Ed Sheeran has announced that he’s setting up his own record label. The 23 year old megastar has made a deal with Warner to set up his own label as a subsidiary within their structure in order for him to help up-and-coming artists to reach greater levels of exposure.

Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran, performing here in Amsterdam, has launched his own record label

“The door has now been opened, I’ve set up the label and I’m going to start signing people,” Sheeran told The Sun newspaper. “It’ll be an imprint that goes through Warner. But I’ll get the rights back in about ten years.”

A number of factors have led the two-time BRIT Award winner to make this new step in his career. Firstly, he was ignored by Warner a couple of years ago when he advised them to sign Passenger, who went on to have worldwide success with his album All The Little Lights.

But more importantly, he just wants to lend a helping hand to other artists that he likes, further reinforcing his image as one of the nicest people in the music industry. “There are people on that scene who make me look terrible by just being so good,” he said about the decision.

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Sheeran, who has written songs for the likes of One Direction and Taylor Swift in addition to the arsenal of smash hits under his own name, has also intimated that the artists he’ll look for will be part of the growing singer-songwriter scene that lifted him to prominence.

Sheeran’s monumental success is now well known. His second album X, released earlier this year, is currently the biggest seller of 2014 in the UK. Its latest single ‘Thinking Out Loud’, which he performed on last weeks’ ‘The X Factor’, is presently at Number 1, having broken the record for the longest climb to the top spot.

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