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13 Jan, 2014

The Guardian interview

Interview0 Comments

Carter is interviewed in The Guardian. On the split with Gaga:

I’ve been in the music industry for 24 years and with God’s grace I’ll be in it until I take my last breath. And I don’t think a speed bump in the road will stop me from doing what I love.It’s not cancer. When you look at the big scheme of things, it’s not cancer.

On technology changes in the music industry he sees: albums released solely as apps; unprecedented data harvesting; more African Americans in Silicon Valley; concert holograms; massively bigger audiences; and the perpetually online, engaged digital star.

Everybody should be nervous. With the music industry we’ve always had technological change, whether it was disruption from eight-track to cassette, or cassette to CD, CD to download, download to streaming. The difference now is how fast it’s happening. We’re seeing new technology pop up every few months like this [snaps fingers]. I sit on the edge of my seat. I try to live around the corner just to get a sneak peak, to have some sense of what’s happening. The industry [needs] to be very aware, concerned and curious about everything on the way.

Gaga has done a phenomenal job building this huge digital fanbase – fans who became activists for her and will fight battles on her behalf. At the height of rock’n’roll it was about mailing lists. One of the early jobs I did was opening Will [Smith]’s fan mail. Now all that’s been replaced by tweets and social media. So you’ve always had that connection. But now you can reach people in real time…I’m very bullish about this new generation of artists. They’re digital natives. They’re starting their careers online.

Carter says he has a tiny digital footprint. For work he uses Path, which limits contacts to 150, and uses Facebook just for family. He doesn’t tweet.

Twitter is much more public and I don’t have that many clever things to say.

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