Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter says Canada is the music industry's best kept secret

Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter says Canada is the music industry’s best kept secret

15 March 2011 No Comments

Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter

By Erica Phillips

“Fifty years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to stay at the same hotel at the same restaurants, drink at the same fountains,” Troy Carter said. Today, Carter and his biggest client, Lady Gaga, do all that without a blink.

Carter, the founder, chair and CEO of Coalition Media Group, a talent management and service production established in 2007, was in Toronto recently for Canadian Music Week. He is aware of the contrasts, being a black man, managing Lady Gaga, and that 10 to 15 years ago, this partnership would not have been so likely. “People don’t expect a young black man to manage a white artist,” Carter told a packed hall at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

That’s the beauty of being in the music industry. Music breaks down so many barriers across the board. He says watching his children play, it “looks like a Benetton ad.” They’re into Drake, MGMT, and others, a really eclectic mix, The California-based Carter said it’s really cool what’s happening in music right now.

Internet music also breaks down all barriers; you can become an international artist from day one. “So many barriers are broken just from the digital age,” he adds.

A large part of Gaga’s appeal is in the LGBT population, however, Carter said at the end of the day it’s about human rights, civil rights—and gay rights falls under that.

Carter, who is from Philadelphia, started his career working with Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbook Entertainment. He has worked with a variety of artists, including the Notorious B.I.G. and Sean “Diddy” Combs and Eve.

He spoke primarily about Lady Gaga, who he started working with a few years ago. She broke in Canada and Australia first. Her debut album, The Fame was released in Canada in 2008, six months before being released in the U.S. “Canada is the music industry’s best kept secret. What you have here is amazing. Keep taking chances,” Carter said.

As a manager, he is only as good as his client. She has the ideas, but Carter’s job is to harness and execute those ideas, make sure the partners are inspired, and that they have the right information to help manage her as a person. “There’s a tremendous editing process,” Carter said.

Furthermore he still has to do artist development, you can’t forget about the basics. There’s a real partnership with an artist; she understands what we do,” Carter said.

He’d like Gaga to be recognized for her songwriting in the next few years. She writes when she is inspired and that could be anywhere, her dressing room, before going on stage; new technologies allow her to do that; when Carter’s on the road with her, he can hear her writing.

Carter has turned down artists, potential clients. As a manager it’s important for him to be fair to the artist and to himself.