The Pop Corporation

There’s a breed of powerful, wealthy man that exists now which tries to offset their billions in wealth with scruffy caps, weird hair sculpting and crying laugh emojis on social media. It’s an unnerving, irritating sight as these blokes pass themselves off visibly as more akin to podcast hosts rather than wildly powerful individuals.

The Everyman Billionaire. What a world.

So with that, we look toward Scooter Braun – a mode of transport spliced with a hair removal product (or your money back!) who seems to be having quite the month. If you didn’t know, Braun is not only someone we’ve been mistyping as ‘Brain’ for the duration of this article, but also, a gigantically successful and influential pop mogul. Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen Idina Menzel, Demi Lovato, J Balvin and more have been under his wing.

Not for long though, as they’re all ditching him.

Almost dropping him one-by-one, they’ve all been leaving his stable, SB Projects. And remember that thing we said about crying laughing emoji? There was a heavily implied one as he Tweeted: “Breaking news… I’m no longer managing myself.” Arf, or whatever. Now, this might just be all incredibly boring and about business.

See, Braun has a new gig being the CEO of HYBE America, which is basically a new wing for a Korean talent group – the one that happened to assemble BTS, who are just about the most gigantic thing in the popworld right now. However, the thing that raises eyebrows is his relationship with Taylor Swift.

Back in 2020, Scooter sold Taylor Swift’s masters and he wouldn’t sell them to her. That’s precisely why she’s been re-recording all of her albums for fans to re-buy. These tussle has very much seen people taking sides in the whole thing, and obviously, music fans are going to side with the person who writes and sings their favourite songs, not some dude with eerily white teeth and some Grecian 2000. Possibly.

Swift said of the whole thing that, when she tried to buy them, the deal was not ideal, and that she would have to stay in his stable: “I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in.”

“I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta [Braun’s pal] would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future,” adding that Braun as a “manipulative bully,” and “Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work.”

Are all these artists walking away before they get stiffed? Or is this boring as hell? Or is some insane gossip about to drop from some lurid investigative documentary on Netflix? We’re about to find out.