Corey "C-Notes" Calder is the music marketing genius pushing the culture forward 🔥
From "Bunna Summa" to "Boots On The Ground," the APG exec tells all.
Last week, I had the honor of meeting up with Corey "C-Notes" Calder, the SVP of Marketing and Creative at Artist Partner Group, one of the industry's most sought-after marketing masterminds and I learned so much about how he got to where he is today by staying culturally true. It’s quite the tale and nevertheless inspiring.
To begin with, his origin story involves styrofoam padding, a bathroom-turned-studio, and burning CDs for his friends at school to now being a member of the XXL Awards Board and twice Billboard Power Player nominee.
Corey earned his nickname “C-Notes" back in high school when his basketball teammates started calling him out for ditching practice to sing with the choir. What began as gentle ribbing from friends who compared him to R&B star Trey Songz quickly became his calling card in the music world. While his teammates were perfecting their jump shots, Corey was perfecting his craft by transforming his bathroom into a makeshift recording studio.
Armed with nothing but a “YouTube University” education and cracked versions of Ableton, Fruity Loops and Pro Tools, this self-described "nerdy" 120-pound kid who wore glasses discovered his superpowers: he could hoop, he could sing, he could play the trumpet, and most importantly, he could spot talent and create the perfect soundtrack for it. His entrepreneurial spirit emerged early when he launched Ivy League, his own mini-label operated from his bedroom while his mother was at work.
Fast forward to today, and "C Notes" has become the architect behind some of music's biggest breakout stories at APG, the independent powerhouse founded by Mike Caren. Under Calder's creative leadership, APG has nurtured chart-toppers like NBA YoungBoy and Kevin Gates, while simultaneously launching the next generation of stars including Atlanta upstart phenom BunnaB, “Ick” artist Lay Bankz, Chicago's BabyChiefDoit, and breakout Southern Blues “Boots On The Ground” act 803 Fresh.
His journey from his makeshift bathroom studio to APG reads like a masterclass in cross-industry fluency. But perhaps what makes Corey's story most compelling is how those early days of burning CDs and passing them out at school taught him a fundamental truth that still drives his work today: great music marketing isn't just about algorithms and TikTok, it's about creating authentic connections that make people want to share your story.
From his Jersey roots to cultivating LA dreams, bathroom studios to Billboard charts, Corey "C Notes" Calder proves that sometimes the best executives are the ones who never forgot what it felt like to be the artist.
We talk all this plus more. Read the condensed and edited version of our convo below.
So you traded in the trumpet for the basketball. Then, you traded in the basketball for music after high school. How did that lead into you working with artists?
CC: A lot of my friends are super talented. There were some real talented folks that I grew up with and everyone was a little different. That's what opened my eyes up to making music. At one point I thought I was gonna be an audio engineer. I love the technical aspect of music, but also creating the music. I was hyper focused on that at one point and I had taught myself so much just from YouTube and trial and error from recording my friends. I was gonna be an engineer.
One of my first internships actually was interning for Mike Caren. When I was 19 years old at Atlantic Records in the A&R Department. This is almost full circle in an odd way that I'm working for him now and have been for the last few years, but that was my first internship. At the time, people would send demos into a label. In the A&R office at Atlantic, they had these big cardboard boxes with physical CDs in them, and they would make the interns go in these boxes and take the CD out and listen to whatever was on the CD. There were hundreds of CDs and that was part of the job. The other part of the job was deciphering lyrics from the artists signed to Atlantic. I remember I got Webbie at the time and I would be sitting at the computer trying to decipher Webbie lyrics to send to legal. It was a learning experience. Even though you were doing the grunt stuff, you got a chance to learn.
So from that pile of CDs that you had to go through at what point did you start to bring in artists or start the A&R and marketing?
CC: It started early. In that scenario, it was just about us finding whoever we thought was good and passing it on to the A&Rs. When I first started finding artists on my own and taking them under my wing and wanting to market them, it started with my friends. I have so many friends that are talented musicians. Singers, writers, rappers and it started there. It started with my close friends and immediate circle.
As I got into the industry, it started to become about what I was seeing out in the wild, on the internet or at a showcase or word of mouth. That is what's helped my career in a lot of ways. It's just been my ability to identify talent in nontraditional settings. I say that because I feel now A&R is research based and internet based, but back in the day, you could be in a bar in Toledo, sipping your drink and somebody wants to go up and perform at a karaoke night and they have an incredible voice and you sign them on the spot. That's the dream. It's a very romantic way to find an artist. It doesn't exist as much anymore. I do remember a time where that's what it was about, and I'm glad that I got a chance to experience that a little bit. That's how I started, just on MySpace music.
