Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share insights from Music Executives and Artists for aspiring and emerging music managers, executives and artists on how to navigate the music industry. This newsletter is brought to you by Mauricio Ruiz.

Running a business with your partner sounds beautiful until the business starts acting like a business.

That’s when it gets complicated.

An artist needs an answer. A schedule changes. Someone’s upset. A call goes longer than it should. Suddenly, a decision has to be made and neither of you feels fully ready to make it.

One of you is trying to protect the dream.

The other is trying to make sure the dream doesn’t burn the house down.

That’s the reality Nael Atweh and Alyce Hayek face on the daily.

They’re married. They run Grass Fed Music together. They manage artists, producers, writers, and creatives. On paper, it sounds clean. In real life, I’m sure it gets messy.

Music gets personal fast.

You’re not just dealing with songs, schedules, and rollouts. You’re dealing with people’s identity. Their fear. Their money. Their confidence. The version of themselves they’re trying to become.

And when your spouse is also your business partner, none of that stays inside business hours.

That’s why this episode stayed with me.

It reminded me that artist management is service.

Not control. Not access. Not standing next to someone important so you can feel important too.

Service.

And when you’re building with someone you love, that has to show up everywhere. In how you treat the artist. In how you speak to each other. In how you handle pressure when the call ends and the room gets quiet.

It’s hard.

But when it works, you feel it.

Quick business check:

If you’ve got music out, you’re probably leaving publishing money on the table.

Publishing royalties can come from streams, performances, and online usage, but collecting worldwide is a maze of registrations and middlemen.

That’s why KOSIGN exists. Built by Kobalt, KOSIGN lets you submit once and they handle global registrations to help you collect every cent you’re owed, plus direct DSP licensing (Spotify/Apple) where possible. No long lock-in either: rolling quarterly term.

It’s selective, but the application is 100% free. Apply now.

Alyce didn’t come into music trying to be “music industry.”

She came from business development. Scaling companies. Building systems. Thinking through revenue, teams, process, KPIs, all the stuff most creatives would rather avoid.

But that background matters.

Music has a way of making chaos look romantic until the chaos starts costing you.

Alyce brought a different lens. She wasn’t chasing rooms just to be in them. She wasn’t starstruck by the industry. She had to actually care about the artist before she could commit.

That matters more than people think.

If you don’t care, management will expose you.

The late calls start to annoy you. The emotional weight gets heavy. The lack of money in the beginning starts to feel personal. Slowly, the artist starts feeling like a burden instead of a responsibility.

And artists can feel that.

They might not always say it, but they know when someone is only around for the upside.

Real management takes a level of care that’s hard to fake for very long. You’re listening when nobody’s watching. You’re thinking about the artist in the gaps between everything else. You’re trying to understand what they need before they know how to say it.

It’s not glamorous.

It’s the work.

Nael and Alyce work because they’re different.

Nael feels like the creative engine. Instinct, taste, emotion, belief. He can hear something early and want to run through a wall for it.

Alyce brings the structure.

Not in a cold way. In a necessary way.

She can look at the big idea and ask the question that actually matters:

How are we going to build this?

Every artist needs both around them. Someone has to believe before the market does. Someone else has to turn that belief into a plan, a calendar, a rollout, a team, a budget, a next step.

A lot of people in music have taste but no discipline.

Some people have discipline and no taste.

The magic is when both are in the room.

That’s what makes their partnership interesting. Nael can chase the spark. Alyce helps build the container around it.

And the container matters.

You can love an artist and still mismanage them. You can believe in somebody deeply and still be late, unclear, disorganized, or underprepared.

Good intentions don’t build leverage.

At some point, the business has to work.

Alyce talked about artist development in a way that felt honest.

Not shiny and not overcomplicated. Just real.

Yes, artists need songs. They need strategy. They need sessions, content, release plans, producers, marketing, all of it.

But a lot of artists need confidence before any of that starts working.

They need someone who can sit with them in the messy middle and tell the truth.

Sometimes that means, “This is strong.”

Sometimes it means, “This isn’t there yet.”

Sometimes it’s, “You’re hiding,” or, “You’re ready, but you’re scared.”

