As Yxng Bane continues to enjoy UK chart success, Disturbing London co-founder Dumi Oburota has told Music Week that he’s a potential “global star”.
The East London rapper currently has two Top 30 singles. The Banx & Ranx track Answerphone, on which he features alongside Ella Eyre, reached a new peak of No.5 and has sales to date of 274,658 (OCC). Bane’s track Vroom moved 32-27 on the latest chart and has sales so far of 155,108.
“I’m here to help shape Bane’s career and make sure he becomes the global star he deserves to be,” Oburota told Music Week. “We’re hopefully going to make a bit of history, try and set the industry standard and just let Bane have fun. It’s really exciting for me to be on the other side as a label executive rather than a manager.”
Disturbing London – the 360 entertainment company co-founded in 2006 with Tinie Tempah – recently formed a label JV with Parlophone in order to expand the global reach for its artists. Acts signed to Disturbing London’s record label include Yxng Bane, A2, Wiz Kid, DJ Charlesy and Tinie Tempah.
“The ascendancy of Yxng Bane accelerated our discussions,” Parlophone co-president Mark Mitchell told Music Week. “Bane is already starting to break outside the UK, he’s picking up a lot of nods both in America and certain European countries – Scandinavia’s always been very welcoming of new British culture.”
He confirmed that Warner Music labels around the world are partnering on releasing Yxng Bane’s music.
The rapper made an international impact with his remix of Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You. He also features on the current Craig David single Magic.
Last year’s debut Top 40 hit Rihanna has OCC sales of 339,535 and has racked up more than 20 million YouTube views. Bane’s biggest-selling release is his feature on Yungen’s Bestie (694,784 OCC sales), which peaked at No.10. The track has 31.6m YouTube views.
International touring activity included an appearance as part of the British Music Embassy’s SXSW line-up for 2018.
“We’ve had the experience of breaking him around the world,” said Oburota. “The world has become much smaller since we started [Disturbing] and trying to break an act globally seems to be a bit more realistic now.”
“We fully intend to do that, it’s a big reason about doing the deal,” added Mitchell. "Africa is a hugely emerging market, Disturbing London are very tapped into that. There are great plans afoot – it’s certainly not going to be a UK focus.”
Bane is playing a UK tour in November, including a date at O2 Forum Kentish Town. He played the O2 Arena last weekend (May 26) as part of the AfroRepublik festival – co-curated by Oburota – and is part of the summer line-up for Disturbing Ibiza at Ushuaïa.
“Disturbing London is a 360 experience, that’s one of the reasons why Max [Lousada, Warner Music Group CEO, recorded music] has gone into business with me,” said Oburota. “If you build the experiences and people buy music, that’s what we care about. That’s what I’m trying to do, build the experiences by building the live side of the business, the records, publishing and management, because that’s the USP of Disturbing London.”
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