Ex-WME Agent Brent Smith Joins Executive Team At Wasserman Music

Brent Smith
Haldane Morris – Brent Smith

Agent Brent Smith, who departed WME in October, has resurfaced with Wasserman Music, which named him executive vice president and managing executive today (July 6). Smith joins veteran agents Marty Diamond, Jonathan Levine, Jackie Nalpant and others at the top of the division’s leadership structure.

“As many of you know, the senior leadership team and I have been spending time with Brent Smith, and today I am pleased to share that he is joining Wasserman Music as EVP and Managing Executive,” Wasserman CEO Casey Wasserman said in a statement. “We have come to know Brent as a smart, genuine, professional team player who always puts clients first & is ready to embrace the Wasserman value system and culture.”
While it’s not clear if he’s bringing any of his clients to Wasserman, Smith has in the recent past represented such artists as Calvin Harris, Childish Gambino, Drake, Frank Ocean, James Blake, John Legend, Kendrick Lamar, Kid Cudi, Pharrell, Snoop Dogg, Tyler, the Creator and the late Juice WRLD. 
Smith joins a company that was formed in April when Wasserman acquired the North American music assets of Paradigm Talent Agency. Among the clients on its stellar roster are Ed Sheeran, Billie Eilish, Kenny Chesney, Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay and so many more of the highest-charting touring artists of the last decade-plus.
“I am really proud of our team and the discipline and insight they brought into this process. We are committed to quality, clients and teamwork and this is just one more win for Wasserman Music as we grow together,” Wasserman said. “Please join me in welcoming Brent to the team.”
A member of the inaugural Impact 50 class of 2019, Smith told Pollstar at the time he credits his success to the fact he was “mentored by two of the best OGs in the game”: his boss, the late Ian Copeland (brother of Police drummer Stewart Copeland and manager/onetime label head Miles Copeland) who hired him at Frontier Booking International after an alcohol-fueled foosball match, and longtime client Snoop Dogg, who Smith has worked with for more than 20 years. 
Copeland, he says, “taught me to focus on music I had passion for.” As for Snoop, Smith says he “taught me your hustle has to be better than everyone else’s. To quote Snoop, ‘If it’s flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s, be the best hamburger flipper in the world.’”
Smith began his career with FBI and, when that agency closed, he went to William Morris Agency (later WME), where he spent more than two decades building and nurturing one of the most important rosters in the music industry.
His departure from WME came at the end of an internal investigation of unspecified allegations of “bullying behavior,” and was one of many key agent separations at not only WME but most agencies during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.