With the power of the internet, media-based brands and distribution platforms have helped artists build their audience and grow successfully in terms of promotion and marketing themselves. Ear Crack Entertainment looks to be the next brand for artists to grow organically and beneficially.
At just 20 years young, Ear Crack Entertainment founder Ben Bijur explains his platform beginnings, set and planned goals, and the opportunities that he’s looking to create for artists. As a featured writer for outlets such as EARMILK, KAZI Magazine, and HotNewHipHop, Bijur looks to make Ear Crack Entertainment not only the next but the biggest thing for artists to utilize in terms of distribution, promotion and success.
To begin, where did the idea originate to create Ear Crack Entertainment and your brand come from?
When I was a kid I would just religiously watch YouTube videos of rappers being interviewed by similar platforms and I thought that it would be cool to do that myself, and realized that it would be a great way to meet these artists and kind of get my foot in the door in the music world. After that, I sat on the idea for a while. After that point, I had done my first interview and realized I wanted to make it something else and go harder. Something where I could work with the artists personally from the ground up, not just as a one-time thing like an interview is. I wanted to have an artist under my wing and start dropping music with them and help with the whole creative process. I guess that’s how Ear Crack Entertainment came about
Were there any brands or individuals that influenced you in creating Ear Crack Entertainment?
There are a lot of brands out there nowadays that I really love and that really helped inspire the birth of Ear Crack, one of the biggest ones being Montreality, which is run by my boy Sina who I actually just got the opportunity to work with on a joint playlist this year. Other than that there are individuals I look up to in the music industry like Lyor Cohen and Cole Bennett. Other than just people in the industry, it was my friends that helped me push it. I was living with my friend George Cortes in Brooklyn at the time and he was one of the biggest people to convince me to go for it and gave me some confidence to do so. The other one was my friend Gabe Hultberg, who helped me paint out the vision and decide what I should do with it. I was pretty inspired by his clothing line “E.sky” too, so that helped me a lot.
With the growth, you’ve witnessed from Ear Crack Entertainment and it’s social media pages and profiles increase in large numbers since you created them. How exactly did you market and increase your platform’s popularity?
Obviously social media is a great tool nowadays for marketing platforms like ear crack, but some of the specific ways that I actually got it out there was just by doing collaborations with other brands like Staple Pigeon and Montreality, as well making playlists or another kind of interactive content that the page viewers can be a part of themselves. This is a great way for the audience to let the name sink in, and remember exactly what the brand’s image is, considering there are so many pages and companies doing similar things.
Aside from creating and managing Ear Crack Entertainment, the amount of success your page has established, do you have any upcoming plans or ideas in the upcoming future?
It’s been a crazy couple of months in terms of what the world is going through, so it’s been difficult to fully focus on my brand although we do have a lot of cool content coming up in these next couple of months. Our main artist right now is dropping a big EP in September that we’re pushing hard to market and push to the forefront of the industry. In the next couple of months, I plan to add a few more artists to our roster and keep dropping music! Other than that, you can expect more brand collaborations. I want to start branching out and doing more than just music. I’ve been thinking about making an Ear Crack hot sauce for a while. Other than that, I want to start a clothing line as soon as I can.
From the artists you’ve promoted and showcased on your platforms, is there any that you personally feel deserve more recognition and you yourself have become a fan of?
The main artist on Ear Crack right now is HANZ, this guy from New Jersey. he’s one of the most talented artists that I’ve ever worked with and is such an awesome person. His whole team is brilliant and I’m excited to show everyone what we have coming out for the rest of this year. He's someone that I’ve become a fan of and deserves the most recognition in the world, which he’ll get soon! I truly expect this project that we’re dropping in September called “Vagabond” to attract a larger fan base and reach a worldwide audience. He’s quite funky and unique!
The success you have from managing and promoting artists has established many relationships that you’ve made with them, do you look to expand your clientele in the future?
I think networking is the best way to expand clientele so hopefully as soon as stuff starts clearing up in terms of COVID, I’ll be able to get out into these events more and start going to shows and meeting more artists, but social media will have to do for now! I also expect to expand my team soon, but for now, it is just me and my guy Nye Moody running the show. Nye is like Hip-Hop’s grandson, and he has an insane ear for talent and musical brain. I think expanding my team will also lead to more artists on board!
With the success you’ve found in marketing, promoting, and managing. Are there any specific goals and accomplishments that you’ve set for yourself to obtain in the future for yourself personally and career-wise.
My main goal for the future is just to expand my brand to a point where I can branch out besides just music. There are many different possibilities in the entertainment world and I’d love to look to those different pockets. I hope I can get it to a point where I can make a change in the music industry and start something that nobody’s done before even though that’s incredibly hard. I also have family in the United Kingdom, so one of my biggest goals is to create a branch of Ear Crack Ent. in England, preferably London, and get some office space over there and start tapping into those markets. I hope to become a real functioning record label eventually.
When it comes to terms of expansion do you plan to explore other ventures with the Ear Crack brand soon?
Yeah I do although honestly, I’d prefer not even to think about that right now as I still see Ear Crack as an extremely new and undiscovered brand. I’m just focused on the moment right now, and building momentum up so I get to the point where I can do something like that.
In terms of the artists you work with, how and what would be the best way for artists who are interested in working with you get in contact with your brand?
The best way is just to reach out over Instagram @earcrackent or hit my email in my bio and just send me any music. I’ll listen to anything that gets sent to me so please do. You can check out our website and contact us through there at earcrackent.com as well!
