Photo by Marie-Michèle Bouchard

Permission founder Lucie Bourgouin’s copyright licensing approach

Story by Élise Jetté | Tuesday March 15th, 2022

Having run the Permission agency ever since she founded it back in 1995, Lucie Bourgouin has known for a long time that copyright permissions ( better known as  licensing) are an important niche branch of the screen industry. More than 20 years after starting her own company, she knows exactly how to make sure that all parties are dealt with fairly when it comes to integrating one creative work into another one.

Lucie Bourgoin“When I got my Bachlor of Music at the Université de Montréal, I had no career path in mind,” Bourgouin admits straightaway. She simply went along taking advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves to her. Her expertise was frequently sought, and a few steps later, she ended up managing ancillary/product (or merchandise) rights for Société Radio-Canada. “Radio-Canada even had a record company at the time,” she recalls. “That was in the late 80s.” After running the Crown Corporation’s rights management branch right across the country, her position was eventually cancelled “on account of petty politics.”

“On February 1 of this year, I celebrated 27 years as a copyright negotiator for producers,” she says proudly. “I’ve had clients like Robert Lepage and Cirque du Soleil. When these people needed a song, I dealt with the release of the copyrights attached to that work.”

In her view, understanding an artistic creation as an indivisible whole is at the very heart of her career. ”You have to understand how people operate,” she says. “You have to know people, show temperament, and be able to understand the sensitivities that are involved for all those having a stake in the work: creators, and all those who wish to use someone else’s creative work.”

To this day, the fuel that drives Bourgouin is a deep respect for the artist standing behind each aspect of a work. “I negotiate on a daily basis with entities that have interests, but I always make sure that everyone gets paid fairly,” she maintains. “If we didn’t have creators, nothing would happen, and I’ve always been on the artists’ side.”

Since Permission was created in 1995, Bourguoin has been negotiating on behalf of just about everybody, with unsurpassed ardour, and a passion for creative works. And not just musical ones, but also paintings, or books that people wanted to turn into TV series. She always knows the real value of a work of art, and how to help all parties reach an agreement that’s satisfactory for all involved. “I’ve even negotiated a Picasso work. And what a trip that was!” she recalls.

Also in charge  of negotiations for the archive of the TV show Les enfants de la télé, she only brings up a single example when asked what was, in her view, the greatest thing she’s ever done professionally: “The best calling card I’ve ever got in my life was Jean-Marc Vallée and the film CRAZY,” she says, getting emotional. “That was my career’s top adventure. You rarely get to work together with film producers when you’re negotiating a copyright licence, but Jean-Marc and I worked side by side, all along.” This close partnership turned into a personal friendship. “He’s the only one who ever thanked me on TV. That was during the Jutra Awards show,” she says. “For me, that was a high point in my desire to help people get what they want.”

Over time, music and the way we use it have changed, and Bourgouin’s work has evolved accordingly. The reason why CRAZY stands out stands out so clearly in her mind is that, for the time, there was a monumental number of music copyright licences to be dealt with, as some 20 songs were to be embedded in the soundtrack. “Things are different today,” she added. “I’m working with Xavier Dolan on his next series, and we’re dealing with 52 songs, and counting!”

“All parties will have to re-examine their values if we’re to provide local artists with some visibility”

Lucie Bourgoin

Lucie Bourgouin in 1995

In Bourguoin’s view, the lack of experience of some producers is one of the main challenges being faced because of the “magical thinking” some of them are exhibiting. “You can’t get a Beatles song on the cheap, alter the lyrics, and do it all in 24 hours,” she says, as an example. “I have a tremendous amount of contacts and healthy relationships in the industry. You have to, if you want to get all the rest. I obtained the G.I. Joe intellectual property for a film free of charge, provided we didn’t alter that image. We wanted to get “Stairway To Heaven” for Café de Flore, but we failed. We tried everything. My work is filled with lots of small victories, but there are disappointments too.”

Besides securing copyright agreements, Bourgouin also works as a consultant to suggest alternate avenues when plan A fails. “I love working with people who truly respect music,” she says. “Xavier Dolan is one of them. He’s a true music lover, and when there’s not enough money in the budget for a song he’s after, he’ll just pick something else, instead of asking me to negotiate a better price.”

As time goes on with the decline of record sales worldwide, copyright licensing acquires a new meaning. “My profession’s future is hard to predict,” says Bourguoin. “Copyright owners are becoming more demanding, greedier, and that’s normal, seeing as their sources of income are weakening in other areas. All parties will have to re-examine their values if we’re to provide local artists with a visibility for their songs in our homegrown productions, while making sure we don’t take anything away from film composers.”

Lucie Bourgouin’s success is squarely based on the plethora of relationships she’s developed with rights holders over time. Using psychology, and acting like a career diplomat, she’s spent the past 27 years meeting people half-way, to make sure that every transaction remains a human gesture. “You need a great deal of patience and passion to do my kind of work,” she says. “It’s a long, time-consuming process.” In other words, practice makes perfect.

