Madonna Partners with Bilt to Support Emerging Musicians, Revisits Early Career Haunts
Madonna teams up with Bilt to support musicians at The Music Building in Manhattan, where she once lived, coinciding with the release of 'Confessions II'.
The singer used to live at the Music Building in Midtown Manhattan at the beginning of her career.
Madonna is giving back to celebrate the upcoming release of her Confessions II album. The anticipated sequel to her 2005 Confessions on a Dance Floor LP is due out on July 3. As part of the promotional push, the singer has teamed up with financial services company Bilt—which offers a points-based reward system on rent/mortgage payments and other purchases—on a special offer for up-and-coming musicians.
According to a release, Bilt will cover one month of studio rent for every musician currently leasing space at The Music Building, the midtown Manhattan rehearsal space where Madonna once lived and hatched the beginnings of her musical career. The Building, which was founded in 1979, has been a “working home for generations of New York artists—a place where musicians at every stage of their careers have come to rehearse, write, and find their footing in one of the world’s most demanding creative cities.”
“Artists arrive every day to New York, with a dream and more often than not with little else,” Madonna said in a statement. “As much as I struggled when I showed up here with nothing, I look back very fondly on this time in my life. The creativity, diversity and community of artists all supporting each other while having the freedom to experiment is something I would.”
In addition to the rent coverage, there will be a Bilt-exclusive limited-edition vinyl version of Confessions II with custom artwork and exclusive photos by Raphael Pavarotti shot for Bilt members. There will also be member-exclusive release night parties in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as a special edition of Bilt’s monthly game show, Rent Free, which will feature Madonna as a contestant giving members from around the country a chance to win free rent payments up to $2,500.
“There are so few artists who have shaped New York the way Madonna has,” said Ankur Jain, Founder and CEO of Bilt in the release. “She came to this city with next to nothing, and in building something extraordinary, she became part of its DNA. When we had the chance to work with her, we knew we had to honor that story—not just by celebrating the album, but by giving back to the building where she first found her sound. The Music Building has been a home to generations of artists who arrived in New York the same way she did: with big dreams and little else. We couldn’t think of a more fitting way to mark this moment than making sure the artists in that building today don’t have to choose between their rent and their art.”
The album’s single, “I Feel So Free,” jumped from No. 8 to No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart dated May 30, giving the singer her eighth career leader on the tally and her first overall radio chart-topper in nearly 18 years. Confessions II is Madonna’s 15th studio album and her first LP in seven years. It marks a reunion with frequent collaborator Stuart Price, as well as her return to Warner Records after two decades away.
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