![]() ![]() You’re never comfortable, and you never know enough. Sometimes it feels like 40, and sometimes it feels like four days. You have been at Parkwood for four years… ![]() And that’s the standard that Beyoncé has set. It’s like the old Army ad, you know: We do more before 7 a.m. As accomplished a performer as she is, she is also a hell of a producer, director and arranger. In July, we released The Lion King: The Gift album, which was Beyoncé’s Quincy Jones moment. The marketing of The Lion King movie followed by the “Spirit” and “Bigger” videos. Next, came The Lion King soundtrack with “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” with Donald Glover and Beyoncé. We rereleased Lemonade, and that went back into the top 10. And from there, we rolled straight into the Homecoming film project and then the Homecoming Live album. We think it will be the biggest athletic partnership of all time. It’s a privilege to be a witness to that stuff.Įarly this year, it was announced that you were partnering with adidas to relaunch Ivy Park. Some of the biggest artists in the world performed at the largest concert in African history to raise over $1 billion for charity. That tour ended in Johannesburg, South Africa, in front of 90,000 people at the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100. This time last year, Beyoncé and JAY-Z were in the middle of the On the Run II Tour - 49 stadium worldwide. Let’s start by reviewing Beyoncé and Parkwood’s last 12 months. While Beyoncé was taking some time off - although clearly not tuning out the business - Pamon sat down with Billboard to discuss Parkwood’s ventures during the past 10 months, his formative years growing up on the South Side of Chicago and the work ethic and mindset of a boss that, he says, requires everyone at the company to “level up” or risk being left behind. Crucially, Beyoncé retains full ownership of the company under the new agreement. This year brought the announcement that Ivy Park will expand with the help of a new partner with a bigger global footprint: adidas. Beyoncé, 38, manages herself, runs her own label and production company, and in 2018 bought back a 50% stake of her athleisure line Ivy Park from Topshop after Topshop owner Philip Green faced allegations of racism and sexual harassment. A supporting live album followed.īeychella and Homecoming paid homage to the traditions and marching bands of historically black colleges and universities, and in doing so emphasized a key Parkwood principle: self-determination. (The album generated 570.4 million on-demand audio streams the tour grossed $253.5 million.) This year brought Homecoming, a two-hour documentary of Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella headlining show (aka Beychella) - part of a production deal with Netflix said to be worth $60 million. Last year, The Carters’ Everything Is Love - Beyoncé’s surprise duet album with her billionaire husband, JAY-Z - dropped out of nowhere during their On the Run II stadium world tour. Parkwood has become known for shock-and-awe productions, foregoing traditional media promotion - or hype - and using the power of the unexpected to harness the energy of social media. More recently, the unexpected July release of The Lion King: The Gift, the Beyoncé-produced and -curated companion album to the Disney remake (in which she voiced the role of Nala), generated 147.4 million on-demand streams for the album’s songs. Operating at a leak-proof level of nondisclosure the federal government can only envy, it has steamrolled traditional industry thought patterns, unveiling artistic breakthroughs as top-secret surprises, beginning with the 2013 visual album Beyoncé, which sold 617,000 downloads in just three days, giving her the best first-week results of her career, and spawned the Billboard Hot 100 No. 2 hit “Drunk in Love,” featuring JAY-Z. But in the last decade, Parkwood has grown into the business empire and creative content company behind her greatest role: Queen Bey. Parkwood began in 2008 as a video and movie wing for Beyoncé, co-producing Cadillac Records, the film in which she portrayed Etta James. Pamon, who’s wearing a white T-shirt beneath a navy blue suit offset by a red-white-and-blue stripe on the sleeves and pant legs, relaxes into the chair and resumes speaking about his boss and their company - that would be Beyoncé, “B,” as Pamon, 49, often calls her, and Parkwood Entertainment - and the milestones of the 12 or so preceding months that have earned them Billboard’s 2019 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players Executives of the Year honors. She just called.” The words, spoken by Parkwood Entertainment’s head of public relations, Yvette Noel-Schure, stop Steve Pamon midsentence as he sits on a chair in the company’s midtown Manhattan offices. ![]()
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