 

Photo by Éléonore Côté-Savard

Corneille’s lessons

Story by Olivier Boisvert-Magnen | Tuesday March 22nd, 2022

On Encre rose, his ninth album, Corneille sincerely lays bare his lucid vision of the world, and gives life to a dream he’s been cherishing for a long time: paying homage to early-‘80s soul and R&B.

Corneille“I’ve always wanted to do an album that was painted with that colour palette,” says the singer, a fan of Stevie Wonder, Hall & Oates, Prince, Luther Vandross, Shalamar, and so many more artists who left their mark on that era.

And in this case, “always” means for at least the past 15 years. Fifteen years during which the singer-songwriter kept his desire buried deep inside himself.

Yet two songs on his previous album (“Manque de sommeil” and “Le bonheur”) hinted at this musical direction, with rhythmic guitars, funky basslines, and an almighty groove. Corneille was finally letting go.

“The issue, as far as I’m concerned, is that it [the late ’70s and early ’80s] was a period where soul and R&B were all about love songs, and it’s not in my DNA as a writer to go towards that theme,” he says. “I didn’t want to be limited,” he adds, as an explanation for the time it took to come out with this project. “It’s the music I listen to in my car, the music I’m a fan of, so I was very conscious of the amount of work it was going to require. I was a bit shy and reserved, because I’m so intimately bonded to that music.”

To achieve this coupling of the music he loves with his songwriting DNA, Corneille opened himself up to the world, and everything that’s upended our daily lives and societies since he released Parce qu’on aime in 2019. “I found inspiration in the emotionally-charged news about this unprecedented time, when the West has never been so fragile,” he says, referring in particular to the pandemic, and the global geopolitical balance which, in recent months, has gone from unstable to completely chaotic. “I wanted to make sure this would be genuinely introspective.”

Corneille’s intent with this new offering is for it to be like an outstretched hand, an invitation to re-build bridges. As the title indicates, the lyrics are a reflection of the images of love, passion, and tenderness, and of the colour pink (“rose” in French). “We need to hear that kind of message, because while we lived through a pandemic and a political crisis, there was another crisis: the one of words,” he says. “We were swimming in vitriol and inflammatory discourse, and I myself let myself be caught in the taking-sides trap. The more I got caught in that mindset, the less I could recognize myself,” he confesses. “For a long time, I comforted myself by thinking it was easy to have a dialogue with me… Until the pandemic happened, until [the death of] George Floyd happened, until the #MeToo movement happened… I realized that I was just like everyone else, and I could be quick to pass judgment. The more I gave in to these natural human impulses, the worse I got. I asked myself what layer I felt like adding. Should I add a layer of anger? Do we feel like exploring new avenues? I had only one priority when I wrote those words: opening a dialogue. And the only way to do that is through benevolence.”

The path to this reflection was facilitated by the singer’s wife, Sofia de Medeiros. The actress, model, and Portuguese-Québécois lyricist, to whom he’s been married for 16 years – wrote or co-wrote the lyrics to all 10 of the songs on the album. “Each one of these songs is an extension of a conversation I had with Sofia,” says Corneille. “To be honest, the main thing I learned is that we would benefit from managing our societies the same way we manage our couples relationships,” he says.

“

I had only one priority when I wrote those words: opening a dialogue”

“The worst thing that can happen to a couple is not being on the same wavelength,” he continues. “It’s OK to disagree, but the goal is to not go to bed angry. You share responsibilities and interests. And a harmonious couple is one that understands its common interests. These last few years have made us understand that everything that’s happening in China, Africa, and now in Ukraine, is of concern to us, too. The notion of inter-dependency is applicable now more than ever, which is where seeking our common interests kicks in. And that’s why it’s important to build something together. This lesson from married life can be applied to every aspect of everyday life. It’s a huge challenge, but it’s commensurate with the need.”

If his marriage is the foundation of the reflections that populate his new songs, his children are largely responsible for the clearly optimistic tone. “That’s the great novelty in my optimism!” he says, in a kind of self-congratulation. “As a father of two, I’m more anchored in real life. My first albums were created in a kind of utopia, but nowadays, I have to include reality in what I do. Besides, I find hope more powerful when it relates to something real.”

And hope does shine brightly on many of his new songs, especially on the scorching “Pause, Nouveau monde” and “Nouveau pouvoir.” Yet, it’s on other, less immediately attention-grabbing songs, that hope takes on a deeper meaning. A nod to Muhammad Ali’s one-time boxing technique, which consisted of voluntarily staying on the ropes in order to let the opponent tire himself out by dishing out the blows, “Rope-a-Dope” symbolizes “a different approach to life,” which relies on resistance rather than constant and necessarily exhausting attack.

*“People didn’t get what Ali was doing at first, but then it dawned on us that he was waging a psychological war on his opponent by exhausting him physically,” says Corneille. “Then, at the very end, he dealt a blow that ended the fight. It’s a beautiful metaphor for life: sometimes we feel like we have to retaliate to every single blow life throws at us. Except sometimes it’s better to avoid those blows, and save our best for the right moment. The whole idea is to save one’s precious time.”

