Casablanca Records - 2000 Relaunch

2000 Relaunch

In 1998, Seagram purchased PolyGram Records and merged it with its own music division to create the Universal Music Group. In 2000, Universal and Tommy Mottola partnered to launch a new record label that would be headed by Mottola and be part of Universal Music Group. Mottola chose the name Casablanca, in homage to the Casablanca Records once run by Neil Bogart. There would be no legal issue with the name as Universal owns the Casablanca Records name. The label's first release was to be a girl-group first known as "iNK", but which later changed its name to "NSS (Not So Sweet) 16". The group, however, disbanded due to internal problems.

Some of Casablanca releases included albums by Lindsay Lohan in 2004, albums by Lohan and Brie Larson in 2005, and by Mika in 2007, who scored a hit with the song "Relax, Take It Easy". Mottola's label once again become inactive when Lohan and Larson moved to other labels within the Universal family.

In the fall of 2009, Casablanca became active again (albeit in name only) with the releases of Mika's second album, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, and Ryan Leslie's second album, Transition.