Spek

Summit Session: Get Played, Get Paid: Royalties in the Middle East

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Beginning his career as a successful songwriter, recording artist and producer in his native Montreal, Spek is a former member of the Juno Award winning, Canadian hip hop pioneers, Dream Warriors, a group that sold over 1 million records worldwide and racked up Top 20 hits in Canada, the UK and across Europe. In the late 90’s he relocated to London where he toured extensively as a member of the UK’s multi-million selling jazz rap crew Us3 and collaborated with British virtuoso Nitin Sawhney on his Mercury Prize nominated and South Bank award winning album Beyond Skin; An album that was highly touted in the UK press and by other artists, including Sting and Madonna.

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GQ India recently proclaimed Beyond Skin to be, “among the greatest records of the 20th Century”. Spek relocated to the UAE in 2006 and in 2011 founded PopArabia as a portfolio investment and in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Media Zone, twofour54. PopArabia is an independent label and the leading music publisher in the Middle East & North Africa, credited with pioneering music rights in the region. Over more than a decade PopArabia has worked with all the major music publishers and a who’s who list of the largest independent publishers in the MENA markets.

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In 2015 Spek relocated to the U.S to lead creative & A&R strategy for New York based music company, Reservoir. Throughout this period, Reservoir opened fully staffed creative offices in Los Angeles and Nashville, earned a consistent Top 10 U.S. Market Share according to Billboard’s Publisher’s Quarterly report, was twice named Publisher of the Year at Music Business Worldwide’s The A&R Awards, and became the publishing home to top American songwriting talent including BMI ‘Songwriter of the Year’ Ali Tamposi and Atlanta hip hop phenom J.I.D, among others. Reservoir made history in July 2021 as the first independent music company to go public on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Spek relocated back to the UAE in 2019, announcing a new joint venture and partnership between Reservoir and PopArabia to invest in Arab talent. He returned to his role running PopArabia while also leading Reservoir’s international and emerging markets strategy into markets including India and throughout Africa. In 2020 PopArabia launched ESMAA, the first music rights management organization operating in the Gulf states. ESMAA has licensed major global events including DubaiEXPO and the Soundstorm music festival by MDL Beast in Saudi Arabia, distributing millions of dollars in performance royalties to rights holders from the Gulf region, a first for the industry.

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Spek is a Board Director of CARAS (the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences), The Juno Awards and music charity, MusicCounts. He has been included in Billboard Magazine's coveted 'International Power Players' list every year since 2021 and in 2024 was also named in the Billboard Canada Power Players list, sharing the #1 spot in Publishing with Reservoir CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi. Spek has been featured in publications including Variety, Synchtank and graced the covers of A&R Magazine and Music Publishers Quarterly. He has also written editorials for Gulf Business, Campaign Middle East, and Music Business Worldwide, where in 2024 he featured in the MBW World Leaders Series, a spotlight on the most influential industry figures overseeing international markets.

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