Delivering this year’s keynote address, along with Dr Trevor Jones, is former managing director of Island Records, Marc Marot.
Marot began his professional career in 1982 as the ‘professional manager’ of UK Independent music publisher, Eaton Music ltd, working with film composers George Fenton, Carl Davis and Henry Mancini and pop groups including Status Quo.
He was appointed managing director of Chris Blackwell’s Blue Mountain Music in 1984, working with U2 and the reggae catalogue, amongst others.
Marc’s publishing signings include, amongst many others, Massive Attack, De La Soul, Julia Fordham, and Shakespeare’s Sister (Marcy Levy).
He headed every division of Island until Marc was appointed MD of Island Records in 1990, the youngest MD in the UK music industry at the time.
Amongst the artists signed and developed by his team while at Island Records were Pulp, PJ Harvey, The Stereo MCs, The Cranberries, P.M Dawn, Elbow, Chaka Demus and Pliers, NWA, The Orb, Ice Cube, Nine Inch Nails, and more.
During his tenure as Island Records MD, Island artists won the prestigious Mercury Music Record of the Year prize three times, and 10 Island albums were short-listed. Artists signed during the period have subsequently gone on to win 25% of all the prizes awarded in the 20-year history of the competition.
He guided U2’s career throughout the 1990s, from the release of Achtung Baby to just before the release of All You Can’t Leave Behind, selling close to 60 million albums in the process.
To date, acts discovered or managed by him have notched up 38 Top 10 singles, including 18 #1 singles in the UK charts. He has been responsible for more than a million album sales in one form, including his 10 years of direct international responsibility for U2’s marketing and sales.
Upon leaving Island records in 2000, he produced and oversaw the design and implementation of the multi-award winning U2.com, following a successful $5m fundraise.
Marot acted as music supervisor and (music) producer on many film soundtracks, from Angel Heart, Mississippi Burning, and In the Name of the Father, to the soundtrack for Notting Hill, which sold over four million copies.
He also signed a soundtrack deal for Guy Richie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which sold over a million copies worldwide.
All of this, and more, guarantees an opening address delegates will relish while setting the tone and celebrating the gravitas of #Mex22’s promise to deliver content and conversation beyond compare.
With more names to be revealed in the build-up to #Mex22, this year’s conference looks to be its most significant and engaging one yet.
#Mex22 returns to Cape Town on 5 and 6 of November 2022, at the Academy of Sound Engineering (ASE).
One week later, the conference moves to Johannesburg on 12 and 13 November, at ASE JHB.