Who was the first artist that you discovered?
CC: Jeremiah.
Jeremiah!?
CC: Jeremiah was—I wouldn't say I discovered him—but I would say Jeremiah was one of the first people that I remember being on MySpace music that was just crushing it. He had "Birthday Sex." That was a song he had written and put up on MySpace music. That's how he got his deal, off that record. It was something he just recorded on his own, put up on MySpace music and it blew up. Back in the day, A&Rs used MySpace music the way they use TikTok now. So it's the beginning of the transition of being physically out in the wild to artist to digital. To digital A&R. I would say MySpace music was probably the start of that.
I definitely had "Birthday Sex" on my MySpace page. I say that song is definitely one of the quintessential MySpace songs. I feel everybody had that.
CC: It was such a great song and Jeremiah is a talented writer. It was just miles ahead of anything that was on MySpace music at the time. So it stood out. Obviously he got signed off that and the rest is history, but it just goes to show how easily your life can change with a little bit of recording equipment and some creativity.
So how are you finding talent now?
CC: Right now, it's social media. It's so interesting because people aren't really doing showcases. Especially post-pandemic I feel it changed even more. There are platforms The Basement Series and things that are super dope. Now the way the industry has changed, it all exists and lives online. A lot of what my team does, our A&R is here at APG. They spend a lot of time on the net, on TikTok, researching, looking at what sounds and songs have momentum and having conversations with these artists about it.
So how do you guys determine if an artist is signed or not?
CC: Have a conversation. At the end of the day, people forget that this is a human business. At the very least, having a simple conversation works. A lot of times if the artist is hotter, they have something that's moving, you're having multiple conversations, which can be overwhelming for new artists. It starts with just a "Hi, hello" and asking the right questions. It's just a simple, “Are you signed? What's your situation?” Some are. Some aren't. Some are getting out of situations. That's where the creativity in a good A&R team comes in—is, hey, if you're in something, how can we structure something? Are there one-offs we can do? At the very least, can we just collab? I have an artist, can you hop on a song?
So even if they're signed, you still try to figure out a way.
CC: You never know if that artist might be next. Even if they do end up signing to another label and they remember their experience with you at a different label, they might just mess with you because of that interaction they had with you through DMs. That's a lot of times how great collabs come about.
So let's talk about some of the talent that you have found, more recently, my favorite, BunnaB.
CC: Bunna had a different situation maybe a year and a half ago. She was down at Atlantic and she got out of her deal. She was just looking for a new home. She came in, met with our team here earlier this year. Obviously Bunna is a superstar. Her personality, her temperament, her ability to write music, her ability to rally culture—all while staying true to herself. She's young and has been remarkable to see.
She came in, we had a great meeting and she was like, let's do it. It went from this thing where she was getting out of a situation and trying to figure that out, to we hit the ground running. She had this concept for her project, and I loved the idea, it felt refreshing to what was happening in Atlanta. Mind you, there's super dope talent coming out of Atlanta. Bankroll Ni, Pluto, YK Niece. All the girlies are crushing it in Atlanta.
My approach to it really was just how can I position her a little bit different? She had this Ice Cream Summer project idea, I just helped bring it to life. It was all about executing her vision and doing it a way that felt authentic to her without losing the elements of Atlanta. We dropped that project maybe three weeks after we signed her. It was that fast. She had a bunch of songs already recorded. We put it out. I went to Atlanta. We shot the "Ice Cream Girl" video. Then she shot the video for "Bunna Summa" right after that. She's just been on a roll. We've been creating and doing stuff, and then "Bunna Summa" took off.
They say there's no summer song…I'm like hello.
CC: "Bunna Summa"
How do you feel about that? A lot of people are saying there's not a summer song, that there's no such thing anymore.
CC: I see why they say that because I feel people always reference summer '16, because Drake was crushing it. I will say that it's saturated now. There's a lot of great songs. The difference between a summer ‘16 and a summer ‘25 is there's no ownership. There's just a lot of great songs in the market. What's going to differentiate the good from the great is really the artist and their engagement and how they're showing up for their fans and how they're articulating themselves, their live show — people are back outside.
I feel a lot of artists now post-pandemic are just heavily relying on content. They're sort of hiding behind just content instead of being outside. I always tell artists, you got to build for the culture, not just the platforms. You got to make sure you're in the right spaces, you're connecting with the right people, you're connected with other artists, you're doing stuff in your city, you're outside. Not just doing social content, not just doing great videos, but you're touching your fans. I feel there's a lot of new artists that are great at making music, great at making videos, but not touching the fans as much as they could be.
