Kranium · Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group · December 2019 to 2021
A release date is not a story. So we wrote one for every drop.
Kranium had a gold record and a major label behind him. What he didn’t have was a way into rooms beyond dancehall media. For Atlantic Records we ran his publicity through an album, a run of singles, an EP and the remixes that followed. Every release went out with a conversation attached, not just an announcement.
- Client
- Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group
- Artist
- Kranium
- Role
- Artist publicity, narrative, press runs
- Period
- December 2019 to 2021
Kranium, Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group.
The problem
Dancehall press covers dancehall. The label needed him covered everywhere else.
Kranium came into this period with real assets. “Nobody Has To Know” was already certified gold, Midnight Sparks was his debut album on Atlantic, and the collaborations ran from Ty Dolla $ign and Burna Boy to AJ Tracey. Dancehall outlets would cover every release.
That was also the ceiling. An artist covered only by his own genre’s press reaches the fans he already has. Atlantic needed him in hip-hop radio, Black culture and business media, fashion and the UK scene, and a release announcement doesn’t get a dancehall single into any of those.
Our job was to give each release a reason for someone outside the genre to write about it.
Announcements get covered by people who already care. Conversations reach everyone else.
The narratives
Each drop went out with a talking point attached.
A dancehall artist whose catalog is mostly love songs is easy to cover once and hard to cover twice. So we built a separate angle for each release, cleared it with the label, and pitched the angle instead of the song.
Yankee Stadium
Before the pandemic shut live events down, we arranged an in-person appearance at a soccer match at Yankee Stadium, where Kranium waved to the crowd and met fans. It put him in front of a New York sports crowd, far outside a dancehall audience, in the city where he built his career.
“Complexion”: a love song about colorism
We framed the single as Kranium celebrating women of every complexion, an answer to colorism, and wrote the release with Atlantic’s edits. It gave culture and lifestyle desks something to discuss beyond the beat.
ELLE’s Song Association
Marie pitched ELLE in the first week of February. Ten weeks later Kranium was on the show singing Jennifer Lopez, Sam Cooke and Usher, talking about growing up with gospel and the advice Usher gave him. ELLE’s franchise mostly books pop and R&B stars, so the episode put a dancehall artist in front of a fashion and pop audience.
Winning a UK sound clash
We put out a media alert on the day of the NO SIGNAL radio clash. After he won, Kranium trended on Twitter in the UK, and we sent a recap the same week.
“Gal Policy” as a rulebook
The video became “side chick rules”, with Kranium playing a character, Dr. Love. That’s a premise blogs and radio could build segments around. That month the song was also the cover of Spotify’s Dancehall Official playlist.
A fashion cover
Moon Approved put him on its cover in a fashion, sex and music feature. That moved him out of music sections and into style coverage.
Consensual Is Sensual
For an artist known for seductive records, we built a consent campaign. SHEEN Magazine carried it in March and Influencive in September. Making consent the artist’s own message turned the catalog’s biggest risk into its most quotable position.
Pitch the idea, not the single. Editors decline songs. They don’t decline good premises.
The press runs
Outside the genre, one release at a time.
The narratives opened the doors. The press runs got him through them. Most of what’s below is hip-hop radio, Black media and national culture outlets, not dancehall press.
