] the tent,” he says. “But with that in mind, the idea is to let these people operate, let them make decisions,” he says. “Avery and I are not here to micromanage; we’re here to support and tap the institutional knowledge — ‘We’re a bit older than you, we’ve experienced a little more, so there’s a good chance that whatever issue you’re dealing with at that moment, we’ve seen it.’ But the idea is not to just go in and fix it,” he continues. “It’s ‘I’m not going to make the decision for you, but here are a few things you may want to consider.’”
It doesn’t hurt that several of those executives came up at Republic. “We call it ‘Republic University,’” Monte says, “and I give Avery tremendous credit: Both Imran and Justin came in under Avery; he hired Tyler Arnold out of college; [Mercury general manager] Ben Adelson had one other job before he came to us at an entry-level position as Avery’s assistant. So all four of them aren’t just leaders of these labels, they’re leaders within the industry. I mean, what Island is doing right now with Sabrina and Chappell, and Mercury with Post Malone and Morgan Wallen and the alliance with Big Loud, is just incredible.” He says big plans are in the works at Def Jam and Imperial as well.
“We’ve been intact as a team for a long time,” he adds. “The majority of our senior officers have been here for over a decade, and the same is true for a lot of the artists. That’s very important to us, because we do think long-term in terms of relationships.”
The Lipmans’ relentless “never give up” attitude has been a defining factor in Republic’s success, and part of it has an unexpected source: Prince. Republic partnered with the artist on just one album, “3121” in 2007, but it was arguably the best of his later career and also the one that he worked hardest to promote (the “Musicology” tour aside).
“We learned a very, very valuable lesson working with Prince,” Monte says. “After we broke Amy Winehouse in America, he called me unsolicited — I didn’t believe it was him at first, but then I heard the voice and, ‘Oh shit, that’s really Prince,’” he laughs. “He said, ‘I’d like to meet with you, I’ve got a new project, maybe we can work together’ — fantastic! So we talked about his goals and expectations, and they were so [outrageous] that I found myself, in every meeting with Prince, saying, ‘That’s mathematically impossible. You can’t do this. No one’s ever done this.’ And he would get very frustrated and in a very Prince-like would always end the meeting abruptly and walk out, and another week or month would go by and I’d figure, well, that might be the end of that, but then he would come back. This went back and forth, back and forth, for 18 months. And he finally said, ‘Come to L.A., I want to have another discussion,’ and I’m thinking it’s just going to be more of the same: ‘I can’t deliver on this.’
“But then I thought, ‘You know what? I’m not going to argue with him. There’s got to be a way to reach these goals.’ And as I’m flying to Los Angeles, I look out the window over Kansas, and I’m like, ‘There’s got to be 3 million people down there,’ and I thought, there’s more than 350 million people in the United States. What do they all have in common? Mobile phones, which were in the early days of [working with] music.
“So Prince starts the meeting by talking about the goals and expectations, and I said, ‘You know, I may have figured this out,’ and I mentioned mobile phones. He jumps up, does a Prince twirl, so excited, high fives and hugs me, and he goes, ‘Now we’re talking.’ We put the album out: It was his first [U.S.] No. 1 album in 25 years; it was the first time he had done ‘Saturday Night Live’ in just as long; it was the first time he had done the BRIT Awards in two decades. We were very proud of that, but for me, it was such a valuable lesson, because we even had to remove from our contract with him every connotation of ‘no’ or ‘cannot’ or ‘will not,’ because his thing was: ‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do. Tell me what you can do.’ He would say things that sounded so outrageous, but sometimes you’d have to let it sink in and think, ‘Wait a second, was that just short of brilliant?’ He turned this business upside-down: He was the pioneer of the bundle [with his concert-ticket-with-album sales in 2004], he wanted to eliminate the compulsory license, and he constantly amplified the message that artists should own their masters — in 1979, when he started, that was blasphemous. And now look at all the [artist-ownership] deals out there.
“So in every conversation, no matter which artist,” he concludes, “that’s the way we enter the meeting: ‘You want to have the biggest record of all time? You want to break the internet? You want top 10 streaming? You’ve got some wood to chop, but let’s figure this out.’ That’s our job.”
They also have no hesitation about following an artist through a major stylistic change — like Post Malone’s shift into country. While many artists have made a similar move and been met with relative indifference from both country audiences and their own fanbases, Post has been warmly embraced by the Nashville community — and scored one of the biggest hits of the year with “I Had Some Help,” his tag-team single with country superstar (and fellow Republic extended-family member) Morgan Wallen.
It’s actually been a long time coming: As part of their interview for winning Variety Hitmakers label of the year in 2019, Monte said: “One brilliant thing about Post is that you couldn’t categorize him in any one genre — his point of entry was hip-hop, but he also does rock, and some day he’s going to come with a country album.”
“I say this all the time: Post Malone is the artist development story of the year,” Avery says now. “He’s a well-established artist, but if you think about his trajectory — he put himself in a new place [with his ‘F-1 Trillion’ country album] and he did it strategically, with features and other things, and he executed it in a way that we haven’t seen in years. It’s a really, really proud moment for us and for him — even industry people says to us, ‘That was really well played.’ Because it’s not easy to do all the things that he did, especially given artists’ normal career cycle. [‘I Had Some Help’] was the biggest streaming country record at that time for a male artist, so he actually broke through the ceiling again. And he’s just a great guy, so endearing, who loves to be creative — that’s why he can work with rappers, rock stars, country singers, Beyonce, Taylor Swift. Everyone loves the guy.”
Speaking of whom, while the Lipmans won’t say much about the details of the company’s relationship with Taylor Swift, Monte has plenty to say about her success.
“Taylor’s creativity and natural instincts is that of legends,” he says. “There’s no doubt this has been the most remarkable year on record for any recording artist. She’s not only transformed the music industry by crushing what feels like every milestone, but she’s also reshaped the paradigm of both the movie and touring businesses. The scale of her success is absolutely unimaginable. All of this is driven by her music … her melodies … and her lyrics. It’s simply our job to support her artistic expression.”
Of course, the Lipmans have a boss besides their artists: Grainge, who took the helm at Universal Music Group in 2011 and whom they credit with giving them the room to succeed.
“Lucian became our boss in 2011, and since 2012, we have been on a historic run, No. 1 on nearly every platform,” Monte says. “And I give him tremendous credit, because what he tapped into with Avery and myself was our entrepreneurial spirit. He has always empowered us and encouraged us and motivated us to operate without any fear and authorized us to do things that perhaps we never would have done in the past — to overextend ourselves and take risks, and occasionally, when it wasn’t a favorable outcome, it was a learning experience. And he’ll press you — his reference is the stress test, ‘I’m gonna push you hard, and you’d better be able to tell me why this is so important’ — and we do the same now.”
Avery concludes, “It’s easy to run a successful operation when things are going well, but the real test is when it gets rough. How do you help an artist work through a project that maybe didn’t go as well as you’d envisioned? How do you manage that? You stay calm and say, ‘We’re gonna figure this out.’ And I say that as someone who’s filled out Chapter 11 paperwork three times!” he laughs, remembering the company’s early days. “Fortunately, I’ve torn them up. But those lessons stay with you: It’s about being resourceful, solving problems, overcoming adversity and not giving up.”
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