That's important instead of trying to be…you're not Frank Ocean.
CC: You're not Frank Ocean. That's the difference maker. You can have a big song and no one know what you look like.
Is that a bad thing or a good thing?
CC: That happens a lot. TikTok is a big catapult of that because there's so many great sounds and songs and clips and edits and mashups of things. I wouldn't say it's a problem per se. It's really up to the artists and their teams to make sure that they're attached to it all. I've dealt with that myself where I have sounds bigger than the artists and people aren't really associating the sound with the artists. A lot of that takes groundwork. That's building narratives online, seeding the right things, doing cool things, creating short profile pieces on the artist, so people can start to attach, oh, that's this artist. That takes effort, and that's intentionality from your team and not all artists have that. It's hard and also it's tough to follow that up. When that happens, you have a big song and it takes off and no one knows who you are, then you got to follow it up.
Another song that they're saying is song of Summer is "Boots on the Ground." 803 Fresh. Beyoncé performed that on her “Cowboy Carter Tour.” Did y'all know that was gonna happen?
CC: We had no idea that she was gonna be doing that. I just caught glimpses of it on the internet. She's been extremely generous to the team and Fresh, she invited him out to a show. He went to a show out here in LA at SoFi and got a chance to meet her and JAY and just chop it up. She's been amazing about it. She didn't have to use it in her show. Beyoncé is a cultural icon. She's just knowledgeable.
She's super tapped in. She just knew.
CC: She just immediately knew, this is the record. There was a lot of momentum around it with Kamala Harris and Michelle Obama and some other influential figures making videos to it. Her team probably caught wind and she made a dope mashup to it that she was performing, just traveling across on the bedazzled horseshoe. It was dope to see it because Fresh is a new artist. He's from South Carolina. He 100% is the face of Southern blues. He put the song out in December. It's been six months and his life has been crazy. We've done a lot of dope stuff.
I went out to South Carolina and shot the "Boots On The Ground" video back in April. The thing with that video and probably one of the crowning moments of my career, is because it was the first time I got a chance to create something and help work on something that felt so authentically true to my culture and to my people. There wasn't a lot of bells and whistles. We didn't try to do too much. We just wanted to take a snapshot of what the true culture is in the South. That's Divine 9, HBCU bands, drum majors, the food, the trail rides, the community. That's what the video became about. We didn't make it about the celebrities doing the “Boots On The Ground” dance. We didn't want to make it too internet-y. We definitely focused on what I mentioned, making it for the culture as opposed for the platforms.
People gravitated towards it. It went number one for a while, which I honestly didn't expect.
How does that feel? Something that you worked on, just unexpectedly goes number one or gets love from Beyoncé?
It was great. It's amazing. You don't do stuff with that in mind. You don't do stuff with, hey, I want Beyoncé to use it, or this is going to go number one. As a marketer, especially music, you just take shots. You hope that it lands. You don't know. I always say fans pick the hits. The executives don't. You think something's gonna do well, but we don't know. I cared more about let's not screw this up, and let's not make Fresh look crazy. Let's just do something that feels like his hometown. That's what we did. People saw it and said, yep, this is the South. They rocked with it. It just happened to go number one, and I'm proud of that because he's a new artist. It's hard to go number one.
Who came up with the dance? Was that a fan made thing?
It was a fan made thing by Tre Little. There were different variations in pockets of people who took it and made it their own thing. Miss Shirley, who was a four-year-old girl from South Carolina, was another young influencer who took it and went viral initially around the record and that spread like wildfire. From there, we started getting the celebrities and the former VP and all these people jumping on it. Taraji and Niecy Nash and all these folks, and it just snowballed from there.
I know you work with Youngboy, Kevin Gates, Lay Bankz, BabyChiefDoIt…I have a list of people that I feel are going to blow up. I just feel I know. I just want to know how do you determine an artist that you feel…let me work with this artist. Let me sign this artist. Besides the good music.
CC: It's a work ethic thing. Mike and I would always talk about I'm a sports person, I come from a sports background. We would always talk about how we want artists that come from sports or have played sports. The reason being is because there's a little bit different mentality to people that have had sports background. Just a little bit more grit, a little bit more energy, a little bit more effort. Even though not all of our artists have sports backgrounds, we definitely use a lot of sports methodologies and strategies and philosophies here. That's super important. I look for your work ethic. You don't need to know everything and you might not need to know everything, but are you willing to do the work?
My approach to my artist is very much big brother, little brother, big brother, little sister. That's how I approach my artist. It's always from a place of education and providing information and giving them the right resources to be successful. Not necessarily telling them what to do, but making suggestions. I look for an artist that listens. I look for an artist that has hunger. I look for an artist that has vision. I need you to know where we're going, because if I'm truly going to be your partner in this, I'm going to allow you to drive the ship.
