Nick

Rolling Stone Interview

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Meet the next generation of app inventors, startup founders, label owners, tastemakers, managers and promoters

Nick
23
Founder, Majestic Casual

"YouTube has become a major player in the world of streaming music, and one of its biggest channels for music is Majestic Casual. It's a one-man shop founded in 2011 by a press-shy German who says to call him Nick. "A person should not be in the center of the brand but the artists and their work," he says via email. His channel promotes artists by pairing music uploads with an evocative image – usually a dreamy, sun-drenched shot of an attractive woman – and this simple formula has garnered it more than 2.28 million subscribers, an average of 32 million plays each month and an estimated yearly revenue of anywhere from $75,000 to $1.2 million. "I like having what we call 'Kopfkino' in Germany: listening to a track and imagining a movie scene. That's what I try to give my subscribers," says Nick.

In the process, he's given invaluable exposure to artists like Perseus, Cyril Hahn and Julio Bashmore. Last year, Miami's Ultra Music Festival featured a Majestic Casual Stage where those musicians nd more performed, and the brand also put on a public showcase at London's Village Underground last May.

Nick says he created Majestic Casual because "I found myself in a world of commercial music, the same tracks running on the radio over and over again, cluttering people's ears. I took the chance to show people the music I love, music which enriches my soul and not necessarily music that sells millions of records."