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In the music business, a record used to wait. It waited for a release calendar, a marketing plan, three rounds of approvals. By the time the plan was finished, the moment was gone. broke Records was built on the opposite bet: that a label should move at the speed of the feed.
“We can sign a record and turn around content in less than 24 hours,” founder and CEO Andre Benz told Billboard in 2024. “Deal out, advance paid, marketing live in under 48.” It sounds like a tagline. Inside the company, it is the operating system.
The process starts with listening. Benz’s A&R team spends its time studying activity on TikTok, digital streaming platforms, and YouTube, watching for shifts in music trends and listener interests. When a record starts moving, they hear it early, usually before the numbers make it obvious. It is the same curation muscle Benz built as a teenager running Trap Nation, and it remains the core of the company.
“The internet does not wait for quarters,” Benz says. “If you hear a record on Monday and your process needs six weeks, you were never in the race.”
When the team hears the record, they move. The deal conversation happens the same day, not after a month of back and forth. “We know what we pay, we know what we need, and we say it plainly,” Benz says. “An artist waiting on money is an artist losing momentum.” The advance goes out fast. Marketing starts immediately, with content live within 24 hours of the signature.
Benz distills the pitch to four words, first reported by The Source: “speed, efficiency, product ownership, and being intuitive.” “An artist with a record taking off does not need a logo,” he says. “They need someone who can match the pace of the moment they are living in.”
The results are public. The Source reported that broke had more TikTok-charting singles than any other label in 2024. The company put more than 15 singles on the Billboard charts that year, and its site tracks over 50 records at Top 40 radio. None of that happens on a 12-week timeline.
Andre Benz is quick to add that none of it works without taste. “Speed without curation is just noise, and noise is cheap,” he says. “The 48 hours only matter because the listening never stops. We hear hundreds of records a week and sign a handful. The filter is brutal on purpose.”
Labels used to sell artists on their machinery. At broke, the argument is that the machinery was the liability. “The labels winning right now are built like the internet they operate on,” Benz says. “Flat, fast, and allergic to waiting.”
About broke Records
broke Records is an independent record label and music marketing company founded in 2023 by Andre Benz and Brandon De Oliveira. Operating under Create Music Group with offices in Los Angeles, New York and London, broke develops artists across hip-hop, pop, electronic and country.
