Nvak Collective

My name is Tamar Kaprelian and I am a recording artist, activist, and a music industry veteran. By the time I was 21, I had already signed 2 major recording contracts with RCA and Interscope Records; and had honed in my craft with some of the top songwriters in the music business. In 2016, I graduated Phi-Beta-Kappa from Columbia University. Now, I am the CEO / Founder of Nvak Collective, a female focused record label that signs musicians from under-served regions globally. The Collective is an extension of Nvak Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit that focuses on teaching musicians, especially women and girls, how to write and produce original music.

Nvak Collective is a female focused, B-Corp record label set out to improve the lives of female musicians in the music industry. We’re creating the first socially conscious label of its kind, aiming to elevate the voices of diverse women in underserved communities both at home and abroad. We find and develop talent where major labels do not, taking a very holistic approach to artist development by providing our musicians with benefits such as health care, mental health services, and financial management.

Nvak Collective aims to: 

1. Widen the scope of where musical talent is discovered and developed 

2. Eliminate gender inequality in the music business

The problem(s): 

Major labels sign musicians from Western countries -- the US, EU, UK, and/or Canada. Only 10% of the artists that make the Billboard Top 200 are from outside of these regions, creating an inaccurate picture of the global market. Places like East/West Africa, the Middle East, and India have no shortage of talent, but are more likely to lack resources and opportunities due to social, political, and/or cultural challenges. Talent, therefore, is subsequently overlooked.  

Additionally, gender persecution perpetuates inequality. Of Billboard’s Top 100 artists, only 18% are women and 0% are offered basic benefits from their labels. The 2019 USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that in top songs: a) Of 651 producers credited, only 2.6% were women b) Of 2767 songwriters credited, 12.5% were women and c) 21.7% of artists were women. Necessary increases in these percentages are the charge for our initiative.

We’re creating a female focused record label, artist incubator, and publishing company that seeks to amplify the voices of diverse female artists both at home and abroad.

We are looking to impact the lives and elevate the voices of female musicians who are traditionally left behind. These could be young women that come from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds; women who identify as LGBTQ+ and who feel rejected by their culture and society; young mothers who feel like they’ve lost their identities to motherhood; women living in war torn areas -- refugees. 

Our approach to artist development is holistic. We provide access to education (voice lessons; production lessons; and more); access to jobs (publishing and recording contracts; licensing opportunities); access to mentors and professionals in the music business; access to healthcare, mental health services, and financial management. 

Nvak Collective is fundamentally multi-dimensional, as the struggles of women-identifying people in music are multi-faceted and culturally layered. The global crisis needs a focused, holistic and energized solution in order to upheave the deeply rooted issue. Nvak Collective will utilize innovation to create opportunities in our own brand-new ecosystem, by taking actionable steps that will elevate awareness of the crisis while simultaneously creating the exact opportunities needed to counteract cultural setbacks. By building something new, we will be able to create a concrete example of how the future of the industry could and should look.

I got into the music industry when I was 14-years-old. At 18, I deferred college at UC Berkeley to sign my first major recording contract with industry mogul, Clive Davis. While signed to RCA, I learned the craft of songwriting by co-writing with some of LAs most successful songwriters and producers -- Ryan Tedder (of OneRepublic), Kara DioGuardi (who has hits for Kelly Clarkson; Christina Aguilera), just to name a few. At 20, I signed my second major recording contract with Interscope Records after Ryan Tedder discovered my cover of his hit “Apologize.” 

During this journey, I realized the importance of good mentors and support systems. Young artists, especially young female musicians, need people looking out for their mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Because I lacked this basic support system, I fell prey to men leveraging their power to take advantage of young, naive, and inexperienced artists.

This is an all too common occurrence that needs to be addressed, which is why I want to be a part of the solution. With Nvak Collective, I aim to create an inclusive, diverse ecosystem that fosters creativity and protects artists.

Music is an incredibly powerful medium. It has no race; religion; ethnicity; skin color. It has the ability to bring people together and diffuse conflict. It is a lens by which we can learn about other cultures and traditions. I want to help in ushering untold stories into the mainstream, and in doing so, focusing my efforts on women and girls who lack access to opportunities and resources. I want to create the very ecosystem that I lacked when I got my start. I want female musicians to feel protected and empowered to use their voice. 

I believe that I am well-positioned to deliver this project because I understand the challenges that both creatives and executives face in the music industry. While many people successfully do one or the other, I have done both. I understand what an artist needs because I am one and can relate to my artists in ways that other executives cannot. I also know what it takes to successfully start and run an organization because I have done that too.

Since 2016 -- the year I launched the nonprofit arm to this business (Nvak Foundation) --  I helped super-serve over 1,500 under-served musicians in 3 countries. I raised over $400,000 USD from individual and corporate donors. Towards the end of last year, I realized that in order for our musicians to reach their full-potential, we needed to create a new vertical that could fully support the mission of amplifying their voices and narratives globally-- this is why I am starting Nvak Collective. 

I was signed to my first record deal with RCA when I was just 17. It seemed like a dream come true. 

But quickly it became apparent that my time at RCA would be something other than a dream. I was taken advantage of by the people who were supposed to be helping me. My album never came out. I was dropped in 2008.

I then set my mind to getting another recording contract, and was signed to Interscope Records in 2009. Unfortunately, not much was different at Interscope. There I was exposed to harassment by my A&R executive for years.

In 2011, I put my foot down and ended that relationship. Days later, I was dropped from the label just as my single was rising up the charts.

