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West One Music: Our authenticity is a differentiator

March 2, 2021

Maribel Ramos-Weiner

Cristina Bellido de West One Music

Cristina Bellido, SVP Business Development at West One Music Group, stated that their music’s authenticity, whether the one in their library or the one they create, is a differentiating element that makes them unique in the musical market for media and audiovisual content.

“We are authentic, what we create is entirely global and multicultural. We have two seals in Latin America, one is SOMOS, where we have all types of Latin American music such as mariachis, Peruvian chicha, psychedelic, cumbia, bachata, all sorts; and we have another seal, SOMOS MAS, with artists like Diana Burco, Colombian singer-songwriter nominated to the Latino Grammy. This is what differentiates us from other companies that are a bit more Anglo Saxon,” she said on #PRODUprimetime with Richard Izarra.

Created about 20 years ago, West One Music was born in London, in the Soho, to write and create music for audiovisual media, television stations, radio, independent production companies, videogames, musical supervisors. “We are also working with advertising agencies and with brands,” added Cristina, who has been with the company for 15 years and has spent 10 years traveling across Latin America boosting autochthonous production in alliance with local composers. “We realized there wasn’t enough Latin American library music and then started to build it. The peculiarities of regional music make it fascinating.”

She emphasized that the procedure to grant musical rights to their clients is very simple. “Since we are producers, editors, and a record company at the same time, we can grant both a master and a publishing license. Licenses are super simple, like a synchronization license that can be for a specific theme or for producers, television companies with flat rates for a show, per episode, or for the series. It is very simple and people can access our entire library or we can make original music for the show. We adapt to everything”.

Among her clients, Cristina mentioned Netflix, ViacomCBS, A&E, Telefónica, WarnerMedia. “We are working on a series that we cannot say anything about yet, but hope it has mediatic importance outside Latin America and Spain”. She also pointed out that they are encouraging women composers, due to the topic of diversity.

Cristina, Catalan, and with a degree in languages, started off in the London office. In 2016 she settled in New York to lead the expansion in the Americas of West One Music, known as the biggest independent musical production company in the market. Her background is in copyright royalties, and now, in sales and business development.

More info hola@westonemusic.com and WestOneMusic.com.

Watch full interview