Paul Martin

Paul Martin has worked in the music industry for over twenty five years. Starting in the retail side of the business he was the first manager of Black Market, the Soho dance music record shop. He then joined Talkin' Loud records, a subsidiary of Universal, initially as a product and marketing manager and soon moved into A&R and eventually ran the record label for over a decade with Radio 6 DJ Gilles Peterson. Talkin Loud had acts nominated six times for the Mercury music prize with one of Paul’s signings Roni Size/ Reprazent winning in 1997. The Reprazent album New Forms is still the biggest selling drum and bass album of all time. Talkin loud had numerous Gold, Silver and Platinum selling acts such as Omar, MJ Cole and 4hero. Paul was also signed to London records in an electronic band in the late nineties. He then went onto to work at Gut records and V2 as an A&R manager working with a range of acts that included Deus, Black Affair/Steve Mason, Plantlife,Lethal Bizzle and the Black Keys. Paul is the course leader of the Music Performance Management programme and has been a senior lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University since 2010. He continues to manage artists and to engage in A&R consultancy within the music industry. He is also currently in the middle of a PhD researching and writing a non-fiction book intent on uncovering the multiple layers that make up the process of being an A&R man.