Troy Carter, Founder, Q&A: 'The music industry has to change the business model; it's as simple as that.'
Troy Carter has seen the music business from all sides. He was the manager of superstar artists like Lady Gaga and Eve at Los Angeles-based Atom Factory; he was also an early investor in Spotify, Uber and Lyft. Now, he's the latest guest on the Music Business Worldwide podcast.In 2016, he joined Spotify full-time as the platform's global head of Creator Services, with a direct line into Spotify CEO & founder, Daniel Ek. There, Carter helped transform the record industry into a streaming-led future, while bringing Spotify closer than ever to artists.In 2018, Carter left Spotify before launching his distribution, services and tech company, Q&A, the following year. Q&A services major-league independent artists such as Pink Sweat$.In April 2019, Carter announced that Q&A had merged with J.Erving's Human Re-Sources, a fellow independent artist services and distribution company with particular success in hip-hop. In December 2020, Q&A and Sony announced that Sony Music / The Orchard had acquired Human Re-Sources from Q&A, bringing in J.Erving as an EVP of the major record company.