| When | Outlet | Placement |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 2020 | REVOLT | Interview on Midnight Sparks and dancehall in mainstream culture |
| Early 2020 | Yankee Stadium | Fan appearance at a soccer match |
| Feb 2020 | Bong Mines Entertainment | Vevo Ctrl live session, off our press blast |
| Apr 2020 | ELLE | Song Association episode |
| Jun 2020 | Caribbean Life | “Gal Policy” feature, Playbook quoted |
| Jul 2020 | Shade 45, SiriusXM | Interview with Lord Sear |
| Jul 2020 | HipHopSince1987, NY Carib News, HotNewHipHop, Buzz Caribbean | DJ Spinall and Kranium, “Everytime”. Four placements |
| Jul 2020 | NX Magazine | Interview for the September issue |
| Sep 2020 | Buzz Caribbean, ThisIs50, Caribbean Life | “Gal Policy” video. Three placements |
| Jan 2021 | Moon Approved | Cover feature |
| Jan 2021 | Caribbean Life | “Block Traffic” with Rytikal |
| Feb 2021 | Hip Hop Weekly, Caribbean Life, NX Magazine | Toxic EP coverage. Three placements |
| Feb 2021 | SiriusXM The Joint, Hip Hop Basement, V103 Atlanta, Maino’s Kitchen Talk, Papa Keith, Pandora, All Hip Hop, Hip Hop Weekly Radio, DJ Heat | Toxic interview run. Nine interviews |
| Mar 2021 | SHEEN Magazine | Consensual Is Sensual |
| Mar 2021 | EARMILK | Toxic review |
| Spring 2021 | Caribbean Life | DJ Megan Ryte, “Fly”, Playbook quoted |
| May 2021 | Atlanta Black Star | Long-form interview |
| Sep 2021 | Influencive | Consensual Is Sensual |
That’s 33 placements across 18 rows. We also sent a press release or blast for every drop and a media alert for his Angela Yee Day performance on Power 105.1. Releases covered Midnight Sparks, the Vevo Ctrl sessions, “Complexion”, the “Gal Policy” video, “Through The Window” and the award nomination. We ran a ten-day Los Angeles press run in October 2020. Releases, blasts and alerts aren’t counted as placements.
The number
28.3 million impressions, and how we got there.
We use the same method on every case study. Impressions are an outlet’s documented audience, treated as the potential reach of a placement. Earned media value is impressions times what an advertiser would pay per thousand to reach the same audience in that format. Where an outlet publishes a figure we use it. Where it doesn’t, we use a category estimate and label it as one. The table separates the two.
| Placement | Basis | Impressions |
|---|---|---|
| HotNewHipHop | DJ Spinall and Kranium, “Everytime”. The publisher states 12 million+ monthly unique visitors | 12,000,000 |
| ELLE, Song Association | Measured YouTube views as last cached. ELLE doesn’t publish its channel audience, so only views are counted | 81,361 |
| REVOLT | Interview. The network states 50 million+ reach; the single article is counted at a category estimate | 5,000,000 |
| Atlanta Black Star | Long-form interview. Category estimate | 3,000,000 |
| Digital tier | NY Carib News, Buzz Caribbean (two), HipHopSince1987, ThisIs50, Bong Mines, Hip Hop Basement. Combined category estimate | 1,500,000 |
| EARMILK | Toxic review. Category estimate | 1,000,000 |
| SHEEN Magazine | Consensual Is Sensual. Category estimate | 1,000,000 |
| Influencive | Consensual Is Sensual. Category estimate | 1,000,000 |
| Caribbean Life | Four features. Category estimate, 250,000 each | 1,000,000 |
| V103 Atlanta | Interview. Nielsen says one in six people in the market listen each week; no weekly cume is published, so this is a category estimate | 1,000,000 |
| Video and podcast interviews | Papa Keith, Maino’s Kitchen Talk, All Hip Hop, Hip Hop Weekly Radio, DJ Heat. Combined category estimate | 950,000 |
| Hip Hop Weekly | Toxic feature. Category estimate | 500,000 |
| Moon Approved | Cover feature. Category estimate | 250,000 |
| SiriusXM and Pandora | Shade 45, The Joint and Pandora. SiriusXM reported 34.7 million subscribers and Pandora 58.9 million monthly users at the end of 2020, but a whole platform overstates a single show. We need channel figures, so these count as zero. | Not counted |
| Yankee Stadium | Soccer match, early 2020. Match date to be confirmed from our records, then counted at the stated attendance | Pending |
| NX Magazine | Two interviews. No audience figure available | Not counted |
| Publisher-stated or measured | Two placements | 12,081,361 |
| Total | Counted placements | 28,281,361 |
Earned media value, by format
| Format | Impressions | CPM | EMV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital editorial | 26,250,000 | $12 | $315,000 |
| Podcast and video interviews | 950,000 | $25 | $23,750 |
| Radio | 1,000,000 | $15 | $15,000 |
| Branded video, ELLE | 81,361 | $25 | $2,034 |
| Total | 28,281,361 | $12.58 blended | $355,784 |
This is a conservative total. It leaves out SiriusXM and Pandora, the Yankee Stadium crowd, and ELLE’s channel audience, and it counts ELLE only by measured views. Adding any one of those would raise it. We would rather print a smaller number we can defend than a larger one we can’t.
