Take a Daytrip Launches No Idle, a Universal Imprint Looking to Bring Diversity Into the Studio (EXCLUSIVE)
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After quietly developing talent for years, the production duo of David Biral and Denzel Baptiste — otherwise known as Take A Daytrip — have officially launched No Idle, a publishing imprint in partnership with Universal Music Publishing Group.
What started off as organic collaborations between friends has become, thanks to a push from UMPG, an endeavor with the goal of identifying and mentoring emerging songwriters, producers and artists “before the rest of the world takes notice.” After all, it’s that same idea that sits at the core of Biral and Baptiste’s partnership, friendship and combined experience of “seeing the world through music.” Graduates of New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, Biral and Baptiste have found success producing for Lil Nas X, Kid Cudi and more.
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“We are stepping into this company with a great crop of talent,” Biral tells Variety of No Idle’s roster. “Being able to put people of color and women in producer roles – where you usually don’t find them: that’s been the biggest goal. It’s just really about giving these people those opportunities and really letting the talent speak for itself.”
No Idle’s existing publishing roster includes Roy Lenzo, V-Ron, Zae Lay Low, Full Tac, Matt Cohn and 18YOMAN who co-produced two singles “Lord I Know” and “For Da Kidz” on Kid Cudi’s “Man On The Moon 3″ with Take A Daytrip.
On the management side, the roster includes splititupbenji!, who helped co-produce Kid Cudi’s “Stars in the Sky” from “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” alongside Take A Daytrip & Dot da Genius. Sophie Gray, Mingo, Woodpecker, Adriano Allahverdi, LEN20, Mel DeBarge and AyeTM are also management clients.
Baptiste, who met Biral when both were college freshmen, says No Idle has been in the works for years as the two have collaborated with producers from different countries, with different backgrounds and skill sets. “We’ve learned that the magic in pushing music forward is just the exchange of information with different people,” he says. “I think freedom of intention was something that we were given just circumstantially and now it’s something that we really support with everyone that we work with. Some producers want to be artists, some producers want to be completely anonymous and enjoy that.”
Taking inspiration from their UMPG parent partners, Baptiste references Take A Daytrip’s first A&R, Jessica Rivera, who emphasized her “job is just to plant the seeds.” Following that same mantra, the production duo knows what it means — from an artist’s point of view — to have a supportive team willing to educate their artist, especially on financial transparency amidst the intricacies of the music industry.
Biral adds, “We want to make sure that each of our clients has everything in front of them. When it comes to different producers’ deals, all those kinds of things. If our guys have questions on anything that they’re not even figuring out with their own respective teams, we want to use our own experiences to help them.”
David Gray, executive vice president and the head of U.S. A&R for UMPG, is credited for bringing the duo into the pop world and scoring them remix work for Dua Lipa. He adds, “For No Idle, we want to expand upon these values of being open to all genres of music [from a] global outlook. For some of the other No Idle writers like Roy Lenzo and V-Ron, we have already set up sessions with artists as wide-ranging as 24kGldn, Dora Jar, Lil Huddy and Kaash Paige.”
The hitmakers and No Idle’s first signee, Lenzo, were the musical forces behind Lil Nas’ “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” which has accumulated over 100 million on-demand streams to date, according to data from Luminate. “It’s been incredible to witness Roy’s success. Just seeing him start to invest in his first studio, being able to move across the country no problem – all those kinds of things, are things that we love to see amongst our people,” says Biral.
Friendship sits at the center of No Idle, a venture that “started naturally from us putting a structure to the people that we love working with,” outlines Biral, referencing Take A Daytrip’s early digs in New York. “At the time, we were struggling without any placements, we had the same friends and the same people that we’re working with now.”
“We had no money and were basically working out of a basement studio in Manhattan. That basement was always a hub for amazing producers, musicians and artists. It was a natural collision of creatives in a single space, sharing inspiration and working on records together,” remembers Jon Tanners, who alongside Cody Verdecias, partners in No Idle and represents Take A Daytrip via the artist management Blood Company (100 Gecs, Ghostemane).
As curious and collaborative NYU students, the two created a joint thesis project which laid out the original groundwork for Take A Daytrip, “and within that plan, there was another plan to grow a creative house to build the best ideas possible – that was at the beginning. There’s chapters, pages and pages after that that we haven’t even gotten to yet.”
It’s been nearly 10 years since Baptiste and Biral started their friendship turned successful business partnership “and looking back — we’ve really stuck to the plan – this crazy plan that people would’ve looked at and said that we’re insane.” With mentorship as one of their top responsibilities, the duo plan to continue their virtuous cycle hoping to make “the best ecosystem for producers and writers.”
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