NOISEMAKERS:
A HOLIDAY SPECIAL

In our latest roundup, we present eight rising professionals from various parts of the biz whose dedication and effort make their superiors look good.

This week's entrants will also find their faces in our last mag of the year, which could make for a great (or dismal) conversation starter at their holiday dinners.

Mike Carney
Booking, Project Manager, Live Nation Urban

Carney was thrilled to book the 2021 edition of H.E.R.’s Lights On Fest, which also boasted Erykah Badu, Ty Dolla $ign, Bryson Tiller, Keyshia Cole and Ari Lennox, among others. He’s lately been working to bring the hit Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast with Gillie Da King and Wallo267 to the stage and curating a live platform that will showcase emerging hip-hop and R&B artists. A wine enthusiast and collector (100+ bottles and counting), Carney may find that a mention in HITS leaves a bitter taste on the palate.

Ben Hogan
Music Agent, UTA

Hogan began working in dance music at 17, hosting all-ages events in Baltimore. Over the last two years, he’s inked Alesso, seen the world-renowned DJ’s TOGETHER AGAIN festival sell 18k tickets and repped 11 acts at EDC Las Vegas—not to mention signing Marshmello for North American touring. He’s turned SLANDER into a festival headliner and advanced the careers of Grimes, NGHTMRE, Carnage, Elohim and GoldFish. Hogan and his wife have a small chicken farm at their home in the Valley. We’ve been known to have egg on our face.

Nicole Hajjar
Manager, Media, Republic

Hajjar calls Glass Animals’ recent Grammy nom for Best New Artist the “cherry on top” of an incredible year. They’re the first artists she’s worked with to receive the honor. She’s also excited about new music from Auckland singer/songwriter BENEE, whose “Supalonely” blew up on TikTok in 2019. In other news, Hajjar, who interned at Republic as a student at NYU, has attended more than 25 Jonas Brothers concerts, attesting, “Once a Jonas fan, always a Jonas fan.” Sadly, “Once a HITS fan, always a HITS fan” isn’t a thing.

Jana Coffey
Artist & Label Partnerships Lead (Sony), Spotify

Presiding over all things Sony for Spotify, Coffey is grateful to have worked on the campaigns for Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Harry Styles’ Fine Line and Foo Fighters’ Medicine at Midnight. She’s thrilled that Columbia broke back-to-back Spotify records for most-streamed song in a single day with BTS’ “Butter” and Adele’s “Easy on Me.” She’s presently focused on the latest RADAR campaign, for Sleepy Hallow. If she weren’t in music, Coffey could see herself as a florist—a budding side hustle? Get it? We’re so funny, though we’ve heard looks aren’t everything.

Zach Shefrin
Director, Digital Marketing, Def Jam

When Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. imprint released five albums on five consecutive Fridays in 2018, Shefrin got to attend two related listening events. At the moment, he’s running campaigns for Ye’s Donda and Justin Bieber’s Justice, with the rollout of new albums by 2 Chainz and YG forthcoming. Also on deck? Identifying additional avenues for Def Jam’s roster to intersect with the world of professional sports. Shefrin himself played Division 1 soccer at George Washington University for three weeks during his freshman year. We need our inhalers just writing about that.

Jackie Petri
SVP, Business & Operations, Haus of Gaga/BC Management

Back in ’08 when Petri was an A&R assistant at Interscope, she gave an artist named Sonny Moore the isolated tracks to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” to experiment with—and midwifed the birth of Skrillex, which is how we now know Moore. She joined Haus of Gaga in 2020 in what she calls a “full-circle moment.” She’s currently promoting Gaga and Tony Bennett’s sextuple Grammy nominee, Love for Sale. Fun fact: As an adolescent, Petri spent countless evenings learning Britney Spears choreography via VHS recordings of MTV’s Total Request Live.

Karissa Reynafarje
Senior Manager, Nonstop Management; SVP, Sandlot Records

Reynafarje was once #1 hit songwriter/producer JKash’s assistant; she’s now head of the record label he founded, Sandlot. She also works for the company that manages him, Nonstop, where she handles songwriters like Tia Scola (Justin Bieber, Ava Max) and Ryann (Tate McRae), producer John DeBold (Maroon 5) and artist Niko Rubio, who just dropped her first EP, Wish You Were Here, and is on her first tour, with Australian band Chase Atlantic. In her spare time, Reynafarje enjoys tending her pumpkin patch. Someone always smashes our pumpkins.

Jared Fox
VP, Artist & Industry Relations, SiriusXM

Fox booked Lady Gaga at Harlem’s famed Apollo in 2019, bringing her Vegas residency show to the East Coast to mark the union of SiriusXM and Pandora, truly a night to remember for the 1,500 lucky folks in attendance. Speaking of intimate venues, he’s today working on the Small Stage Series, which has seen 19 shows from stadium and arena acts like Alicia Keys, J. Cole, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran transpire in a club setting. Fox has three kids under five. It’s astonishing that he had any time for us.