Piano and Finance Double-Major Founds Indie Record Label

For many hopefuls in the music industry, their ultimate goal is founding their own record label. Thanks to her determination and the knowledge she has gained from double-majoring in music, where she specializes in piano, and finance, Meadows student Apsara Kasiraman has achieved that before event graduating from college.

Over the summer, LA native Kasiraman was working on a solo album and would regularly post previews of songs on the social media platform Snapchat as she was working on them. Her music began gaining traction and through the platform, she started networking with other new artists. Her expertise of the music industry soon became clear to other artists and soon enough, Kasiraman was receiving requests to help with things that a label would normally assist with like producing, mixing and distributing their music to streaming services. It was these frequent requests that prompted Kasiraman to take the leap and create her own record label, which she named Malibu View Records.

“Malibu View Records is an independent multi-genre record label focused on scouting, nurturing and developing talented artists without the confines of genre,” explains Kasiraman. “As a multi-genre artist myself, I wanted to give other artists the tools and resources necessary to realize their creative vision regardless of the stylistic classifications of their past work.”

The first step in bringing Malibu View Records, and its vision, to life as a legitimate business was working with a corporate lawyer to legally establish the label. More logistical tasks followed and eventually Kasiraman was able to get to the exciting part: building the brand identity.

“I had to start building the brand identity and ask myself what makes my label different, what are its core values, and what kind of artists I wanted to cater to,” she explains. “Once those things had been decided, I started searching for artists by tapping into my existing network and reaching out to people through social media.”

Utilizing social media as a marketing tool has been challenging, but ultimately successful, for Malibu View Records. Kasiraman found the most success through Snapchat, where this whole journey began, and ended up discovering and recruiting over 60% of her artists via the platform. Though her label has only been officially incorporated since August 1, Malibu View Records has already signed multiple artists and is planning several releases in the upcoming months. 

“I plan on continuing to build up the label,” Kasiraman says of plans for the future. “It’s been exciting to watch both the company and artists grow, and I hope that my artists are able to have music as a viable full-time career.”