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Warner Music launches new label to highlight music from different emerging markets

By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 11 November 2022

Warner Music’s Emerging Markets division has launched a brand new label called Out Of Order which will “highlight artists, music, cultures and communities from regions including Africa, India, the Middle East, Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean”.

It will mainly do that highlighting via a series of albums each of which will feature ten ”original, unreleased, dance-leaning” tracks from a specific region. Those releases will also come with artwork created by a designer based in the region that is in the spotlight. In addition to the albums, there will also be weekly DJ mixes available via Audiomack, SoundCloud and YouTube.

The new venture will be supported by Warner’s existing teams and affiliates in those markets, as well the Atlantic Records team in the US and the Parlophone team in the UK. It will be headed up by Selina Chowdhury, the major’s Head of Marketing For Emerging Markets.

Says she: “I’m incredibly passionate about this initiative. There’s so much unique and inspired international music that often doesn’t have a global platform. We hope that Out Of Order will take music fans on an adventure and introduce them to sounds and artists they might not otherwise have had the chance to hear”.

The first Out Of Order release is called ‘OOO: AFRO’ and has been put together in partnership with Warner Music Africa. It features a mix of afrobeats, amapiano and jouse tracks from the likes of Da Capo, Makhadzi, Moelogo, Oscar Mbo, P-Priime and Rouge. The artwork comes from rising Ghanaian designer Nyahan Tachie-Menson.