Shari Bryant is a game-changer. She and fellow co-president of Roc Nation, Omar Grant, are on a mission to develop the label’s current talent while always being open to the next best thing.
Recently, Bryant and Grant stopped by rolling out to discuss what’s new at Roc Nation.
What things should people look forward to from your newer artists in 2024?
Omar Grant: Kalan.FrFr is an amazing artist out of the West Coast who has some really cool stuff coming out. He’s worked with [DJ] Mustard, Tyga, and Quavo lately. He has a couple of projects coming this year that we’re excited about. We have Ambré with her new project coming shortly. She’s recording now, very excited about that.
Maeta has a couple of great projects this year. One with Kaytranada that’s coming in a couple of months, her debut project. I think she has a couple of really cool features that are coming throughout the year that we are going to sprinkle in the middle of all of that.
[We also have] Infinity Song, who are really talented. I’m getting so many calls about them, and people are just gravitating towards how unique and different they are. So that’s really exciting for us.
Shari Bryant: Yes, we have Snoh [Aalegra]. We also represent the female lyricists; we’ve got Rapsody coming, which we’re really excited about. She hasn’t put out an album in, I want to say, going on five years. When she first got here, she put out Eve, which was 2019, so I’m super excited about [the new] album. She poured her heart and soul into it, and I think it’s going to be deeply appreciated.
[We also have] KenTheMan. We’re really excited about her debut album coming with us. She has two singles coming that were really good, but we have so much stuff.
I think people look at Roc Nation and think automatically one genre. We’ve branched out to sounds like Infinity Song, for example; that’s not like really anything that’s out there right now. [Similarly, we have] an artist by the name of Dorothy, who’s on the rock [music] side, but has an amazing voice.
We have a lot coming, and we’re excited about this year.
Shari, I wanted to ask about your early days at Roc-A-Fella as a teenager. What has your career path been like?
SB: I try not to sound redundant, but my career path started at Roc-A-Fella at the age of 16 as an intern. I was open to so much of the business because we were such a boutique label, and I was able to see so much of just the inner workings of a label…how it operated. I always say it was my boot camp that prepared me for the rest of the music business world.
I was able to then apply so much of that knowledge to all of the things that I went on to do, whether it was Def Jam, Warner Brothers Records, Atlantic, Alamo, United Masters, and then ultimately here. I always acknowledge the Roc-A-Fella foundation for what I was able to do with the rest of my career, and I’m super appreciative of it.
Where can people find you on social media?
SB: I’m simple. @sharib.
OG: @OmarGrant718.
Can people send y’all music?
SB: Send it to Omar.
OG: Yeah.
SB: But absolutely. All jokes aside, we listen to so much music day-to-day. There’s a lot of stuff we find online scrolling through Instagram. So, definitely.
