Sunjit Kundu - Founder & CEO - SKAM Artist
Sujit Kundu is the founder and CEO of SKAM Artist, a full-service agency, initially specializing in DJs. The agency has since evolved beyond the DJ world, boasting a large roster of talent across the entertainment space. His company also has a sister company, SKAM Division, a full service promotion and marketing company that focuses on radio promotion and coordinating getting the hottest new music tracks on radio airwaves and across music streaming platforms. Despite the pandemic, SKAM continues to make waves in the music world, with track releases by clients like Lil’ Jon, French Montana and many more continuing to hit airwaves.
Kundu continues to be a force in the ever changing music industry space, and with over 20 years of experience Sujit knows how to successfully navigate through the evolution of the music industry.
COVID-19 was an unexpected shift in the industry but that has not stopped the demand for SKAM Artist DJs during quarantine, with his roster of clients regularly on Twitch and guest DJ sets across digital platforms.In 2019, Kundu was featured in Billboard, “Spotlight: SKAM Artists’ Sujit Kundu Is Hustling for Lil Jon, Pete Wentz, Amber Rose & the ‘Blue-Collar’ DJs.”
Growing up in Fullerton, CA, Kundu frequented various raves and house parties that were thrown by what would become today’s biggest music industry professionals, immersing himself in the music scene early on. Believing that there could be more potential with these raves and events, he started to dabble in promoting and party planning, slowly throwing his own events by the early age of 15-years-old, before he could even drive. His very first party didn’t go as expected and was a complete fail. In order to right his wrong, he ended up working with one of the investors for free in order to pay them back. This didn’t discourage Kundu, he grew more focused and continued throwing parties and building a loyal following. Following high school, Sujit enrolled at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) where he majored in Economics and Accounting.
Upon arrival at college his plan was to focus on school and follow his parent’s dreams of him becoming a doctor but he quickly realized he didn’t have the commitment to get the grades to accomplish that. His attention remained on prompting events and he quickly noticed that the Santa Barbara nightlife scene was wide open and went right back to throwing parties. With the saturation of raves and bad promoters, the emergence of hip hop he quickly changed the type of events he threw and turned his focus more on hip hop. - In order to book acts, he would look on the back of cd covers for management or record company info and would cold call them. His main venue was a pool hall called Sticks that he converted into a club and had acts such as Redman, KRS-One, Rappin 4 Tay, Dru Down, Mobb Deep and more. Upon graduating, Kundu had to make the choice that many students face choosing between getting a corporate job based on his major or continuing to throw events, he chose the latter. As hip hop culture developed so did opportunities with record companies to provide street team, radio and marketing services as an independent contractor
While in Santa Barbara, he met Damion Young who was the Music Director of Y97 and they quickly became friends and business partners. Young went on to become the Music Director at LA’s Power 106, where he and Sujit teamed up to form a production and DJ management company. As a production company and label, they landed a top ten radio hit with Shade Sheist’s “Where I Wanna Be” and produced songs for the biggest names in music including Mariah Carey, Ja Rule, Nate Dogg, just to name a few. After an amicable split with his business partner Damion, his production/management company disbanded; Damion kept the production arm of the company, and Kundu kept the DJ management side, renaming it to SKAM. (Sujit Kundu Artist Management).
Following the launch of SKAM, Charles Chavez, who he met at MCA while working with Damion and Shade Sheist, got him a job at MCA Records where he held a radio promotion position, providing his first experience working for a major record label. His tenure with MCA Records was short. MCA ended up merging into Geffen Records and then merged with Interscope Records. Ultimately Kundu was let go.
Kundu was then offered the position of Universal Motown heading up their national crossover promotions division and quickly relocated to NYC to work out of the main office and was promoted Senior Vice President. At Universal, Kundu worked with Lil Wayne on his album Carter III, which sold 1 million copies in the first week, Drake’s first release, Nikki Minaj, Nelly, Akon, David Banner and more.
After being at Universal Motown for 7 years, it went on to merge into Republic Records and Kundu was once again let go. With his hustler-like mentality, he focused his full time attention to SKAM, and while continuing to book djs added tour manager responsibilities for Pitbull at the height of his career and Afrojack and more.
Sujit was then offered a position at EPIC Records by record executive, L.A. Reid, where he landed the role of Senior VP of Promotions, where he stayed for four years. The last two years at Epic Records, he scored 15-number one records from the largest names in the industry including, Travis Scott, DJ Khaled, Future, Camila Cabello, Meghan Trainor and more; many of whom remain his clients to this day
He left Epic on his own to spend the next two years with L.A. Reid to launch Hitco Entertainment, where he was a consultant on radio promotion via his sister company, Skam Division, which focuses on radio promotion services. At Hitco he worked with artists such as Saint Jhn, Yella Beezy and Dinah Jane who he had already worked with at Epic via Fifth Harmony.
Today Kundu’s vast client roster of names range in notability and genre, some commanding fees in the five figures and bolstering over 100 clients inclusive of Deejays and musical talent names such as, Lil Jon, Harm Franklin, Brooke Evers, LA Leakers, Nick Cannon, Amber Rose, Blac Chyna, DJ Irie, Samantha Ronson, just to name a few.
@SkamArtist