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From Germany to the US – Meet Celebrity Talent Agent Siavash Aghaiepour

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Who are you and Where are you from? Have your surroundings shaped you in a creative sense, and in what way(s)?

I am Siavash Aghaiepour, my background is Persian, I grew up in Germany. Definitely my surroundings shaped my creative or music sense, I grew up in Heidelberg/Germany which is influenced by the first HipHop movement/scene in Germany. Also the presence of the US Military in Germany brought a lot of HipHop Culture to the area. Myself playing basketball with the kids from the US and listening to their music influenced me a lot. 

Did you go to school for Music Management or Business?

No I didn’t went to a Music or Business Management school, in fact i went to medical school.

You have worked with some of the music industry’s hottest live acts throughout your career. Do you ever work with Independent artists or artists outside of Hip Hop?

To be honest a lot of the artists that we already worked with, the first time we done business with them, they were not superstars. We started the company in Germany and we worked with a lot of US Clubs there because of the US Military presence in Germany. So the artists we brought there were considered underground and not really mainstream. Starting from lil Jon, Bonecrusher, Mike Jones, Ying Yang Twins, David Banner. They were not mainstream artists at that time. Even Pitbull, we started working with him in 07/08. We were basically bringing artists who had a buzz or the DJs where playing the songs in the clubs. There was no airplay on MTV or Radio for these artists at that time. So we managed to bring them before they hit the mainstream and became superstars. Throughout the years we worked with Kylie Minoque, Bebi Rexha, Jamie Foxx, Nicole Scherzinger and of course a lot of DJs from the electronic scene. Once hip hop became mainstream there was a fusion between house and hip hop, so we worked with house DJs through our relationship with hip hop artists. For example collaborations between Afrojack and Pitbull, or Bob Sinclar and Pitbull. Plenty cross over productions.

Can you tell us about the challenges you faced while building your vision?

A. There are many challenges and obstacles. Not everything goes always the way it should be. You can always do your best, there is always stuff that can and will go wrong. It’s your job to find new ways and to manage those challenges in order to deliver the goals and results. Even when you do your job, it’s never over until the results are there. So you must be patient and open for challenges. One big challenge is that you are not in charge, you are just a representative, you don’t control the artist. There are many factors that come together, travel, flights, etc. You always have to be on standby and open to come up with solutions.

When and where did you launch HR Booking?

The launch of my company started not long ago after my first event in Heidelberg. I went back to Berlin and searched for a similar sized club as the one in my hometown. I chose Globus in Tresor Berlin, which was a Techno location and started doing Hip Hop parties there. I was a big mixtape tape fan, so my idea was to contact the DJs from New York who did the tapes and bring them to Berlin on a frequent basis to deliver something completely new to the scene and stand out from other parties. I had heavy names every other week, so that was Heavy Rotation.

Shortly after I launched the event word got around in the German club scene and I was contacted by other clubs if they can have the DJ before we have them in Berlin or the night after. That’s how I got from promoting to booking.

You have three locations of HR Booking, which one was first and which one is your Headquarters?

The first office was located in Stuttgart/Germany which was together with 0711 Hip Hop back then, which is a big name in the German Hip Hop Scene. Then the office moved from Stuttgart to Mannheim where my brother Roozbeh Aghaie pour joined me.

What did you start doing first, touring with artists or booking them?

I used to be a party promoter, I started to bring big mixtape and hot97 DJs for my parties to stand out from everyone else and was the first one to do so. Being in a relationship with DJs in an early stage helped me a lot because a lot of these DJs started to DJ for major artists. For example DJ Green Lantern who DJd for Emined or DJ Whoo Kid who DJd for 50 Cent. So back in 2000 when the Anger Mgmt Tour came to Europe I got a call from WhooKid and Green Lantern asking me to book the afterparties for Eminem and 50 Cent. So that’s how I got into the business with artists and to establish my relationship with artist managements. Everything started with DJs.

What do you enjoy most about being an agent? What do you hate most?

To be able to meet different people and connect different people, open doors and accomplish something which is making the artist and client happy. I really enjoy taking artists to places which they never been before and introduce them to new fan bases. Sometime they don’t even speak english but still enjoy and celebrate the music, this is always a great experience.

What I hate the most is working with clients or artist who don’t appreciate this and take everything for granted, or feel like they deserve to be treated and respected in this way. They don’t understand they gift that they´re given by their audience and fans.

Who or what has been the driving force to become who you are and accomplish what you have done?

My driving force was always that I was an independent agent and was always fighting against the corporate world. They always count you out, they always look down on you because you are independent and try to do what you are capable of doing in your reach. I was always a step ahead and brought new acts and new markets together. Finding a way to maintain and expand was my driving force. People want to see you disappear, my driving force was to prove them wrong.

Is there anything else you want your audience to know about yourself or your business?

Never give up, always believe in your dreams and be persistent. No matter what you do and of course be realistic. That’s the most important thing.

For more info Check out www.hrbooking.com and follow www.instagram.com/overseasia to stay updated.

Mark David is a writer best known for his science fiction, but over the course of his life he published more than sixty books of fiction and non-fiction, including children's books, poetry, short stories, essays, and young-adult fiction. He publishes news on apstersmedia.com related to the science.

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Wiz will pay $450 million to acquire Cloud Remediation Startup Dazz

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Wiz revealed on Thursday that it will buy channel-focused company Dazz in an agreement to add cloud remediation capabilities to the vendor’s cloud and AI security platform.

