African American And Latino Owned Media Company Signs Historic Multi-Year Partnership With Universal Music

Universal Music Latin has inked a multi-year partnership with the Los Angeles based multicultural music and media company, MPM Productions. MPM will find, grow, and develop credible cross-over Latin musical acts from around the world for UMLE under the MPM Latin label name. MPM was co-founded by three Arizona State University alums, Eric O'Connor, Dimitri Hurt, and Luis Arellano in 2016.

MPM's first artist under this agreement is JD Pantoja, who's debut single release under this agreement, "ERROR", reached #1 on Spotify Top 200 charts in 11 countries and #1 on Apple Music Chart Latino Top 200 in 7 countries. The video of the song currently has over 34 million views on YouTube and, trended #1 in 14 countries and Top 3 in the US. "ERROR" finished the week at #2 on the Global YouTube Charts.

"We're proud to say that our artists are paving the way for this business model to be successful," said Luis Arellano, President of MPM Latin.

"It's kind of art AND a science to be able to tell which creators that are predominantly known for online videos/content can be taken seriously as credible musicians," states Eric O'Connor. "It all starts with the music. You can have 15 million followers and just because you make a song that does great numbers, doesn't mean that the 'industry' will accept you," O'Connor cautions. "The music has to be great."

"We've seen hundreds of online creators try to 'make music' over the past three years, and for the most part, it's just ok. We have 2 artists that are signed to US labels that started on YouTube, DDG at Sony Epic, and Pantoja. So we're on to something," Dimitri Hurt added.

In its three year history, MPM has already earned 4 gold records, with the latest being certified by the RIAA, in April 2020. MPM songs have over 1 billion streams to date.