I don't care if you're 16 and I don't care if you're 21. You got yourself here. I need you to have some sort of vision, and I want you to tell me what that vision is, and I'll work with you on deciphering how to make it all happen. That's what my job is. My job is not to tell these kids this is what you need to do and this is how you do it. It's more, you tell me what you want to do, and I'll tell you what's feasible and how we get there.
That's how most people feel it is. They think that there's people just telling artists exactly, this is what you need to do and that's just how it works.
CC: Not here. That's not my approach to things. I don't think that works.
I don't think so either.
CC: You can't really take a cookie cutter approach to how you develop an artist. What you realize when you work in music and you're in a position to make a difference in an artist's life, you get really wrapped up into their personal life. You almost have to. You're developing not just the creative and the artist, but you're also developing the person. A lot of it comes from just having a custom approach to how you get things done.
Just speaking about what you do here at APG. What is a typical day for you here as SVP of Marketing and Creative?
CC: It's a mixed bag. Marketing at a label is sort of 50% strategy and administrative. Getting the timelines together, make sure we have the assets and being the center spoke of the wheel, making sure that you're communicating things and everybody's on board. The creative side of it is more the strategy, around how we supplement and support the timeline and all of those things.
A lot of my day consists of planning. Making sure that all the other cogs in the wheel are on board and have what they need. Also big picture marketing and big picture thinking. How do we get from A to B? What's going to be the most seamless way? Thinking through timelines, thinking through releases, how are we making cultural impact? Where are we at globally? Are there other pockets that we're not thinking about? How can we make competitive content? How can I get my new artist that might have a little inkling of a song online? How can I get them in front of all of our partners and get them to care? A lot of strategic planning and thinking and communication internally and externally.
So for the next generation of executives and A&Rs, how can they navigate and one day become someone who's working at a label?
CC: The best way to go about that, honestly, is just staying true to yourself, knowing what your strengths and your weaknesses are. The way that I got here was knowing what I was great at and being able to spend more of my time doing that, but also having a clear understanding of, I'm not so good at this over here and making sure that I brought the right people and teams around me to support my weaker side. Whether it's a great friend group or a mentor or colleagues, whatever it may be, that's super important to getting to the next level.
When you're working in a job that's highly visible, you need that support. You need people around you that are going to tell you, Corey, that's not a good idea. You need that juxtaposition of thinking all your ideas are great and also people telling you that's not going to work. If you want to get to the next level, surround yourself with incredible people and just stay on the grind and know it might take a little bit of time, but it will happen. Stay vigilant, be creative, and keep finding talent. That's the way to get in.
How would you suggest they get their start? How does one go about finding talent and then say bringing it to someone like you?
CC: I get cold emails all the time. I get people sending me beats, I get people sending me artists that they found. Internships are honestly a great way. Internships still work in the music business. We have a lot of talented interns here. A lot of our staff were interns at first. I'd probably say on the marketing team, probably a good 30-40% of the marketing team here was an intern. In music, people want to know that you can do the job.
Being able to get in the door via internship is awesome because then you get a chance to show people that you can actually do the job. It's noticeable because at a label, there's so many things to do. It's a bit of a land grab. They always need help. If you're able to get in the door via internship and showcase and display that you can do something that's beneficial, there's a high chance that you can get put on and from there you can grow. The benefit of social media is that there's that red tape removed a little bit. You can get to a lot of people that you probably couldn't get to before. You're utilizing all those channels to get there.
Tell me what artist you're working with and the projects they have coming out that you have that you're working on right now.
On the more established side, I've been working with Kevin Gates for a little bit now. I dropped I'm Him 2, which is a followup to his iconic mixtape. He dropped a few years back that did well for us. We're rolling into his next mixtape with Luca Brasi 4, which I'm going to drop. We're going to drop Luca Brasi 4 next month. Been working a lot creatively with Youngboy. He's a former APG artist, but I've just been having my hands on that a little bit more creatively. He has an album coming out, Make America Slime Again. We're working through the logistics and the planning. My smaller developing acts, BunnaB and BabyChief. B's in the studio. She's in record mode, and I'm hoping to drop another project this summer.
Another one this summer?
CC: Another one this summer. If I can. Fingers crossed. BabyChiefDoIt, we just dropped his Zoo Life project a month and a half ago. He's another one who's in the studio hoping to drop another one before the end of the summer and Baby Kia out of Atlanta; we have a project called D1 Crash Out that we want to drop probably sometime end of July or August.