Rolling Loud brought back music festival magic for the first time in over a year last weekend.
Hip-hop’s premier live performance event congregated over a hundred of the genre’s hottest artists — all in different stages of their careers — over a three-day span. MAC Agency and its owner Andrew Lieber represent some of the event’s most essential performers, but this type of status did not come easy.
Lieber worked as a door-to-door salesman in his early teenage years up until college, developing his ability to negotiate. He eventually dropped out of school to pursue a career in the music world, assisting artists who had trouble attracting representation.
Out of his mother’s basement with no prior experience, he initially found a way to manage tours for King Los and Cory Gunz — bringing along the artists he represented in the process to get them on the road.
This experience opened the door for a world of opportunity in artist management and agency for Lieber. He would subsequently manage tours for Cam’ron, The Game and T.I. Then in 2018, he began to represent his own breakthrough artist, Juice WRLD, right on the cusp of his superstardom.
“It really broke open in 2018,” Lieber said. “I found Juice WRLD right as ‘Lucid Dreams’ just came out, before it was a big record — and who ended up being the hottest artist of that year. I helped build him up to an arena level touring artist.”
Moves like these caught the attention of larger, more established agencies, looking to dissolve Lieber’s young agency into their portfolio. Lieber always declined, vowing to stand independent. At the end of 2018, he added blossoming star DaBaby to his roster, starting a pattern of representing each year’s hottest rapper.
“For the last three years since we really broke onto the scene, I feel confident we’ve had the hot new artists each year since,” Lieber said. “2018 Juice WRLD, 2019 DaBaby, 2020 Rod Wave, and with the roster I have now in 2021 with Polo G, I have it. Four years in a row and it’s going to continue.”
MAC Agency now harbors over 20 artists, as the roster continuously grows and the agency gains more notoriety. Lieber sees this growth and impact as similar to Rolling Loud’s story — where he booked over a dozen of his artists to perform at July 23-25 in Miami. Simply put, MAC and Rolling Loud are two birds of the same feather.
“Over the years, I’ve watched Rolling Loud grow — before it was even a company,” Lieber said. “They used to come out as Dope Entertainment down in Miami, doing Florida shows in 500-capacity rooms. Now, Tariq (Cherif) and Matt (Zingler) own the biggest hip-hop festival property in the world. They have festivals in Miami, LA, New York, Bay Area, Toronto, Portugal. These guys have really taken this to the most grandest, biggest scale ever.”
“We’ve really developed a great relationship together, and today Rolling Loud is on the pulse of what’s hot and what’s coming up next in the hip-hop world,” he continued. “That’s why MAC Agency and Rolling Loud have such a great connection, because we’re both on the pulse of what’s next. This is a great synergy, I’ve seen them grow, they’re friends of mine.”
MAC Agency brought some of their artists like Rod Wave, DaBaby, Polo G, Toosii, 42 Dugg, K Camp and more to Rolling Loud this year — delivering headliners and performances that make the festival series what it is. Lieber realizes how momentous an opportunity like this is for his artists.
“If Rolling Loud taps you as an artist, you know you’re doing something right,” he said. “If you make it on that lineup, you know you’re doing something right. I think agent versus agent, there’s no agent that had more artists on Rolling Loud’s roster than myself. Every single artist that made that roster deserves it. They’ve worked hard for it, and we’re just pouring gas on the fire that they’ve created.”
Now, after building MAC to a top-tier agency from the ground up, Lieber keeps the same chip on his shoulder he’s had since the beginning — wanting dominance for his independent company.
“My whole goal here is to disrupt the energy and be a force in the agency world,” Lieber said. “I want to be known as the best agent to ever live, and I want to wake up every day and work hard for that. I’m going to continue to do the best for my clients and give them everything I got.”
