Favourite Album: Outkast – ATLiens / Salsoul Classics (Volume 2)

Favourite Gig: White Stripes at The Gorge (August 2005)

Favourite Festival: Coachella, Roskilde, Glastonbury 

Originally from Los Angeles and now based since 2015 in Berlin, David Swartz has spent over two decades working around the music industry, primarily in an entrepreneurial capacity. 

Over the years, he’s gained a wealth of experience doing work with a wide spectrum of artists including: Tricky, Kele Okereke (of Bloc Party), Justin Tranter, Patrick Wolf, Macy Gray, Mykki Blanco, Skylar Grey, Digable Planets, DJ Shadow, Atmosphere, FaltyDL, Saul Williams, Pop Levi, KRS-One, Steve Aoki, and many more.

Going back to the early 2000s, David got his start promoting concerts and underground raves across Colorado while he was a full-time university student. Following his graduation, he moved back to LA where he parlayed his experience as a promoter into building up a booking agency that had a roster which focused mostly on representing hip-hop and electronic acts. After several years as an agent, he recognized that he was taking a significantly more involved role with a few of his early-stage clients and he started to find his way as a manager. 

He went on to start Kosher Management in 2009 and took off running with it from there. This position of looking after a smaller roster of artists but being more deeply invested with them across their entire career suited him well. He cut his teeth working with developing acts and was often the first member of an artist’s team, something that has come to be a defining element of his management work. During this chapter, he represented a slew of independent rock and electronic acts like Villains (DIm Mak), El Ten Eleven (along with their Fake Record Label imprint), Pop Levi (Counter / NinjaTune), Kid Karate (Spirit Music Group), and Slow Magic (Downtown Records).

While on a trip with one of his bands (Taymir, who he signed with Sony in Germany), the magic of the unique magnet that is Berlin blew him away, and he decided very shortly thereafter to make the jump across the world to set up his new homebase in Berlin. After almost a year there, he met with the founder of !K7 Music on the recommendation of his longtime mentor Merck Mercuriadis and took a position leading the company’s artist management team. Mykki Blanco was the top priority from the jump, and David oversaw the full cycle of Mykki’s debut full-length album campaign, then moved right on to take over managing legendary British trip-hop pioneer Tricky through a full album cycle. In his time there, he went on to play a key role in signing several new management and label services clients such as Kele Okereke, Lotic, and LAFAWNDAH; and he also helped to guide the careers of several other artist clients there such as Niklas Paschburg and FaltyDL.

After realizing that it was time to move back into a position running his own operation, he left !K7 in early 2019 to launch Singular Arts Group (where he initially brought on the prominent photographer and filmmaker Matt Lambert as the company’s Creative Director). Mykki Blanco and FaltyDL followed David from !K7 to form the basis of the roster along with a young new gem called Finn Ronsdorf. In addition to the work of management, David partnered with AWAL to activate a label to release recording projects for the management roster – Finn Ronsdorf was the first new artist launched via this Singular Arts Group imprint. And beyond this management / label work, David has also taken on a few different consulting projects, such as establishing the foundation of Homo-Centric Records with Gideon Berger (aka GIDEÖN, known mostly as co-founder of Block 9 and booked for their namesake area of Glastonbury). 

David has now joined the team at Whole in a role where he will be consulting on business development, contributing to the management strategy of our existing talent roster, as well as bringing in new clients and projects. He is the first member of our team based outside of the UK, so he also serves as our first set of boots on the ground in mainland Europe representing Whole Management; and as he spends a few months of each year back in the States, he will also give us a footprint across the pond as well.