Brandon Payano

Curator & creative executive. Previously US Curation & Brand Partnerships Lead at COLORSxSTUDIOS, Assistant Manager of Brand Activations at Sonos, and Journalist. From The Bronx, NY.

Brandon Payano’s music business story begins with sociology and the city of London.

A creative at heart, Brandon was initially interested in pursuing a career in graphic design with a desire to focus on magazines and album/packaging. However, while at Syracuse University, he chose to major in education and minor in sociology. He traveled abroad to London for one semester, which caused him to miss an opportunity to take a Sociology of Music class. Disappointed, he asked a friend to share the class syllabus so he could buy the textbooks and other resources that the class recommended.

His independent study inspired him to pursue a career in music. While he delved into his non-music-related coursework, he also actively engaged with London's music and creative scene, attending numerous shows and events during his time there. When he returned to Syracuse, a vibrant hub for entertainment, culture, and nightlife, he was determined to strengthen his connections within the music community. He secured a position as a contributing writer for the popular college entertainment platform, MyCampusEvents. He covered performances by emerging artists of the era, such as J. Cole, and he was captivated by it.

Soon, Brandon discovered the role of an A&R and made it his primary focus to become one in the latter part of his college years. His new interest in journalism provided him with exciting opportunities to share his musical preferences with his community. Through his work, he demonstrated a unique talent for conveying the stories of undiscovered artists and humanizing their music, much like an A&R would.

Viewing his writing as a stepping stone toward an eventual A&R role, or at least a more artist-centric position, Brandon decided to further invest in journalism. He reached out to a close friend, Dante Marquise, who managed the popular blog The Dope Avenue and secured a contributing role on the platform. This allowed him to refine his skills in profiling artists and presenting them to various audiences. As a recent graduate, he took his position at The Dope Avenue seriously, dedicating his mornings to three to five hours of music research, followed by two to three hours of writing about select finds.

Facing some skepticism from his family, who didn’t quite understand the idea of pursuing a career in the creative space, Brandon knew he needed to find a more sustainable and lucrative full-time job. He stuck with writing but was also able to land a job at the music streaming start-up Boinc as Creative Content Operations Specialist. The job didn’t fulfill Brandon’s music aspirations, but between the full-time role, his writing pursuits, and socializing in the creative community, he was carving out a well-rounded, music-oriented lifestyle.

After Boinc went under some time later, he somewhat spontaneously secured a position at Sonos as a sales associate and brand ambassador liaison in one of the audio powerhouse’s New York City locations. Brandon explains that this position, which initially seemed to him like a retail job, wasn’t his first choice, but it soon became clear how powerful this role would become.

In NYC’s Soho neighborhood, the Sonos store served as an experiential physical space that could be used by artists for sessions in its listening booths during the day, and at night, for events. It was here that Brandon’s taste as well as affinity and empathy for the artist experience shone through and helped create a wide range of flourishing relationships in the creative space. He began assisting the brand activation department of the company by helping to coordinate listening parties and events.

The team leveraged the Sonos spaces to provide artists like A Tribe Called Quest, Vince Staples, and Kamasi Washington with a unique opportunity to debut music or to participate in panel conversations. The value of Sonos’ physical space that Brandon had in his pocket gave him something to offer to key music industry figures. It also gave them a chance to get to know Brandon and get a sense of his distinct taste. He could invite artists and their teams to come to the Sonos store to play him new music. Because of the access to the industry he gained while at Sonos, he considers this his first real industry gig.

Still, Brandon felt as if he was in an “age of justification.” He had a foot in the door and was proving both his value and creative potential, but he had yet to make a name for himself - or even prove to his parents that he was on the right track.

“I was the only person in my family that had really done anything in the creative space,” he notes. “So, Plan B loomed, but I was really adamant about Plan A, so a lot of my personal life was just figuring out how I was going to make this work. [I was] feeling shut out, like I wasn’t necessarily in the industry yet, but I was still going to shows and just being a fan of music, of art, and of creativity.

He adds, “I was traveling and trying to make a name for myself in curation by making my own playlists, graphic designing the covers, and really being in that space of making it work for me - trying to brand myself in the curation space. That was pretty much my life throughout that period of time, and it came across as if I was always working because I was always trying to keep myself progressing.”

The professional picture, then, for Brandon in his 20s was an engaging role at Sonos supplemented by several contributor writer commitments. He discovered a budding music platform called COLORS Berlin in 2016 and secured an editorial internship position. About a year later, COLORS brought Brandon on as the US curation lead. His determination to use writing as the foreground for his long-term A&R and curation vision had paid off. COLORS that blew things wide open.

For the first two years in the then-smaller COLORS operation, Brandon worked closely with the CEO, analyzing submissions and helping to pick, then book, the artists for their show. As he gained more jurisdiction in the growing company, he was entrusted to build a team he could delegate to, and he began to pivot away from proactively discovering artists to sifting through inbound requests. He was effectively moving out of working in an assistant-like capacity and into the principal curator for an entire territory - the United States.

Brandon doubled down on his "why," - the storytelling, as well as focused on the “who” - the artists. He explains that, since day 1, the goal was simply to be of help and be a conduit of impact for those with stories that should be told. Because his forte is in speaking the artist's language versus a corporate one, he was deeply immersed in collaborative efforts with artists from diverse backgrounds. He often served as the initial point of contact for these artists when they stepped on the COLORS set, becoming the recognizable face they encountered before their performances garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

His time at the company left him with a quantifiable track record for his taste. When Brandon started writing, and even throughout his career before COLORS, the game for him looked like fully trusting his own taste to one day be respected as one of the leading curators in music. His ear eventually translated to viral moments and major stepping stones in artist careers.

Now away from COLORS, he says that he’s in a personal space where he can walk into a more creative role, one with even more collaboration with artists, more confidently than ever, and focus with an even higher degree of intention on his storytelling.