Context
What moved while the campaign ran.
Streams and certifications come from the music, the label’s marketing and the fans, not only from press. We list them because they’re the numbers a label uses to judge whether the attention turned into listening. We don’t claim them as our results.
| When | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Jul 2020 | “Gal Policy” at nearly 8 million views |
| Sep 2020 | “Gal Policy” past 12 million views, and the cover of Spotify’s Dancehall Official playlist |
| Feb 2021 | Toxic EP reported at number one on Apple Music’s reggae chart |
| Apr 2021 | “Gal Policy” lyric video past 25 million views. Catalog reported at more than half a billion streams |
| Apr 2021 | “Nobody Has To Know” certified Silver in the UK |
| Aug 2021 | “Nobody Has To Know” passes 100 million YouTube views and goes Platinum in Canada |
The “Gal Policy” line is the one that lines up best with our work. The single tripled its video views across the nine months we kept it in the press, with a new angle at each stage: the remix, the video, the “rules” premise, the playlist cover.
How the account ran
An agency on a major label account works as part of the label’s team.
- Monthly reporting
- Each month the label got a report with a live link for every placement, sent to the marketing lead. On a major label account, the reporting is how the agency stays on the plan.
- Label sign-off
- Every narrative, from “Complexion” to Consensual Is Sensual, was drafted with the label and cleared before it went out. On a label roster, a talking point has to be one the label can stand behind.
- Covering what the label didn’t
- Atlantic’s own publicity team worked the same artist, so we took the lanes it wasn’t covering: Caribbean and diaspora media, hip-hop radio, Black business press, fashion and the UK scene.
What it cost
The honest part.
- The 2021 campaign ran month to month
- The artist’s team wanted two months, then a pause until the next music was ready. That’s normal on a label account, but it meant the Consensual Is Sensual push got going just as the retainer paused, and much of its coverage came after.
- The label had to ask for the recap
- We reported release by release, and the label asked for a single two-month report. A label judges an agency on the full recap, so it should have gone out without being asked.
On a major label account, the recap is part of the deliverable.
What transfers
Three rules for any genre artist on a major label.
- One angle per release
- A catalog of similar songs needs a different premise each time: colorism, a rulebook, a sound clash, consent. The music can stay the same. The story attached to it can’t.
- Pitch outside the genre
- Genre press will cover the artist anyway. The agency earns its fee in hip-hop radio, culture media, fashion and business press, where the new listeners are.
- Stack interviews around the release
- Nine interviews in the Toxic release window did more than nine spread across a quarter would have. Bookers notice an artist doing a full run and start calling first.
Genre artists don’t need more announcements. They need a reason to be discussed outside their genre.
Playbook MG is a boutique public relations and influencer agency in Brooklyn, working with Caribbean heritage and culture-rooted brands and artists across music, entertainment, beauty, food and beverage, fashion, arts and nonprofits. This engagement was commissioned and paid for by Atlantic Records, a Warner Music Group label. Streaming and certification milestones belong to the artist and the label and are listed for context.
All case studiesPlaybook MG · Industry City, Brooklyn · Placements as reported to the label · Milestones as publicly reported · EMV at the CPMs printed above · As of September 2026