A TASTE OF RAINMAKERS 2024: GEORGE PRAJIN

For music-biz lifers, it often begins with family. That’s how manager, label boss, attorney, fierce negotiator and música Mexicana champion George Prajin got his start—he was born into it. Working at his family’s retail stores and one-stop in Southern California, Prajin became not only an expert in retail, wholesale and distribution but also an expert in the urban audience. Customers, many of them Latino, who frequented Prajin’s retail stores consistently requested both hip-hop and regional Mexican music.

Through his decades of relationships within the Mexican music community, Prajin eventually met, managed and partnered with Guadalajara-based singer-songwriter Peso Pluma, the most groundbreaking artist to come out of Mexico in this century, just before his meteoric rise.

Prajin guided Pluma (born Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija) through his breakthrough year of 2023, which included all-time streaming records for a Mexican artist as well as a sold-out U.S. tour. With a run of features on such smashes as “Ella Baila Sola,” “La Bebe” and “PRC,” capped by his milestone debut LP, GÉNESIS—which made history as the highest-charting regional Mexican album of all time—Peso Pluma became a household name in both the U.S. and Mexico, leading música Mexicana’s growth across the globe.

Following the launch of Double P Records in partnership with Pluma, Prajin Parlay expanded its management division, label services and studios. Prajin has created one of the most powerful independent operations in the Latin music space, one that encompasses recording, publishing and touring. Along with Pluma, the firm recently signed Mexican acts like Santa Fe Klan, Código FN, Jasiel Nuñez and Los Dareyes de la Sierra.

Here, the veteran sports and music entrepreneur recounts his winding path to becoming a Mexican music mogul, and why fighters and artists want Prajin in their corners.

Let’s start with the family business. What was your upbringing like?

My dad began selling music—specifically Spanish music—around the time I was born. He and my mom would drive into Tijuana and sell music at flea markets. They eventually opened a retail shop in Huntington Park in 1972. His motto was, if he didn’t have it, it didn’t exist.

I grew up in the store. I did everything from cleaning the floors to helping customers, all while learning as much as I could about the different genres, artists, composers—I love the history of music. Even today, I like to show off that I’m an encyclopedia.

How did your time at the shop shape your music and business acumen?

The store cranked. We only had four feet of frontage, so we would put a huge speaker out in front on Pacific Boulevard and blast music to get people’s attention. The music choices became extremely vital to our business—the right song would attract more customers. That was our research.

The store gradually turned into wholesale, and we became Prajin 1 Stop. And with that we started a retail chain. At one point we had 26 retail stores in SoCal under Latin Music Warehouse. I ran the retail division, so I would meet a lot of artists—that made us unique. We had access to many indie acts before major distributors. They would come directly to us to sell their cassettes or CDs.

My dad was the first person to sell [corridos legend] Chalino Sánchez cassettes. We had a huge Sinaloa clientele—Broncos Sinaloa, Los Tucanes de Tijuana—these guys came to the store and asked if we would sell their cassettes. The relationships we built with these Mexican artists—our store was like a newsstand to them. They would ask, “What else do you have?” and without even looking just buy a stack of 20 cassettes.

So what was the next step?

Seeing my dad connect Chalino to [regional Mexican labels] Cintas Acuario or Musart, I started thinking, why are we finding these acts, developing their distribution and handing them over to major labels? So I thought we needed to open a label. My dad was against it. He thought, Why would we put up money for these artists? They’re already bringing their music to us; we’re making our distribution fee plus retail markup on their releases.

I wanted to be hands-on on the musical side. So when I was 23, I took a chance and signed a kid that I thought was a good prospect. He agreed to let me produce an album for him, so we hired a band, went into the studio and made an album, all with no distribution, because I was doing it behind my dad’s back. It didn’t end up doing well because I was trying to keep it hush-hush and sell it at the same time. But it did lead me to an amazing artist that I would eventually work with, Jessie Morales. After hearing him in a random studio and learning he was only 14, I set myself on signing him. Luckily, I was able to convince him to sign with me. The kid was so good that I did tell my dad about it.

