EBA 2010 Independent Success Story of the Year: Mia Martina

CINDERELLA 2010: EBA’s Success Story of the Year is MIA MARTINA!

The amazing thing about success is that every story is different. Nobody takes the same road and there is no road map to follow that guarantees success. The story of Mia Martina has to be the most amazing and unlikely story I have ever encountered. Please indulge me in recounting the story as never before heard:

I met Mia about 6 years ago when she was a teenager. Mia started in the music business by delivering CD’s to radio stations for CP records. She was very young and didn’t say much. We even had a joke in our office that she might be a mute because she was that quiet! She had aspirations of someday being the artist on the CD she was delivering, but certainly didn’t share that with anyone back then.

Mia went about her business, dutifully doing whatever was needed at the CP Records office – which included everything from bookkeeping, delivering packages and even cleaning up in the recording studio. She was finally given a chance to start singing 2 years ago and was developing songs with Belly, Daheala and Ryan and Dan Kowarsky. Everything was proceeding like any other project until one day, lightning started to strike. And strike, and strike and strike...

LIGHTNING STRIKE #1
America’s hottest dance label, Ultra Records, had licensed the European hit song “Stereo Love” by Edward Maya for North America. The song was not connecting in North America. Adrian Strong, Ultra’s Canadian radio promoter suggested that they replace the female vocal with a Canadian female singer which would qualify the track as “CANCON” and he could then start building the track in Canada and with the story maybe cross it over into the US. Strong, who also promotes CP Records artists, knew that Mia was in the studio and suggested that she jump on the track. Mia did a fantastic job and the track instantly started connecting at Canadian radio.

LIGHTNING STRIKE #2
With a little bit of a buzz building, CP CEO and Mia’s personal manager, Tony Sal started pressing Ultra to shoot a video. Against everyone’s advice and with absolutely nothing monetary to gain, Sal decided to do the unprecedented and spend his own money on a video. He begged borrowed and cajoled for a cheap video and delivered a masterpiece. The video – shot on a stunning sailboat in Toronto harbour – somehow looks like Mia is basking in the Mediterranean. The video made an instant impact on both TV and the internet. To date the video for Stereo Love featuring Mia has received over 4 million hits  in 3 months.

LIGHTNING STRIKE #3
With the success in Canada and a video, Ultra started making some headway with Stereo Love stateside. Now came time to promote the record. Strong and Sal offerred up Mia, a strikingly beautiful girl who had grown much more confident in the 5 years since we had met the first time. She could be the perfect spokesperson. Ultra immediately started booking Mia for radio interviews and performances across the US.

LIGHTNING STRIKE #4
Don Omar, one of the hottest Latin artists, apparently loves the track and did a remix featuring Mia. He called Sal out of the blue one day and said “hey I love this track, do you mind if I do a remix?” The remix got added to some of the biggest Latin stations across North America immediately and now that version is charging up the Latin charts. Mia is now getting bookings across South America too as a result.

Between the video and doing virtually all the promotion for the track, Mia has become the face of Stereo Love. She is performing across Canada and the United States and is poised to break across Spanish speaking North and South America too. She is the hottest selling Canadian artist on the singles charts of the last 4 months having sold 55,000 singles in Canada. Her album is set to be released early in 2011 and we are in the midst of experience the launch of the next in an already huge line of great Canadian female artists including Anne Murray, Celine Dion, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrissette, Shania Twain and Avril Lavigne.

Congratulations Mia! You are EBA’s Success Story of the Year!