3Q Episode Eighty Eight: Andre Torres

No matter where you are in your career, you’ll benefit from listening to 3Q. 3Q provides a window into the careers of some of the best in the music business. Every episode is an insider's view of the realities of life as a music executive. Topics include issues of empowerment, uncertainty, trust, finances, etc; issues that will impact you both personally and professionally. The executives we interview represent every aspect of the industry including but not limited to A&R, Marketing, Music Supervision, Artist Management, Promotion, and more. About Andre: Andre Torres is the former SVP of Global Catalog Development and Marketing at Warner Music Group where he led one of Warner Recorded Music’s global catalog content development and marketing teams. Working closely with frontline labels and artists, he strategized new catalog opportunities in A&R, content development, consumption, and marketing, including digital and physical catalog campaigns. He joined WMG after serving as Head of Catalog, Artist and Label Partnerships at Spotify where he led all North American catalog initiatives. He previously served as Vice President of Urban Catalog at Universal Music Enterprises (UMe), the global catalog division of Universal Music Group (UMG), where he oversaw the strategy and implementation of A&R, sales, branding, and marketing campaigns for hip-hop, rap, and R&B among other genres in urban music.  With a background in media, Torres comes with a wealth of music knowledge and entrepreneurial experience. Torres founded the highly regarded quarterly music magazine Wax Poetics in 2001, featuring an eclectic mix of artists from Public Enemy to Daft Punk. The New York Times Style Magazine named the publication, “The best and most exquisitely laid-out music bimonthly in America.” There he grew the magazine into a global movement of vinyl collectors, DJs, and music enthusiasts interested in tracing hip-hop’s DNA back through its roots. This led to an encyclopedic exploration of everything from R&B and jazz, to reggae and Afrobeat. Torres also oversaw the expansion of the brand into foreign-language Japanese editions, book publishing, and a record label. After fifteen years at the helm of Wax Poetics, Torres joined the Brooklyn lyrics website Genius as Executive Editor. In addition to ensuring the editorial quality of the site’s crowd-sourced material, he managed a group of editors providing content for the “Behind the Lyrics” collaboration with Spotify. The fast-paced start-up environment provided a window into a highly engaged online community of music fans at the forefront of the shift in music consumption.