Rap music industry veteran Neil Levine will head up BMG Label Group’s Battery Records, a new Hip-Hop imprint.

According to The New York Post, Battery Records will sign and develop upcoming rap artists, grooming them for mainstream success.

The most promising of these artists would then graduate to be distributed through BMG’s RCA and Zomba divisions.

According to The New York Post, Battery Records will allow BMG to be

flexible when it comes to signing new artists.
Levine, who founded Penalty Records, recently experienced success reactivating EMI’s Imperial imprint.

Under his watch, Imperial which released a successful album by Fat Joe, Me, Myself and I, which spawned the hit single “Make It Rain,” which features Lil Wayne, and Fat Joe’s most recent offering, The Elephant in the Room.

At Penalty, Levine broke artists like The Beatnutz, Crooked Lettaz (featuring David Banner), Lord Finesse, Nelly and others.