9th St. Records: The Underground Machine Behind Rap’s Next Wave

There are record labels that discover artists.

And then there are labels that seem to understand a scene before everyone else knows what the scene is.

9th St. Records belongs in the second category.

Founded in 2020 by Nissim Hershkovits and Harry Jenko while the two were in college, 9th St. started with a simple understanding of how young artists were actually building careers: online, through communities, fashion, culture and music all happening at the same time.

That approach has paid off.

By early 2025, 9th St. reported more than 1.5 billion streams across digital platforms in the previous 12 months, an absurd number for a company that is still so young.

And if you've been paying attention to the current underground, you've probably already heard the names.

Rich Amiri. OsamaSon. Lil Shine.

These aren't random artists sitting on a label roster.

They're some of the artists helping define what the next generation of rap sounds like.

The Internet Is the A&R Department

The most interesting thing about 9th St. is how naturally it seems to understand internet culture.

The label wasn't built around chasing whatever was already happening on radio.

It came from the underground.

Hershkovits and Jenko were close to the artists and communities actually creating the culture, allowing them to identify artists before they became obvious choices for the mainstream industry. 9th St. says it has also discovered and developed artists including Swapa, Devstacks and rexv2.

That's a completely different approach to A&R.

Instead of asking what already works, it's about asking:

What's about to work?

Rich Amiri Is a Perfect Example

Rich Amiri's rise shows what this model can look like when everything clicks.

His 2023 record “ONE CALL” became a massive streaming success, eventually passing 424 million Spotify streams according to Music Business Worldwide.

That kind of growth is exactly what makes 9th St. interesting.

The label isn't simply looking for established stars.

It's looking for artists with enough identity to become stars.

And Rich Amiri has that identity.

OsamaSon and the New Underground

Then there's OsamaSon.

If you've spent any time around the current underground rap scene, you've probably encountered his music.

The distorted production.

The aggressive bass.

The blown-out vocals.

The chaotic energy.

It's a sound that doesn't necessarily make sense if you're looking at rap through the lens of the previous decade.

But if you're looking at where internet rap is going, it makes perfect sense.

9th St. has positioned itself directly inside that movement.

That's important because scenes like this don't usually get built by major labels from the top down.

They grow from the bottom.

Artists find each other.

Producers find artists.

Fans build communities.

Clothing, visuals and music start becoming one aesthetic.

Then suddenly the mainstream realizes there's an entire culture it wasn't paying attention to.

Hallwood Changes the Equation

In February 2025, 9th St. announced a joint venture with Hallwood Media, turning what had already become a successful management and artist-development operation into something with considerably more infrastructure behind it.

Hallwood was founded by Neil Jacobson, the former CEO of Geffen Records, and has expanded beyond management into recordings, distribution, publishing, merchandise and ventures.

That combination is fascinating.

9th St. brings the culture.

Hallwood brings the infrastructure.

The idea is essentially to let 9th St. continue doing what made it successful while giving its artists access to a much larger ecosystem.

And that's potentially dangerous—in a good way.

They're Thinking Beyond Viral Hits

One of the most telling things about the partnership is that 9th St. doesn't describe its goal as simply chasing viral records.

The company's founders have emphasized long-term artist development and relationships, rather than building careers around fleeting internet moments.

That's an important distinction.

Internet culture moves incredibly fast.

A song can be everywhere for two weeks and completely forgotten a month later.

Building an artist is different.

You need an identity.

You need a catalog.

You need fans who care about the person behind the music.

And eventually, you need infrastructure.

That's where 9th St. seems to be headed.

More Than a Label

The bigger vision is probably the most exciting part.

Hershkovits and Jenko have talked about turning their love of music into a multi-faceted entertainment company, rather than limiting 9th St. to the traditional definition of a record label.

That makes sense considering how young artists operate today.

Music doesn't exist separately from fashion anymore.

Artists build communities through social media.

Merchandise becomes part of the identity.

A song can be discovered through a meme, a clothing post or a random snippet before someone ever searches for the full record.

9th St. understands that these things aren't separate.

They're all part of the same culture.

The Next Generation Is Watching

There's a reason 9th St. is worth paying attention to right now.

The label represents something that didn't really exist in the same way ten or fifteen years ago: an organization built from the internet generation's perspective rather than adapted to it afterward.

That's a major advantage.

The founders understand the artists.

They understand the audience.

They understand the aesthetics.

And now they have Hallwood's infrastructure behind them.

The question isn't whether 9th St. can find another successful artist.

They already have.

The question is whether they can turn this current wave of underground rap into something much bigger and more lasting.

If Rich Amiri, OsamaSon, Lil Shine and the next generation of artists coming through the system are any indication, 9th St. might be one of the labels we look back on as having defined this era of rap.

The underground is changing.

9th St. is already there.