The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) has announced that Tom Silverman, founder of TommY BoY Records, the New Music Seminar and founding board member of A2IM, will receive the Lifetime Achievement statue at A2IM’s upcoming Libera Awards ceremony on June 20 in New York. Silverman will be the second person to receive the award, following Martin Mills in 2012.

Silverman was responsible for signing De La Soul, Digital Underground, Naughty By Nature, House of Pain and Queen Latifah, bolstering the popularity of mid-period hip hop. Earlier this year, Silverman penned a forward-thinking op-ed for Billboard.biz outlining his strategy for growing the industry through means other than music sales.

The Libera Awards, or LIBBYs, were founded to recognize the past year’s successes throughout the independent record label community with awards such as the two-pronged Independent Label of the Year (both five employees or less and six employes or more), the Light Bulb award for innovative marketing and the 21st Century Award for platform or service most beneficial to the indie community. [Billboard.biz]