Goldie Harris

Senior Manager of Marketing and Streaming at UnitedMasters. Founder of 24:OURS Creative. DJ and Host. Formerly Creative Marketing Lead at Roc Nation, Event Coordinator at FaceBook, and more. From Long Island, NY.

Honing in on her own lane

By the time Goldie Harris hit high school, she was unintentionally preparing herself for an exciting career in the music industry. She was a Long Island native who had her sights set on film school initially, wanting to become the next Spike Lee or Hype Williams. She shot music videos for artists in her community and fell in love with visual storytelling.

That wasn’t her only endeavor, though. She also threw parties. Goldie was a student-athlete that wore a camera around her neck and was cool with just about everyone on campus. She produced an annual party that brought together the entire student body and all its walks of life into a single venue, and invited fellow students to perform or DJ the events.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t entirely clear to her how to put a single label on all she was doing or where she should go to continue honing her skills. So, she opted to pursue a degree in Business Administration upon enrolling at SUNY New Paltz. Before long, she changed course to a double-major in Digital Media Production paired with Marketing, and doubled down on her creative-media-music projects. She founded a creative collective called 24:OURS to house her photoshoot and music video endeavors, and ran for VP of the school programming board her sophomore year.

Producing her own shows

While working for the programming board, much of what she had learned about community building manifested into a substantial professional and team accomplishment. She attended SUNY’s biggest event, SpringFest, the previous year and was surprised to see a venue less than half-full for Pusha T and Fabolous. When it came time for her to produce SpringFest, she executed some impressive promotional tactics and sold it out in under 48 hours, earning recognition from those around her. That experience helped her make sense of her knack for creating and galvanizing community and most importantly, revealing to her what she actually loved doing.

On the heels of SpringFest’s success, Goldie joined Sony’s college ambassador program, named StashMedia at the time, to give her further exposure to the world of community engagement. She got the opportunity to produce on-campus events like a listening session for Joey Bada$$, and observe how the Sony team took the response and data from her events to inform their college marketing strategy.

Stepping in and out of corporate life

Goldie accepted a position as Director of Lifestyle and Marketing at a luxury real estate firm out of college. Although a director role and the benefits that came with it were attractive, she didn’t lose sight of her true passions, and added a live performance arm to her creative agency, calling it Noise Control. While working at the real estate firm, she was forming relationships with emerging artists that would continue to bear fruits through to the present day.

She quickly grew tired of the corporate world, though, and transitioned into a role in Facebook’s event production role. At 23, Goldie leveraged her expertise into a role at one of the foremost companies in the world, and had a cushy salary and benefits to go with it. She notes that it would have been easy, at this juncture, to forget about the work she really cared for most.

But instead of getting complacent, Goldie left her post at Facebook and dove headfirst into entrepreneurship, betting on the love she’d found for building community, connecting with people of all backgrounds, and creative storytelling. She invested her earnings from the 9-5s into a creative studio in downtown Brooklyn to conduct shoots and events, leaned into parties and live music with Noise Control, and facilitated partnerships with companies like A3C and SXSW. Somehow, she began a graduate program at The New School, in the Parsons School of Design around the same time.

Taking an unpaid internship

Having returned to student status, she was eligible for an internship at Roc Nation that she randomly saw a friend tweet about. In her interview with the label, they wondered why she was vying for an internship when she had such significant experience already. She knew what she was doing, though.

Goldie explains that she has long since possessed an undeniable belief that, no matter what, things will be okay. Course corrections and adjustment, like moving back in with your parents or starting an unpaid internship years after beginning to get paid for what you do, are a necessary part of the journey. The last thing she wants to do is wonder, “What if?”

Moreover, for Goldie, the goal for her work - to build community - evolves with the times. She notes that when you remain zeroed in on your goal, the goal will evolve with you. Thus, it’s necessary to reroute.

And so, Goldie jumped into her internship at Roc Nation. She made a promise to herself to meet a new person in the building every single day. She was also deliberate in making herself available for tasks or an extra hand if those new relationships should need it (and they always did). She found herself helping out friends in every corner of the office, which helped her learn the operational details of the music business, from brand marketing to socials to artist management and commerce. Her approach led to a full-time position at the newly formed Roc-affiliated Equity Distribution. where she met Dave Melhado, who worked in the label’s marketing department at the time.

Goldie’s philosophy on community has been the north star guiding her career choices. She explains that in any field, an artist is nothing without a community of fans who drive both public opinion and revenue to support the artist. For up-and-coming artists and professionals alike, establishing relationships horizontally even more than vertically is vital. Everyone has an immediate community of individuals that may stand to benefit from knowing you and the domino effect goes on from there.

Transitioning to UnitedMasters

Complementing her work with contract positions at A3C and the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, Goldie was suddenly knee-deep in the music industry, right at the time that social media was evolving into a full-fledged monopoly. She had connected with David Melhado while he and Goldie were at Roc Nation, and David, who had moved over to Steve Stoute’s UnitedMasters, offered her a major position within the distribution powerhouse.

Her current role at UnitedMasters is in many ways a hybrid of all that she’s had her hand in up to 2023. Goldie is the Senior Manager of Marketing and Streaming at the company, meaning she manages the relationships with and marketing strategies for all DSPs. This entails marketing efforts like playlists, emerging artist programs, beta testing of features, original content campaigns, DSP sponsorships, and more.

Goldie is mainly focused on initiating, developing, and executing on marketing strategies with the purpose of increasing artists’ digital streaming revenue and raw streaming numbers across the various DSPs. Tools to achieve this purpose include editorial playlisting, original content campaigns, experiential activations, emerging artists programs, beta testing new features, sponsorships and more. Working closely with both her team and UM artists, she is responsible for creating, distributing, and regularly updating relevant best practices and useful procedural resources for her colleagues/clients.

Her goal in the position is, quite simply, to “turn shit up” for UnitedMasters’ artists - drive revenue by getting platform buy-in, amplifying the artist on those platforms, and building their fanbase. She notes that in her role with the retailers, all of the little things add up to the huge successes - playlists, social posts, newsletters, and in-app notifications. This philosophy has been evidenced most by artists like BigXThaPlug.

Still in her 20s, Goldie has a lot of runway left in her career. Her full-time endeavors have long since been accompanied by a fruitful and exciting DJ/hosting career, which adds an element of personality to her already-robust presence in the music industry. It’s unknown where she’ll end up professionally, but one thing for certain is wherever she goes, her community will follow.