08/08/2026
Episode 110: Evan “Kidd” Bogart has worn nearly every hat in the music industry. From mailroom A&R to hit songwriter (Beyoncé’s “Halo,” Rihanna’s “SOS”), artist manager, booking agent, and now buying music catalogs with Seeker and advocating for creators as Vice Chair of the Recording Academy. He’s one of the rare people who has sat in nearly every seat at the table. In this episode, Elmo Lovano goes deep with Evan Bogart on both the craft and the business of music.
Evan is the son of Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart, the legendary executive behind KISS, Donna Summer, Parliament, and manager Joyce Bogart Trabulus. He grew up inside the music business and worked his way up from the Interscope mailroom to the A&R department. He discovered Eminem and was the first person to put Em in front of Jimmy Iovine. He’d go on to sign Kara’s Flowers, who later changed their name to Maroon 5.
After getting sober in his early 20s, Evan reinvented himself as a songwriter, and his very first song was “SOS” for Rihanna and went No. 1. He followed it with “Halo” for Beyoncé, which he co-wrote with Ryan Tedder, plus hits for Britney Spears, Madonna, Lizzo and more.
Today, Evan is the CEO of Seeker Music, the creator-led music rights, publishing, and record company he’s built into a catalog of more than 19,000 copyrights and master recordings valued at roughly $400 million. The catalog includes works by Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, One Direction, Drake, Christopher Cross, Joan Jett, Run the Jewels, and Lewis Capaldi. Seeker recently closed its inaugural $267 million asset-backed securitization and was named the #2 Most Innovative Music Company of 2025 by Fast Company. We break all this down.
We get into music catalogs, publishing, masters, songwriter royalties, music rights as an asset class, and how these deals get financed.
We also talk about Evan’s work with the Recording Academy, helping create the Songwriter of the Year Grammy, and the future of AI, music rights, creativity, and ownership.
A deep insider look at how the music business actually works.
Hope you enjoy this conversation with my dear friend, Evan Bogart!
