Chaucer Barnes is the chief marketing officer for UnitedMasters, a music distribution company that specializes in helping artists build relationships with top brands.
On March 17, 2023, UnitedMasters partnered with Ally and Earn Your Leisure to host financial workshops and a showcase for artists and creators at SXSW.
Barnes opened up about the importance of educating Black and Brown communities on financial strategies that help build wealth.
How does it feel to have UnitedMasters partner with Ally Financial?
It feels great. First and foremost, it’s called ally. So, they’re living up to their name. They’re showing up for the creative class showing up specifically for Black and Brown creators and I feel like it’s good business for them. That’s my role in particular is to take incentives that are well matched up between creatives and brands, and make them see a path to success. So creators are out here getting some game and the bank is out here cultivating financial fluency for a whole new generation of people who have a high potential to earn. Ally is going to be at the top of their mind and they’re going to be shooting with them in the gym early on so that when they hit those milestones it becomes something that feels not only authentic, but obvious.
What were some of the gems that you dropped during the panel discussion?
I mean the best gems today – it’s funny because I didn’t even drop them. It was the people I was sharing a panel with. Her big thing was to own your data, own your relationship with your fans, and that’s the best advice anybody can give anybody trying to start any business. Whether or not you make it in music or you’re going to take music, and then fold that into some other type of commerce. You might end up being the biggest sweatshirt dealer in your whole zip code. Or you can wind up with a string of barber shops with a sophisticated CRM system. So, I think that was the tip-top best advice. But today is more about trying to get some game on relationships with brands and trying to give some game on how to set goals for yourself that are concrete and tangible.
How does this event help educate Black and Brown communities?
There are these moments where you find that different communities have the same exact need. We are about the business of finding these powerful connections, and the truth of the matter is that the financial fluency that Black and Brown people need the most is also the fluency that any creator that’s looking to build a business for themselves needs the most. It just so happens that if we solve the hardest issues you can solve that means somebody whose auntie and grandma didn’t know to give them this game, and we automatically solve for everybody else who might be a little bit further ahead. So, what we’re doing is we’re going to this place to solve for this specific community knowing that those gems and that value are going to cascade across other communities too. We start here.