What was his reaction?

Actually, the way I told him was by playing one of the songs we recorded in the store, and six people came up in a matter of 10 minutes to ask who it was. My dad was like, “Who is that?” And I said, “Oh, it’s this new kid.” And he goes, “Wow, that’s going to be a big seller.” I said, “Thank you. I signed him.” And he kind of just smirked, and then he never said anything after that.

The kid ended up having multiple platinum albums. I think he really revolutionized the urban and regional Mexican movement. This was around 1999. We did the first two albums independently through my label Z Records and eventually signed a deal with Univision Music. His first release through them debuted at #1 on the Latin sales chart. He had an impressive run. Seeing firsthand on the retail side that the same customers who bought 2Pac and Biggie would also buy regional Mexican, I always envisioned fusing hip-hop and regional Mexican. We really pushed the limit with Jessie.

It sounds like a foreshadowing of what happened in 2023 with música Mexicana.

We integrated 808s and had extra bass with banda. He ended up with a more urban sound. We even did crazy things like putting “Extreme Bass: Caution” on the album cover, “Explicit Lyrics.” He was on a trajectory to do great things—he performed to half a million people at festivals. But then the music industry at the time started to crater. It became nearly impossible to monetize anything.

How did this impact the family retail operation?

It was sad. Artists that moved hundreds of thousands of units were suddenly moving like 10-15k. I tried to lower prices, but there was no salvation. It was heartbreaking because not only did we have to shut down but we had people that worked for us for many years that we were no longer able to employ.

After that I moved to the desert for a couple of years to take care of my dad, who was sick. Meanwhile, I was always associated with MMA. I used to train and have many friends who are fighters. When I got back to L.A., one of my best friends, Tito Ortiz, essentially became the face of the UFC. He was going through changes in his career and needed someone to help negotiate. I had some background in law and contracts, so I represented him, and he said, “Wow. I have never gotten anything near that amount.” And I was like, “Yeah, this is pretty fun.”

Word spread amongst the fighters that “George is negotiating all these great deals for Tito.” So then I ended up representing some of the top-tier names in the sport—[legendary female MMA fighter Cris] Cyborg, then Alistair [Overeem] and [UFC Hall of Famer] BJ [Penn]. I built really good relationships with the owners of the UFC. I did that from 2008 until around 2020.

Why did you stop?

The entire time I was also representing labels and artists as an attorney. I also never got rid of my catalog. My friend was administering Z Records and started noticing that the minimal money that it normally accrued was beginning to multiply. My law partner also noticed the resurgence of the music biz and suggested I relaunch Z Records. I found myself in the studio every day, wanting to produce and create new music. I realized that I had to give 100% to the music—and so that’s when I stopped representing artists in sports and also started tapering out of providing legal services to other record labels.

The streaming boom brought you back.

At first my idea was to come in and just be like a sub-distributor for a lot of these acts. I partnered with a label, Grand Records, that had a relationship with Junior H—he was our first signing when I came back. That’s a massive, massive signing for your first artist on a new venture.

Everything changed when everyone adopted streaming. It’s still tough to make a profit on streaming—you have to put up numbers in the millions to make money. Fortunately for us, we do billions of streams now.

Independently, no less.

It takes a lot to get to that point, a lot of investment and amazing artists. I’m fortunate to work with Peso Pluma, Tito Double P, Jasiel Nuñez, Dareyes and now Santa Fe Klan and Código FN. And, of course, Peso is a gamechanger. Everything I envisioned, he fulfilled it.

When did you first realize Peso Pluma was the truth?

I was focused on doing big productions, with multiple acts collaborating on one big record. We also had two or three artists that were promising, and they were releasing five to seven tracks a month. When Peso turned in his record, me and my engineer made some tweaks, and we ended up with “El Belicón.” That just had a spark—I knew it and felt it. I told everyone, “We’re going all in on Peso Pluma.”

(The 2024 edition of Rainmakers will be published this fall.)