Universal Music Group today announced an exclusive international recording agreement with Kris Wu, one of Asia’s biggest stars, whose work encompasses music, film and television.
Under the agreement, future music from Wu will be released internationally, excluding Japan and Korea, through a partnership of Universal Music China, Interscope Geffen A&M in the U.S. and Island Records in the U.K., as well as UMG’s operations in more than 60 countries. (Pictured above, left to right: Interscope chairman/CEO John Janick, Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge, Wu, UMG Greater China chairman/CEO Sunny Chang.)
The 27-year-old music producer, singer song-writer and actor was born in Guangzhou, China, and in October became the only Chinese artist to reach No. 1 on the U.S. iTunes Chart with the success of the single “Deserve,” featuring Travis Scott; the song has racked up more than a billion streams to date. Over the past few years, Wu has written and produced a number of other international hits, including “July,” “6” and “Juice.”
Wu has starred in films including “XxX: Return of Xander Cage,” “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” and “Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back.” He’s set to appear in Wong Kar-wai’s upcoming film “Blossoms.”
In making the announcement, Grainge said, “Kris is an incredibly talented recording artist, songwriter, actor and entrepreneur. I’m thrilled that Kris is joining the UMG family and honored that we will have the opportunity to build upon his remarkably successful career.”
Kris Wu said, “It‘s my pleasure to be part of this collaboration with Universal Music Group. I’m enjoying the time to share creative and vision of my music. As a singer-songwriter and producer, the album I’m working on now is elaborately produced and rounded by me and I will keep working to deliver more beautiful works to all my audiences around the world.”
Chang said, “We are thrilled to partner with Kris and our sister companies to launch new global hit songs from Kris, who is a genuine musical talent. As one of the industry’s top producers and singer-songwriters, Kris has global ambitions and he’s fluent in Mandarin, English and Korean, allowing him to uniquely overcome any language barrier. As China grows into one of the world’s biggest music markets, Universal Music China will continue to develop Kris Wu as well as the very best Chinese talent and position its artists for success both in the local market and across the globe.”