With features like application security posture management and continuous threat and exposure management, Dazz provides a remediation-focused cloud security platform.

Jared Phipps, a seasoned cybersecurity industry executive who most recently worked for SentinelOne, was hired by Dazz in February as its CRO as the business sought to expand its collaboration with channel partners. Presidio, situated in New York, has been one of the key partners.

Dazz said in July that it has raised a $50 million round of funding, increasing its total funding since its 2021 launch to $110 million.

Dazz provides a “industry-leading remediation engine,” according to a post published on Thursday by Wiz Co-Founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport, which will allow Wiz to “empower security teams to correlate data from multiple sources and manage application risks in one unified platform.”

This is Wiz’s third purchase overall and its second acquisition of 2024 after the company’s April acquisition of cloud detection and response provider Gem Security.

Wiz, a four-year-old startup, reported in May that it had raised $1 billion in new capital at a $12 billion valuation, citing its continued strong development in the cloud and AI security areas. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) for the business reportedly increased from $350 million earlier this year to above $500 million.

After making a number of management additions aimed at facilitating quicker partner-driven growth, Rappaport stated in February that Wiz would prioritize its channel operations moving ahead.

I“In cybersecurity partners are super, super important in the success of a company. So we’ve always [seen that] this has huge potential for us to tap into. I think there is so much more we can do,” he stated at the time.

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ProRata, an AI startup, Teams up with UK Publishers after reportedly Hitting $130 Million in Valuation

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A number of well-known British media outlets have joined ProRata, an AI firm that claims to compensate publishers for the usage of their work, in its expanding network of partnerships.

The Los Angeles-based firm announced on Wednesday that it has signed licensing deals with publishers such as Sky News, the Guardian, and the Daily Mail’s publisher, DMG Media.

In a recent Series A funding round, ProRata raised $25 million from investors such as the Mayfield Fund, Prime Movers Lab, and Revolution Ventures.

“ProRata’s founder and CEO Bill Gross said his firm’s AI technology is the only one that pledges to credit and compensate creators, while providing users with accurate search results.

“We have had hundreds of content owners and media companies reach out to us from around the world who are interested in piloting our technology. Stealing and scraping content is not a sustainable path forward,” he continued.

Similar alliances have previously been formed by ProRata with the German publisher Axel Springer, the Atlantic, Fortune, Time, and Universal Music Group (UMG).

Media firms are offered reasonable compensation by ProRata for the use of their content. The startup’s in-house technology may determine the proper amount of pay by evaluating the worth of the information used to create responses from an AI platform. This would make it possible to pay copyright holders for their work on a per-use basis.

Gross had previously said that AI platforms have been using “shoplifted, plagiarized content,” which fosters an atmosphere in which “disinformation thrives and creators get nothing.”

Gross is recognized for having created the pay-per-click model of internet search monetization with his business, GoTo.com, which was eventually acquired by Yahoo! in 2003.

In a recent blog post, Tige Savage, a cofounder of Revolution, stated that Bill Gross is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in monetization techniques.

“He’s attracted a world-class tech team led by AI luminary Tarek Najm to implement the vision and an accomplished business team, including Annelies Jansen and Jonas Lee to drive content and AI partnerships,” Savage continued.

The unpaid use of copyrighted materials by OpenAI and other tech companies to train their AI systems has led to litigation from media companies and other content creators.

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Film Bazaar Unveils an Interactive Cinema App from an Indian Tech Startup

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Arjun Nittoor, the founder of the Indian technology firm Vireza, disclosed at Film Bazaar that the company is creating a new mobile application that would transform the experience of watching movies in theaters by enabling viewers to engage with the films in real time.

The technology, which was created wholly in-house at the company’s research and development department in Bengaluru, allows viewers to use their smartphones to vote on important plot points during the movie. To keep up with the current screening, patrons download an app before entering the theater and scan a QR code at their seat.

“The film industry is one of the few sectors where the audience experience has seen minimal technological disruption in theatres,” Nittoor stated. “While screen and sound quality have advanced and 3D has been partially adopted, the viewing experience has largely remained the same for decades.”

The screen automatically brightens to show voting options and dims again when choices are made. The system uses discreet phone notifications to encourage audience participation around every ten minutes.

In 2026, Vireza intends to introduce the technology with a full-length interactive movie that will be produced in both English and South Indian for international distribution. The business is presently in the development stage and will shortly start doing multiplex chain trial screenings.

CtrlMovie’s prior success in the interactive film industry was mentioned by Nittoor. CtrlMovie is well-known for “Traces of Responsibility” and “Late Shift.”

In order to overcome the difficulties in cinematography, editing, shot composition, and writing that plagued previous attempts at the format, the firm has spent five years creating what Nittoor refers to as “a new science of filmmaking” that is especially tailored for interactive cinema.

“Despite the proliferation of viewing devices, big-ticket films continue to draw massive crowds to theatres, with box office numbers higher than ever,”  Nittoor stated. “This demand underscores the potential for a meaningful technology shift that could draw audiences out of their homes and into cinemas.”

Other Asian businesses are likewise investigating audience-driven narrative in motion pictures. In February of the following year, Japan’s King Records intends to release “Hypnosis Mic – Division Rap Battle,” an animated interactive film.

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