That’s management too.

Probably more than we admit.

A plan only matters if the artist can actually execute it. And execution is emotional. People forget that. Artists don’t move like spreadsheets. They move like human beings. Fear, ego, taste, ambition, insecurity, all of it mixed together.

So yes, give them the strategy.

Just don’t be surprised when the real work is helping them believe they can follow it.

You can’t manage without trust.

The contract matters. So does the calendar. The group chat, the folders, the weekly calls, all of it matters.

But if the artist doesn’t believe you’re fighting for them, it’s over.

And if the manager doesn’t believe the artist is telling the truth, it’s over in a different way.

Trust lets you disagree without turning every conversation into a wound. It makes hard conversations possible. It lets the artist know the manager isn’t just trying to win an argument. It lets the manager know the artist won’t treat every challenge like betrayal.

That’s rare.

With Nael and Alyce, there’s another layer because they’re building trust in two places at once.

At home and in the business.

The wins come home. So do the losses. So does the stress after a hard call. So does that weird silence when both of you know something is off, but neither of you has the energy to open the conversation yet.

People love saying they want to build with their partner. I get it. It sounds beautiful.

But building together means the business will find every weak spot in the relationship and point right at it.

That’s where the real work is.

Not in the cute parts. In the repair. In learning how to fight for the same thing without fighting each other the whole way there.

Alyce described Grass Fed as small but mighty.

I love that because it says a lot without trying too hard.

Not every artist needs a giant machine at the beginning. Some artists need a team that actually sees them. A team close enough to understand the nuance, protect the vision, and build before everyone else realizes there’s something there.

That came up when they talked about DJ Habibeats, and building around culture, identity, and sound.

Alyce heard something first. Not because a report told her it was working. Not because the numbers made it safe. She felt it, then started figuring out the business around it.

That’s usually how the best things start.

The feeling comes first. The proof catches up later.

A lot of people do it backwards now. They see momentum and call it vision. They see data and try to convince themselves they have taste.

But great managers are often early because they’re willing to trust what they feel before the market validates it.

That’s still a skill.

Honestly, it might be one of the most important ones left.

Here’s where service gets uncomfortable.

You can’t love the artist so much that you start lying to them.

Nael made a point in the episode that I agree with. Sometimes artists blame the playlist, the algorithm, the label, the manager, the rollout, the timing, the budget.

And sometimes they’re right.

The business can be unfair. Things get missed. Systems are flawed. Politics are real.

But sometimes the song just isn’t good enough yet.

That’s a hard truth, but it’s not a hateful one.

It might actually be one of the most loving things a manager can say, if they say it with care.

Because protecting an artist from reality doesn’t help them. It only delays the lesson.

A manager has to know when to encourage and when to challenge. When to create safety and when to apply pressure. Too much softness and nobody grows. Too much criticism and nobody feels safe enough to make anything honest.

That balance is delicate.

And it matters.

A lot of people want to be around artists.

Fewer people want to serve them.

That’s the difference.

Serving an artist means doing the work no one sees. Caring before there’s momentum. Telling the truth without crushing their spirit. Building structure around the dream without killing the dream.

It means knowing when to be the cheerleader.

And when to be the adult in the room.

That’s what I took from Nael and Alyce.

Their story isn’t just about a married couple running a music company. It’s about what happens when love, trust, taste, structure, and service all have to live under the same roof.

That’s hard.

But when it works, it becomes something real.

And in this business, real is still undefeated.

Watch Episode 73 with Nael & Alyce LIVE NOW

Bio

I’m Mauricio Ruiz, the host and creator of The Manager’s Playbook podcast, dedicated to demystifying the world of music management, and Founder/CEO of 8 Til Faint, an Artist Management company with over 5 billion audio streams worldwide. Our past and current clients include Grammy nominated, Juno Award winning multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jessie Reyez, Skratch Bastid and more.

I am also the Co-Founder of Mad Ruk Entertainment, a content agency with over 3 billion long form video streams worldwide. Our client list includes The Weeknd, Eminem, and Celine Dion, along with renowned brands like Nike, Pernod Ricard and the NBA.

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