At that point, few would have blamed me if I had given up. I spent a long time asking myself whether I wanted to continue to work in the music business at all. For years, I felt voiceless, unprotected, and used.

Instead of giving up, however, I chose to channel my hurt into something tangible. I started Nvak. I view setbacks as opportunities to self-reflect and to make groundbreaking change. 

In the summer of 2019, Nvak Foundation did 4 weeks of programming in Jaffa, Israel with the goal of teaching 30 diverse musicians how to write and record original music. We invited A-list songwriters and producers from the music business to come out and mentor. In total, we had approximately 50 people that we had to account for. As one can expect, in a group of 50, things were bound to go wrong.

Prior to landing in-country, everyone knew that they had set times and days that they had to participate and giveback. However, a handful of A-list producers (who were their on Nvak's dime) refused to work. They were absent 6 out of the 8 days. 

On the spot, I had to reorganize the curriculum to account for their absences; I had to rewrite all of our schedules. I had to navigate the anxiety that their absence fueled in other team members; had to comfort and apologize to the ones who had to work overtime to make sure that all of the work got done. Most importantly, I successfully navigated making sure that the musicians that we were super-serving had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. 

N/A

We are unique in structure -- we are the first B-Corp record label that is female focused. Our approach is also innovative -- we find and develop 70% of our female musicians from under-served communities from outside of the US, EU, UK, and Canada. The remaining 30% are diverse voices signed from the US, EU, UK, and Canada and assist in the development of the 70%. We believe that it is necessary to give our recording artists basic benefits -- such as health care, mental health services, and financial management. Once profitable, a portion of our profit will go back towards Nvak Foundation, our nonprofit arm, so that the Foundation becomes self-sustainable over time. 

The problems that we are seeking to solve are: lack of diversity and inclusion in the music industry and gender inequality. Our key audience is female musicians from underrepresented and marginalized communities and women making music in countries where gender inequality is prevalent. Our entry point to making change is by working with female musicians in the communities where we have already been focusing our education efforts and by using these countries as jumping off points into other nearby countries. The short-term steps that we need to take are making sure that we sign and develop diverse female artists -- that we prioritize the female voice. And that we make sure that diversity and inclusion applies to all aspects of our hiring practices. A few measurable effects include seeing more diverse, international women on the Billboard Top 100; and if we can help increase the percentage of female producers and songwriters hired to produce and write songs for major label artists. The wider benefits of this would be that more women would work and make money in the music industry. And the long-term change that we hope to see is diversity and inclusion in the creative and business sectors of the music industry.

We have over 30 female artists that are in various stages of artist development. In the next year, we plan to keep super-serving our current cohort of female artists and in 5 years, we aim to have over 150 female musicians within our ecosystem. 

Short term goals: to raise the capital that we need in order to hire a diverse and passionate label staff that’ll help us market, promote, and release 17 singles written and co-produced by our female artists. It is rare for artists, especially women, to co-produce their own songs; we want to make this more of a norm in the industry.  

In 5 years: we hope to have inspired all indie and major labels to provide basic benefits to artists on their labels; and we hope to have created an ecosystem and model for artist development and social good that other labels want to emulate.

Our short-term barriers are financial. We need to raise capital before being able to hire label staff and sign the artists that we are working with. By Year 5, we hope to have either been acquired by a DSP -- such as Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Amazon -- by a major record label (Warner Music Group; Sony; Universal), or a media company. 

We understand that we are raising capital in a difficult environment. However, we believe that our solution is incredibly timely and necessary. We'll do whatever it takes to make this idea a reality because we feel like it is our life's mission to bring about these changes. 

N/A

The good thing about Nvak Collective is that we are not re-inventing a business model. We are starting a record label and artist incubator. We know how to identify talent; we are looking for talent in places where other people are not. The music business, over the next decade, is expected to grow exponentially thanks to streaming. We hope to own a piece of this expanding market by developing and releasing music from territories that have not yet begun to realize their full potential from a streaming and revenue standpoint. 

Artist development is similar to venture investing in that the strength is in the numbers. One big hit pays for the other investments many times over. For example, It takes one mid-tier artist (Clairo being a great example) to generate ~3.5 million dollars for the record label per year, and we believe we can develop several mid-tier artists each year.

By Year 2, we aim to break even. By owning 50% of the master recording, streaming will generate most of the label's income. Film/ TV sync and licensing will generate the second largest revenue pile. And brand partnerships will also be a steady source of income for a label. 

By Year 3, we aim to be profitable. Our goal is to do only one round of financing prior to acquisition. 

We are seeking to raise the capital in the next 8-12 weeks.

We are aiming to raise $1m USD for 25% equity in the business. We hope to raise the funds in 8-12 weeks.

We believe that our mission is synchronistic with the mission of The Elevate Prize. We want to provide female musicians with quality health services, education and mentorship opportunities; we want to foster an environment and ecosystem where artists feel safe to be themselves and express their truths. We believe that music has the potential to elevate humanity, inspire movements, mobilize people, and catalyze positive, transformative change. We want to spearhead a positive movement in the music industry. 

We want to grow our network to include smart, innovative thinkers that go beyond our connections in the music industry. We want to partner with people and organizations that can help us amplify and scale our impact. We believe we could do this with the help of this Foundation’s network and with access to funding. 

We are open to any and all suggestions, but a few dream partners that comes to mind are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation because of the incredible work that they do in education and tacking the issue of gender inequality; The UN because of the initiatives they lead around female empowerment.