“Saving one’s precious time” is also the message that carries “Petit pas,” a song Sofia and Corneille have dedicated directly to their eldest son, now 12 years old. “It came from something Sofia and I realized: nothing ever moves fast enough for him,” says Corneille. “He wants to get there before he gets there! And as we tried to show him that not everything had to go so fast, we realized that we were also teaching ourselves a lesson.

“As adults, we’re all caught up in this fast-paced culture, both in the professional realm, and in the more intimate realms of our lives. But the absurdity of it all is that we’re racing against people who aren’t even going in the same direction as us. The result is that a lot of people get to their destination, but feel just as empty as when they started. They ran during all that time, but they’re not even happy to have made it to the finish line,” he says. “In a 100-metre dash, there’s only one destination: the finish line. It makes sense to be competitive in that context. But that’s sport. Life is not a competitive sport.”

Corneille knows what he’s talking about when he says that. He learned it in the wake of his meteoric rise to fame with his first two albums. “That was in 2005 and 2006, when I was at the peak of my career,” he says. “I was playing sold-out arenas in Europe like the Zénith, series of concerts at the Olympia… And at the end of each show, I felt empty. I’d then go to my five-star hotel room and think I wasn’t getting anywhere, spiritually, no better than when I was in my flat in Longueuil before it all took off.

“I’ve put so much effort in for my career, sacrificed so much thinking everything would be fine once I made it. Except nothing was fine, and I got more problems instead! Managing success is not easy. No one teaches you how to manage that,” he confides. “The thing is, it’s a lesson that’s very hard to convey, much like ‘money can’t buy happiness’. So yeah, I do understand what motivates everyone to run like they do.”

He understands, but has chosen to slow down; baby steps. This is the new Corneille, one who now understands the power of scaling back.

In the Spotlight: Astrokidjay

Story by A. Harmony | Tuesday March 15th, 2022

Brampton, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Astrokidjay recorded his breakthrough hit “Ibiza” in a closet. At the time, he had lofty ambitions of reaching 50,000 views with the video – a last-minute, DIY shoot in an Airbnb. Those visuals have over a million views to date, and a lot more has changed since then.

The 2019 single (recorded with Stenno) put Astro on a white-hot trajectory, earning attention from producers like Murda Beatz and Evrgrn, as well as Astro’s manager, Karma Jonez. “He’s the one who pulled me aside and told me to sit back and work on my craft. He felt like I had potential, and that I could do more,” says Astro. “I learned, and I practiced a lot. I read the dictionary, I read a lot of books to help my grammar and my lyrics. I sat back for a little bit [and] stopped dropping music, just to work on my craft. To get better flows, better melodies, and better lyrics.”

That diligence led to a big year for Astro in 2021. He dropped an independent album called Wizard Boy, earned a feature with Polaris Music Prize-winner Haviah Mighty on her single “Coulda Been U,” and landed a record deal with Interscope in November. “I’m more of a developed artist now,” he says. “I know better, I grew up a bit more. I’m signed to a major record label [and] I have way crazier music than [on] Wizard Boy. I just feel like my things are getting better and better.”

The youngest of six kids born to Tanzanian parents, Astro’s music aspirations started relatively late in life. As a child, he preferred soccer over songwriting, and didn’t take an interest in rapping until his late teens. Thanks to varying musical tastes across his large family, though, the 20-year-old does remember being exposed to a mix of genres at home; artists who would later influence his own work. His inherited an appetite for R&B from his siblings, and credits the genre with his distinct, melodic delivery.

“I sat back for a little bit, stopped dropping music, just to work on my craft”

“I listen to a lot of throwback R&B, like 2000s R&B – Keyshia Cole, Alicia Keys,” he says. “I [still] listen to a lot of R&B before my sessions, because it helps me with melodies. A lot of people my age don’t listen to throwback R&B. [But] there are different types of melodies in it that we don’t hear in today’s music. It definitely helps me.”

Andreena Mill

Astrokidjay mentor Andreena Mill

Now gearing up for his tentative April 2022 release, Guns and Roses, Astro – who turns 21 years old in May – is taking a different approach to his writing than his earlier music. He’s traded trap-leaning freestyles and small basement studios for heavier doses of R&B, big studios, and a production team. Seeing an opportunity for professional growth, manager Jonez paired Astro with singer-songwriter Andreena [Mill], who, in addition to her solo work, has collaborated with artists like Melanie Fiona, DMX, and Drake. She serves as co-writer for much of Astro’s upcoming music.

“She’s, like, the best in the world! I learn a lot from her,” says Astro about Andreena. “She helps me with my vocal training, helps me hit certain notes. [She] helps with my writing process sometimes. It’s great working with her and being around her. She’s definitely one of the mentors who help me with my sound today.”

Working with new collaborators like Andreena, OVO-signee Roy Woods, and Jamaican artist Popcaan (perhaps most widely known for his feature on Drake’s “One Dance”) means Guns and Roses will be Astro’s most versatile project yet. While he’s close-lipped about the full list of featured artists, he promises that his new album is sure to widen his audience, and leave a mark.

“I’m on a whole new wave. There’s everything on there for all audiences: children, grandmas, aunties, mothers, everybody,” says Astro. “A lot of people are going to be able to relate to it. It’s going to leave an impact on the city when it drops. I know that for sure.”