ABOUT ILLUMIN RECORDS
This is not your mother’s record label, but it is founder Jessa Graves’. In the early 90s Annie Graves started Illumin Records to independently release her own music. Twenty-six years later, her daughter Jessa Graves (front woman of J. Graves and entrepreneur) resurrects Illumin Records with a revitalized mission at the intersection of music, tech, and advocacy. Illumin redefines the role of record label for womxn and gnc led projects through education, transparency, empowerment, and new deal structures leveraging tokenization and blockchain technology.
After self-releasing her own full-length record in 2019, it was apparent to Jessa that no definitive resource existed for womxn artists to release music and build sustainable careers. In addition to the guidance gap, the music industry has historically been exploitative of artists, with little business structure innovation. Her experience in the tech startup world gives Graves a unique lens, savvy, and approach to solving these problems, establishing a new and improved path forward with Illumin.
J. Graves will be the first band to release on the structurally innovative label, following and iterating on an artist accelerator framework called “WTR RISE”, developed in partnership with Women That Rock’s founder, Andie Aronow, adjunct professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU.
The strategic partnership between Illumin and Women That Rock will grant the Illumin roster direct access to high-level artist management, development, marketing, mentorship and support through all channels of WTR, the music discovery platform dedicated to supporting the best up-and-coming womxn in music, with live event production, marketing and promotion, digital media, presented tours, and a new licensing division.
Illumin will be working with two additional pilot artists in late 2020, Van Mary (Austin) and Egg Drop Soup (LA), both featured artists on the WTR platform.
Illumin Records is lighting the path for womxn in music with a disruptive roadmap, a defiant rejection of the status quo, while harnessing new technology to shine through an opaque industry - and the future looks oh so bright.