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Thursday, March 28, 2024
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A Complexx Business

Find a new artist. Check.

Make a music video. Check.

Call the producer. Check.

These are just a few things on the to-do list of junior communications major Phillip Weisbord.

Weisbord runs a management agency called Complexx Entertainment with his best friend Benjamin Klein, a junior at the University of Delaware.

After they finished high school, the two friends cooked up the idea of starting their own management business. As they brainstormed and talked about their mutual interests, music was a constant theme. With the common love of music and a desire for a management business, Complexx Entertainment was born.

"We didn't want to sit around all summer in a dead end camp job like everyone else, so we were thinking of ideas," Weisbord said. "We thought of being a company that artists wanted to submit their music to and we would throw shows with these artists, to turn a profit."

Although it sounded like an expensive summer adventure, Weisbord and Klein were able to tap into their savings and dig up the dough. They invested their money into their company as start-up funding, hoping that one day they would make it big. While most kids straight out of high school would turn to their parents for the funds to start a business, 18-year-old Weisbord did not have that luxury.

"In the beginning, Ben's mom was the only one who knew and supported us 100 percent on everything. I didn't tell my parents for a while, because they are so old fashioned," Weisbord said. "When I told my mom [about the business] she was really supportive, but I still didn't tell my dad until just recently. He is an old school guy who isn't supportive of putting money into something that you don't know how it's going to work out, but now he has seen it work and now he's very supportive."

For a while, it looked as if his parents were right and the business wouldn't become anything more than a distant teenage dream. After the first concert they hosted, things didn't go as planned. Klein remembers the event as a learning experience for the business duo.

"We had never thrown an event before and we didn't do what we needed to do, which is why we lost money," Klein said. "It was a bad experience overall, but we really learned from that. It inspired us to get back up and go for round two. We knew that even though it hadn't worked out we would make the best of it and keep going and we were there for each other we are always there to support each other."

Instead of giving up the business, Klein and Weisbord continued searching for an artist to represent. Eventually, Complexx found their first artist, Tarik Trotter.

"[When talking to Trotter] We were like, ‘Listen, we are just starting out. I feel like we would really work together,'" Weisbord said. "It was a very happy moment because it was our first artist."

For Weisbord and Klein, the business is about more than making money off their artists; the ultimate goal is to get them signed. They keep their eyes open for record labels that would want to produce their artists' work.

Members of the "Complexx family" actually act as a family. Weisbord and Klein only represent artists who are serious about their music and who are in in for the love of the art, not to make money.

One of their artists is Harrison Rosada, a junior sociology major, also known as DJ Rosada.

"[Weisbord] was actually one of my close friends and he came to me and was like, ‘hey so I started a music management group and do you need a manager?' and at first I didn't take him seriously because what would you do if one of your friends told you that?" Rosada said. "But he actually came to me and said they manage two different rappers and we want to get you on board…I was really down with it because what he was doing was legit."

Complexx has been managing Rosada for almost a year now, and it's making life a lot easier on the electronic music producer.

"[Weisbord] takes care of a lot of things I used to rip my hair out trying to do. He helps me a lot with the online advertising, spreading word about me, booking shows and stuff," Rosada said. "He makes it so that I don't have to worry about anything but my music."

Weisbord and Klein have high hopes for the future of Complexx. They want it to grow into a major company that manages multiple artists.

"I could do this for the rest of my life," Weisbord said. "I like being behind the scenes and working and I don't want to be the center of attention. But if my artists get recognized, then I will feel good knowing that I played a part in that. Whatever happens happens."

The reality that Complexx may not make it big still lingers in the minds of Klein and Weisbord. But regardless of what happens, they plan to stick with it until the end.

"Until I am living on the street in a box, eating legit garbage; that's when I'll give up," Weisbord said. "I want to know I did anything and everything I could to make it happen."

Email: features@ubspectrum.com


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