Amir Esmailian, better known as Cash, is an Iranian Canadian talent manager and record producer with XO Records. He now lives in Los Angeles and is most known for co-managing Canadian recording artist The Weeknd.
Billboard named Esmailian in its 2015 “40 Under 40: Music’s Young Power Players” list. He appeared alongside XO Records co-founder and CEO Wassim “Sal” Slaiby. The pair also featured on the cover Billboard’s January 2021 Change Agents issue.
Amir Esmailian manages The Weeknd
In 2002, Esmailian began working as head of street promotion for Canada-based Capital Prophets Records. Talent manager and entrepreneur Wassim “Sal” Slaiby co-founded the label with Palestinian Canadian rapper Ahmad “Belly” Balshe. In 2007, Esmailian started co-managing Belly in Florida.
In 2011 Esmailian heard some of The Weeknd’s tracks before the singer reached stardom. He left everything he had in Miami to work with The Weeknd, whose name is Abel Tesfaye, in Toronto. The pair founded XO Records with Slaiby in a joint venture with New York-based Republic Records the next year.
“I met [The Weeknd] through my best friend…I’ve been friends with [Hawk Marley] since I was four years old,” Esmailian told Billboard. “One day he sent me Abel’s music and at that point I was living in Miami. I came back to Toronto and…we’ve been together basically every day ’til now.”
The XO Records manager discovered and signed Toronto-based rapper and producer Nav in 2017. He later became the artist’s co-manager and executive producer of Nav’s two mixtapes and three studio albums.
Esmailian also manages recording artists Young Thug, Metro Boomin, and Wheezy through his company YCFU.
Amir Esmailian fled Iran with family
Esmailian was born in Tehran, Iran in 1983 during the war with Iraq. In 1988, he immigrated to Ottawa, Canada with his parents and older brother. Born in the midst of war, Esmailian remembers “a house I played at a week before not there no more, just, in the ground.”
“[My dad] left [Iran] and gave everything up, came to Canada, drove a taxi cab, so myself and my older brother could have freedom and make our own decisions on what we want to do,” Esmailian said.
His father was “running all the national banks in Tehran” before the family left.
As a child in Canada, Esmailian lived next to future XO Records rapper Ahmad “Belly” Balshe.
“I was never in a band, but since my early teens I’ve always been infatuated with the studio, so I’d be hanging out at all the local Ottawa studios and all the Ottawa basement studios,” Esmailian explained. “I just always had a love for that. Just hanging with my friends that were rappers, producers, engineers, just trying to find what I like to do in music.”
YCFU-managed artists release new music
Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs hired Slaiby and Esmailian as managers in July. Forbes evaluated the net worth of the recording artist and Combs Enterprises owner at $740 million in 2019.
Toronto-based rapper Belly released his third studio album See You Next Wednesday on August 27. Rappers and singers Nav, The Weeknd, Moneybagg Yo, Nas, and Young Thug feature on singles from the album. See You Next Wednesday reached No. 27 on Billboard’s US Independent Albums chart.
On October 16, Young Thug will be making his debut Saturday Night Live performance. He will release his second studio album Punk the day before. The Atlanta-based rapper received iHeartRadio’s Titanium Award, along with several other pop stars, for his song “Go Crazy” in August.
