‘I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A PERSON WHO’S COMFORTABLE WITH BEING UNCOMFORTABLE.’
Let the record show, South Coast Music Group founder and CEO Arnold Taylor knows how to throw a party. But he also knows how – and more specifically when – not to throw a party. Not a proper one, anyway. So, he explains, the current COVID-dominated conditions meant the celebrations for DaBaby’s latest US No. 1 album, Blame It On Baby, involved “five of us in masks and gloves, six feet away from each other – I couldn’t even get a high five!”, adding that “we have a great amount of respect for what people are going through right now and remained mindful of keeping safe.” Taylor has managed DaBaby since meeting him nearly four years ago, a pivotal encounter that prompted him to leave his last label job, with Epic, and concentrate full time on breaking the rapper from Charlotte, North Carolina, alongside building a label/management company, in SCMG, that is now also home to Toosii (“my next superstar”, for whom South Coast has just signed a deal with Capitol), Big Mali and Blacc Zacc ...