Creative agency, record label and artist-services company Big.Ass.Kids has launched a new hub on its website called the Neighborhood, a sort of digital universe where artists, writers, music fans and music industry executives can meet, share their work, tap into creative and artist services and even buy and sell books and music.
The Neighborhood, which is live now on the Big.Ass.Kids website, is a fully-illustrated world with its own characters and storefronts, each of which represents a different functionality for the ecosystem that B.A.K. has created.
One storefront, called the B.A.K. Projects, is a home to showcase the company’s creative work, which has included campaigns for the new Rick Ross and Meek Mill album Too Good to Be True; work with Lion Babe, Smino and Bishop Nehru and MF Doom; and its label compilation, See You Next Year in partnership with Pigeons & Planes, which came out this year and was executive-produced by Mike Dean. (A second volume, due out next year, was recently recorded at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La Studios in Malibu.) Another, called Ralph’s Used & Rare Books, is a home for artist and executive interviews, industry guides for artists, music-inspired fiction writing and even actual used music book sales. A third, called the Music Man shop, showcases B.A.K.’s label releases, projects by the artists and executives they’ve worked with and audio interviews with artists and execs; it’s also a place for selling used vinyl. Each storefront has its own characters who live and work there, with their own back stories to tell.
Probably most significant for the industry are the Kat Cafe and The Playground. The Kat Cafe is home to B.A.K.’s artist services hub, where artists can go and browse through B.A.K.’s suite of services including management consultation, rollout support, tour management, synch licensing, artist development tools, content and design services, experiential marketing, brand partnerships and radio promotions from B.A.K.’s team. The Playground is a place where artists can find executives to help execute on the projects for which they need help, serving as a sort of vetted industry database for those looking to handpick their own teams based on their individual needs. (Conversely, it’s also a place where freelance industry executives can advertise their services.)
Big.Ass.Kids was formed in 2021 as a label and creative agency focused on collaborative projects, with its See You Next Year album in partnership with Pigeons & Planes and distributed by ADA featuring contributions from Ben Reilly, Teezo Touchdown, Ekkstacy, Wallice and more. The album rolled out with an intro by Dean and a partnership with Converse and will be the first in a series of collaborative albums that the company is aiming to release. On the agency side, B.A.K. worked on the Meek and Ross album through an interactive marketing plan involving a contest through which fans could win $50,000.
“We’ve been ideating on ways to become more impactful and disruptive since our launch,” founder and creative director le’Roy Benros told Billboard in a statement. “We’ve evolved into a creative ecosystem that supports and serves artists, creates moments and builds community. Our newly launched interactive Big.Ass.Kids neighborhood redefines how collaboration between artists and music professionals occur, creates unique ways for music discovery to happen; ultimately, it’s an exciting universe where music lovers, creatives and professionals can unite.”
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