Exclusive: Maitland’s Just A Gent inks US label deal

19-year-old electronic producer Just A Gent (aka Jacob Grant) has inked a deal with New York City-based label Lokal Legend, TMN can exclusively reveal.

The global deal outside of Australia and New Zealand, sees Just A Gent join the same roster as Canadian Juno Award winner Kiesza. Kiesza released her hit single Hideaway through Lokal Legend in 2014; the track hit #1 in 22 countries and is 3x Platinum in Italy.

Lokal is the brainchild of Richard Bishop, one of the first rock managers in North America to embrace electronic music, and his former client and producer Rami Samir Afuni, the creative mind behind the production for acts like Kiesza and Miley Cyrus.

Over the last 20 years Bishop’s clients have included Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, BT, The Crystal Method (one of only five US electronic artists to have earned a Platinum album), Listenbee, Jason Bentley and Borgore.

Richard Bishop said: "We are incredibly excited about working with Just A Gent. He’s a great crossover artist and at Lokal Legend we can’t wait to see where his music takes him. Very exciting to be working with such a young talent.”

Following a premiere on Good Nights and high triple j rotation of Just A Gent’s single Heavy as a Heartbreak, the track has garnered over 1.4M SoundCloud plays, 741k Spotify streams, and reached #1 on the overall Hype Machine chart. TMN understands it was Heavy as a Heartbreak that piqued Lokal Legend’s interest and directly lead to the signing.

Locally, he’s been announced to preview his new live show at Splendour in The Grass in July and has recently remixed Temper Trap’s comeback single Fall Together. Additionally, his latest track Loaded featuring Melbourne artist Melissa Ramsay has been added to triple j’s playlist for next week. 

Just A Gent told TMN: “[I’m] really excited about signing with Lokal Legend. Cant wait for America to hear all the new music I’ve been working on and really looking forward to heading back over for some shows.” 

Just A Gent is co-managed locally by Jesse Flavell at SUM Management and in the US Ethan Geltzer at KNCTRNL Artist Management. His booking agent is Paul Stix at UNDR ctrl.