{"id":2279578,"date":"2026-02-12T22:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T22:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2279578"},"modified":"2026-02-12T22:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T22:37:00","slug":"sabrina-chappell-olivia-dean-lola-young-island-records-new-dynasty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/sabrina-chappell-olivia-dean-lola-young-island-records-new-dynasty\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabrina, Chappell, Olivia Dean, Lola Young: Island Records New Dynasty"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

\n\tBad Bunny was unquestionably the exclamation mark at the 2026 Grammys<\/a>, and deservedly so. But if there\u2019s a single company that has dominated the buzz at Music\u2019s Biggest Night in the past two years, it\u2019s Island Records<\/a>, a label that has seen a remarkable resurgence in the four years since Justin Eshak and Imran Majid took the helm<\/a> as co-CEOs.<\/p>\n

\n\tSabrina Carpenter<\/a> and Chappell Roan<\/a>, with 12 and 8 Grammy nominations respectively in the past two years, led the way, and Carpenter\u2019s eye-grabbing performance at the top of the show \u2014 not to mention Roan\u2019s even more eye-grabbing outfit on the carpet \u2014 were among the hot topics of the night.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut a reliably consensus answer to the annual question, \u201cWho were the most impressive artists that you didn\u2019t know before the show?,\u201d was two other<\/em> Island acts: best new artist winner Olivia Dean<\/a>, who\u2019s had a remarkable slow-build in popularity that\u2019s grown to a fever pitch over the past few weeks (her single \u201cMan I Need\u201d is currently at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 at iHeartRadio); and Lola Young, who has come back strong from a mental-health hiatus and dazzled the Grammy audience with a solo piano performance of her hit \u201cMessy\u201d and charmed virtually everyone with a joyous, off-the-cuff, F-bomb-dropping acceptance speech <\/a>after she won the best pop solo performance Grammy.<\/p>\n

\n\tEqually to the point, Island artists \u2014 Roan and Dean \u2014 have won the best new artist Grammy in two consecutive years, the first label in history to achieve that feat.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tL-R: Imran Majid, Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Eshak <\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJordan Strauss<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tAt a time when multiple major artists are bringing many of the traditional functions of a record label under their own roofs \u2014 everything from ownership to promotion and publicity \u2014 Island has emerged as a company that artists want to be on, with a profile and a personality to go with its success. It takes an old-school approach but through a contemporary lens, focusing on career artists with a strong live show and a genuine connection with their audiences rather than virality or streaming numbers. Label heads shoot off words like \u201cauthenticity\u201d and \u201cartistry\u201d with a hammer-text ubiquity, but Island is walking the walk.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, it\u2019s all about the artists, the music and the team. But record companies need strong leaders, and Eshak and Majid, who first met in 2004 at then-tiny\/now-massive Republic Records when both were in their early twenties, have built thriving culture at Island that is evident not only in the small but robust roster \u2014 which also includes rising stars like Gigi Perez, Jessie Reyez and Remi Wolf, established artists like Brittany Howard with Alabama Shakes, Demi Lovato, and Latin titan Carin Le\u00f3n, and veterans like the Killers and Bon Jovi \u2014 but also in the small team of 37 dedicated Island staffers (with key assistance from parent companies Republic and Universal). The Island team is like a gang: You\u2019ll see five to 15 of them at every show, and usually one or both CEOs, who are 46 (Eshak) and 44 (Majid) and both married with young families.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe genuinely like to be around each other, and we genuinely like to go to the shows,\u201d Majid says. \u201cBut people have to buy into your vision. When we took over, we looked at people within the organization who we felt were stars, and then we recruited others within each department that we felt really fit the culture, and we could put in front of the artists we want to sign.\u201d The company\u2019s department heads are Marshall Nolan (commercial strategy), Shahendra Ohneswere (digital\/creative), Matt Palazzolo (analytics), Steve Rowen (international), Lauren Schneider (PR), Jay Schumer (marketing) and Jackie Winkler (A&R). <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe show up, we communicate, and we speak to our artists, even if there\u2019s nothing going on,\u201d Majid concludes. \u201cI mean, I called Chappell before the holiday break, just to check in. It\u2019s important for artists to feel comfortable with the label they chose, and we take that very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tIsland Records founder Chris Blackwell (center) with Majid and Eshak<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t*<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a very long way from the state the label was in when the two took charge at the beginning of 2022. Its market share was a daunting 0.67% (and would dip to 0.62% a year later), according to Luminate, but more significantly, its roster had stagnated as well. The company still scored hits with Shawn Mendes and Lovato as well as the Killers and Bon Jovi, and saw a glimmer of hope in former Disney star Carpenter, who Winkler had just signed. But an uneven roster was a sad situation for a legendary label like Island, which was launched in 1964 by Chris Blackwell, one of the greatest record executives of all time, <\/a>and helped build the careers of everyone from Bob Marley to Steve Winwood, U2 to Amy Winehouse, Grace Jones to Roxy Music.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen we started, I thought artists were going to look at us like, \u2018Why would I sign with that label?,\u2019\u201d Eshak recalls, \u201cBut Imran and I said, \u2018It\u2019s gonna work, or we\u2019ll die at our desks trying.