AntiFragile Music was originated in 2017. Tom Sarig, AntiFragile’s founder, is a music business veteran of over two decades who has played a central role nurturing and helping several important and acclaimed music artists achieve breakthrough success and sell millions of records, either as their manager or in a label/A&R capacity, and in genres ranging from electronic to rock, pop to hip hop.
Prior to launching AntiFragile, Tom has run Esther Creative Group since 2004, an artist management company and brand consultancy which has managed the careers of artists such as Lou Reed, Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music, Violent Femmes, Rickie Lee Jones, CAKE, Jamie Lidell, Twin Atlantic, The Gaslight Anthem, Kishi Bashi, Bebel Gilberto, Os Mutantes, She Wants Revenge, Electric Youth, Brian Fallon, Against Me!, The Drums, Blonde Redhead, Le Tigre, Prefuse 73 and many others. For the 11 years prior to starting Esther Creative Group, Tom served as a Grammy-winning Senior A&R executive at various major labels including Universal Records, Arista Records, MCA Records, A&M Records, and TVT Records. where Tom worked with acts including The Roots, Nine Inch Nails, Damien Rice, Erykah Badu, Blink-182, Gil Scott-Heron, Annie Lennox, Mos Def, Imogen Heap, Dj Shadow, Sarah McLachlan, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Ministry Sammy Hagar, The Specials, Autechre and so many others. Tom has also produced a number of feature films, having served as Film Producer for two acclaimed features, Red Shirley and Lou Reed’s “Berlin”, and Tom served as Producer for MTV’s annual television special on his Shortlist Music Prize .
AntiFragile Music was established as a hopeful effort of collaboration and transparency for important cultural music artists in today’s music landscape. We are a curator label and distributor for what we believe are select, culturally distinguished independent music artists. We are a reaction against some of the established big labels who are not doing enough for artists anymore — and are not transparent about their royalty payment process or formula. AntiFragile Music is committed to educating and inspiring music creators and their managers, and to disrupting established models of label and distribution for streaming and consumption of music. It is our goal and focus to help the artist tell their unique story to the world, and we partner with our artists and their respective team to develop and execute a sophisticated marketing plan unique to them, which will in turn drive the building of a devoted fanbase which can have enduring longevity for the artist. In today’s streaming environment, we believe there are some remarkable acts who simply need good marketing infrastructure and team to partner in building breakthrough major success.
AntiFragile employs a full marketing staff in-house team based in the US and UK, such that we are able to provide significant marketing for our artists’ music — including pitching for Spotify/Apple Music playlists, Publicity/Press, Radio Promotion, and Online Marketing. AntiFragile is established as a full service record label and retail marketing & distribution solution which is committed to marketing and building artists to tens of millions of streams. We are constantly innovating and challenging ourselves and the norms to be on the cutting edge of marketing methods and be the best at what we do. We believe that deal structure at record labels has been broken for a long time, and so we offer artist-friendly deals — that is, short-term, record license profit-split deals. We also run a publishing administration company through our partners Kobalt for the last 10 years, and we are doing non-ownership short term administration publishing deals with some of our artists, and providing a focused effort in terms of pitching for Film & TV Synch opportunities.
AntiFragile’s name is inspired by the brilliant book by Nassem Nicholas Taleb “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder”. AntiFragile offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. The “antifragile” is actually beyond strong, because it actually benefits from shocks, uncertainty, and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension. The antifragile needs disorder in order to survive and flourish. (buy the book – Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder). We at AntiFragile Music aim to help artists benefit from the disorder and chaos they face in the music marketplace today — we help them thrive in it.