\u2019 I attribute it to both of us having immigrant parents \u2014 I think we both have a bit of that immigrant hustle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEshak, a native of Houston whose mother is Croatian, and proud New Jersey son Majid, whose parents emigrated from Pakistan, have very different personalities that mesh well; the former is more reserved where the latter is outgoing. \u201cImran is naturally more gregarious, and I grew up as an alpha\u2019s twin brother,\u201d Eshak says, referring to his brother Jonathan, a partner at Mick Management, which handles Maggie Rogers, the Mar\u00edas, Leon Bridges and others. \u201cSo I\u2019m very used to that sort of dynamic. Now, Imran and I will be talking to an artist and I might get a little technical about something, then he\u2019ll come in talk about it from an emotional perspective and land it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the two first met at Republic in 2004, the company had just 23 employees and a small roster. Eshak (who actually started his career working part-time at Island) was a junior A&R rep and Majid, then in his junior year at Rutgers, was an intern.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI saw somebody who was willing to do whatever it takes,\u201d Eshak recalls. \u201cHe was working at Lord & Taylor [department store] and would take the train to the city and show up and say, \u2018Whatever you need.\u2019 There\u2019s lots of talk nowadays about people being entitled, but he was like, \u2018I\u2019ll do anything.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMajid was later promoted to be A&R head Tom Mackay\u2019s assistant, and Eshak says he saw a glimmer of the future executive early on.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt the time, Republic\u2019s entire A&R department was Tom, me and Imran,\u201d he laughs, \u201cand even though Imran was Tom\u2019s assistant, he closed this massive hip-hop deal. The artist ultimately [wasn\u2019t successful], but it was really competitive, and as an intern he was able to identify the artist, pursue a huge deal and get it closed. A&R people have different skill sets: Some people are good at identifying things but they can\u2019t sign them, or maybe they can identify and sign them but then they can\u2019t A&R the record, or they can\u2019t work it through the rest of the company. It really takes all those four things, and Imran was able to do it at a very early age.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut at the same time, he was an assistant, an experience on which he places enormous value. \u201cI was the kid in charge of making the monthly CD samplers of our priority songs,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI would burn the CDs and then have to insert the cover cards into the jewel cases, and they would sit on [Republic CEO and co-founder Monte Lipman\u2019s] desk in a row: October, November, December, January, every single month. And if there was a bend in a card, even a slight bend, he would make me do it all over again.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut he sat me down one day and said, \u2018You understand why, right? When you look at these CDs, it shows that you give a shit about the details and presentation.\u2019 It\u2019s not superficial by any means \u2014 it\u2019s a level of paying attention to things that most others don\u2019t. And by the way, that was the key to the success of that label. We just cared more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRepublic co-founders Avery and Monte Lipman (L-R, center) with Eshak and Majid<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tAfter several years at Republic, the pair split when Eshak joined his brother in management, working with the late Justin Townes Earle and other artists, but they reunited five years later at Columbia Records.<\/p>\n

\n\tEshak recalls, \u201cI was tired of management for a number of reasons, and [Columbia\u2019s top execs at the time] Ashley Newton and Rob Stringer recruited me. Imran and I were still friends, and we were out for dinner one night and he said, \u2018Yo, I\u2019ve got to talk to you about something. Columbia\u2019s been recruiting me.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Me too!\u2019 So Imran actually called Ashley and said, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s my understanding you\u2019re also talking to Justin, you should hire him, he\u2019s amazing.\u2019 And Ashley said, \u2018I actually want to hire both of you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThey joined Columbia in 2013 as vice presidents, but with an unexpected catch.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor the first time in our lives we\u2019re VPs, and we get to the Sony building at 550 Madison and they say, \u2018Oh, by the way, you guys have to share an office,\u2019\u201d Eshak laughs. \u201cThe company was going to move [to its current base at Madison Square Park], so they couldn\u2019t do any construction. We were like \u2018Really?,\u2019 but it actually worked. We found it was super helpful to be able to look across the room and say, \u2018Am I thinking about this or that in the right way?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Columbia, they found success with Hozier, Lil Tjay and others, but they also learned something more significant than that: how to run a company.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen we walked in, Columbia\u2019s roster had MGMT and Daft Punk and Pharrell and Adele, and that was another skill set that we learned from Rob \u2014 how to curate an art gallery,\u201d Majid says. \u201cAnd when Ron [Perry] came in [as CEO, in 2018], he brought us into the radio promo conversations, budget conversations. We could help him to shape and guide the company, because we were there before he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth agree that experience, combined with the unexpected bonding from sharing an office for several months, prepared them well for the roles they would find themselves in a few years later.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say we were super-obvious choices for the [Island] gig at the time \u2014 it\u2019s very odd to hire two A&R people, it\u2019s usually an A&R with a marketing or operations person,\u201d Eshak says. \u201cBut this is where I give so much credit to Lucian [Grainge, UMG CEO-chairman]. He saw the dynamic: \u2018I get this \u2014 it works because it\u2019s the two of them, together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMajid says, \u201cI was so nervous to be an assistant; I was so nervous to be a full-time A&R; I was really nervous to be head of A&R \u2014 but I was not<\/em> nervous to run a label.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t*<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tL-R: Republic\u2019s Ayelet Schiffman, the Killers\u2019 Ronnie Vannucci Jr, Island\u2019s Jay Schumer, the Killers\u2019 Brandon Flowers, Island\u2019s Justin Eshak, Lauren Schneider and Shahendra Ohneswere<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tHowever, the two did not have an easy start. Their appointment was announced in the spring of 2021, but they had to ride out their Columbia contracts for nine months before starting \u2014 during the last stage of the pandemic, no less. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like we could say, \u2018I\u2019m off to Chile for nine months!,\u2019\u201d Eshak laughs. \u201cI did a lot of reading.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tObviously, they also prepared for their new roles. \u201cI think within an hour of Lucian presenting us with the job, we went on YouTube and watched the BBC documentary on the 50th anniversary of Island Records,\u201d Majid says. \u201cAnd you really got to see the Chris Blackwell way of building a company. He learned very early in his career that one-hit wonders aren\u2019t really sustainable, but artists are. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe really saw that with Chappell: Justin and I saw her at the Bowery Ballroom on a Thursday night, I think we were the only label there, and it felt like the place was about to explode. And with Sabrina, her [debut album for Island] \u2018Emails I Can\u2019t Send\u2019 was well received, but it was the tour that made the difference \u2014 it really started moving after [she famously began coming up with different outros at each concert for the song] \u2018Nonsense.\u2019 The fans were real, you know?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe realized that if the artist, the experience and the show are incredible, the rest will catch up,\u201d he concludes. \u201cObviously Sabrina and Chappell were the first big hits, but Olivia and Lola are very much connected to that philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd while only Roan, of those four artists, was signed under their watch \u2014 Carpenter was already at the label; Dean and Young were signed by Universal labels in the U.K. \u2014 there\u2019s little question that the duo played a crucial role in their success.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo much of it is timing, so much of it is luck \u2014 you never can predict when things are going to align,\u201d Eshak says. \u201cBut Olivia, for example, is someone we identified as having this kind of potential a long time ago. I think where we were helpful was in bringing a dose of ambition \u2014 \u2018We think we can do \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d we think we can have a Grammy campaign.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLola wasn\u2019t able to spend as much time here touring,\u201d he continues, \u201cbut we were thrilled with her performance on the Grammys: People knew her more for \u2018Messy\u2019 than anything else, but when she performed it [solo, showing off the full range of her voice], people were like, \u2018Oh my gosh, she\u2019s an incredible vocalist.\u2019 And my guess is you\u2019re gonna see a lot more of that from her in the future as she matures. There\u2019s a whole other side to her that we\u2019re going to discover.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRepublic\u2019s Monte Lipman, who is again in an oversight role with the duo, tells Variety, <\/em>\u201cSomething that\u2019s critical to Justin and Imran\u2019s success is they operate with a tremendous sense of independence and autonomy \u2014 the entrepreneurial spirit is a key ingredient to everything they do. I couldn\u2019t be any prouder of all their success and their accomplishments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for what\u2019s next, the pair mention upcoming releases from new signings Suki Waterhouse and rapper Sunshine, as well as Gigi Perez, Alabama Shakes, Jessie Reyez, Dora Jar, two solo albums from Killers frontman Brandon Flowers (one of which was recorded in Nashville with Garth Brooks\u2019 session musicians, the other Eshak describes as \u201cVegas meets Springsteen\u2019s \u2018Tunnel of Love\u2019\u201d), country-leaning singers Charley Crockett and Wyatt Flores, and Vietnamese-American star Keshi, who recently sold out Madison Square Garden. Eshak says Carpenter and Roan are \u201calways working on music,\u201d but shakes his head when asked if he\u2019s heard any of it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re interested\u00a0in artists who can break through culture,\u201d he says. \u201cOftentimes that takes a little bit longer \u2014 but when it actually happens, the results are so much bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad Bunny was unquestionably the exclamation mark at the 2026 Grammys, and deservedly so. But if there\u2019s a single company that has dominated the buzz at Music\u2019s Biggest Night in the past two years, it\u2019s Island Records, a label that has seen a remarkable resurgence in the four years since Justin Eshak and Imran Majid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2279579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[247614,348162,27664],"class_list":["post-2279578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-chappell-roan","tag-island-records","tag-sabrina-carpenter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sabrina-Chappell-Olivia-Dean-Lola-Young-Island-Records-New-Dynasty.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2279578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2279580,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279578\/revisions\/2279580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2279579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2279578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2279578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2279578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}