Talent: Mix Show Manager
Location: Atlanta, GA
Label: Jive Records
Contact: www.myspace.com/chadbrownmusic
               Iamconnected@gmail.com

What exactly is your position over at Jive?

Southeast Regional Mixshow Manager

What does that consist of?

Being the Southeast Regional Mixshow Manager which is a long ass title but basically to break it down, it means to break records in the southeast. The markets that I cover are Georgia, Bama, both Carolinas, Tennessee, and Florida. My job is to build a record up from a street level, from the mixtape, strip club, regular club level. After I build it up, I take it over to the mixshow level so the mixers can get on it so by the time we go for ads on a record we  know the audience out there is familiar with the record and DJs are more comfortable adding the record.

When a record is given to you, how do you determine which DJ or who you need to get it directed to first?

Well the way I actually do it, is I send out an e-mail blast of all my DJs that I believe are the trendsetters of their particular markets and ask them one on one what they think about the record. From that I’m able to gauge when I get product what market I am be able to get the most out of. So I kind of get the initial feedback from sending out the MP3s and asking for feedback and finding out what they think about the record and will it work in their market and does it have hit potential to be broken in their market and because I deal with the mixtape DJs and the club DJs and the strip club DJs I usually listen to their words before I listen to the radio DJs because they are the ones who are out and about with the people everyday and they kind of have an idea of what the people would like but, I also don't just use their input just as a basis to figure out if its gonna work in their markets because 9 times out of 10 most people don’t like a record and most DJs they hear so much music that they don’t like records off top so sometimes I use their feedback against them because I’ve  had a lot of DJs for instance with the Chris Brown "Run It" record, which I keep using as my claim to fame. Every DJ hated it. It was only a hand full of DJs I can say actually liked the record so when they told me it was wack and it wasn’t gonna work I could of stopped and left it alone and told my supervisors and the powers that be that everybody hated it. Somewhere in there, the A&Rs that picked the record knew the shit was gonna work and it was my job to make these DJs out here believe it so that they could make you know the listening audience believe us and that’s what we did. We grinded with it, we gave 110% with it, we stick with it, we believed in the record. We knew it was a hit no matter what people was saying and we just kept at it and you see where it went

Besides Chris Brown the "Run It" record, is there another record that you had a real difficult time breaking?

T-Pain's "I’m Sprung".

Why is that?

One, a lot of people didn’t believe this guy could sing. They were like, what is this because the hook was on the song was repetitive. Its only like 8 to 10 unique lines in the song. Its like a repetitive hook and a repetitive chorus and its not much to the song but a lot of people just didn’t get it.  They didn’t understand the vocator that he put over his voice. They didn’t think it would work but I knew it could work cause I went Come Together Day  in Jacksonville last year and T-Pain opened up and I hadn’t met the kid. I didn’t know anything about the kid and we were both on the same plane and I had heard earlier that day that there was gonna be a kid signed to JIVE that was gonna be performing. I had never heard nothing of the dude prior to and so I seen the performance at Come Together Day and I seen the reaction and I guess it was a movement going on in Florida that the rest of the south didn’t even know about. T-Pain performed and he killed it, he ripped it. I got on the bus and TJ Chapman told me, yo this dude is next.  T-Pain told me to tell the president of JIVE records that they need to watch out cause they got something on their hands and with me seeing it with my own eyes it was easier for me to convince everybody else or at least for me to stay on the record because I knew the potential it had. It was just a matter of time before everybody else could follow suit and really push this record through.

When you said you send out e-mails to DJs that you believe can get it out in certain regions with your job, do you have to build a relationship with DJs, promoters and club owners and stuff like that and how hard is that?

It’s kind of like building a relationship with anybody, it takes time.  You have to give before you get, that’s why I got the slogan "what can brown do for you" cause I’m always down for doing for somebody else cause I already know when I need to pull that favor I cant really hear no from them cause they already know I  looked out for them so much. Its like building any relationship in life. You have to give before you receive and that’s what I’ve done out here.  Every relationship that I’ve created out here majority of which I’ve created on my own, I was just told to go out there and make it happen and that’s what I did. Yyou have to in this music business game. If you don’t network you don’t work or nothing that you’re trying to work is gonna work so you have to go out there and build your network and keep building on it and you have to maintain your network and that’s one of the toughest challenges of life or in any business. You have to build your network cause that’s the only way you can reap the benefits of the people in your network

Speaking of building a relationship with DJs. With the projects that you’re trying to break, do you also have a personal relationship with the artist or is it just your supervisor gives you a record and tell you to just go grind the record?

Right now I'm working on 10 records and you know what, the most important records are the ones that I have personal relationships with.  You know its hard for me to just take something and be told to do something with it.  Its always better when you have a one on one relationship with somebody even with DJs. You know they have so many reps call them and ask them to play records that the reps don’t even have a relationship with these guys. They never met these guys wives or girlfriends or been to their house or took them out to dinner or just had a one on one with them. They just know of them through somebody else but they never built with them. Me I’m a little different because I go out on the road and in a week I might go to three or four different cities just to hang out with people just to build with them because its bigger then the record shit. Its about knowing that I have a friend in Birmingham or knowing that I have a friend in Nashville so if I need anything beyond this record shit,  I have a friend there. If any person that believes that you’re a friend of theirs they’ll always look out for you no matter what the lookout is.

Being that you’re building all these relationships and you’re networking and its kind of like you’re creating that artist, have you ever visited a city, heard a record and wanted to get an artist signed. Have you ever thought of an A&R position since you’re doing mixshows?

Oh definitely. Where I’m at right now, I’m in the prime position to be the best A&R ever be in the game just for the fact that one I’m learning the radio game so I’m building my relationships with the radio people which is very important because you need your records played so the world can hear it cause radio play turns into sales into record sales.  I’m already building that foundation and  I’m already out there visiting these cities getting demos and being able to travel to all these different cities to see the type of music that’s out there. So I’m kind of better than the average A&R because I’m actually out  versus sitting in my office receiving cds and watching spins and things of that caliber. I’m actually out so I can actually see when a movement is being created and so yes you know there’s always what’s next. Right now I’m in mixshow and I would love to move if I had to work for anybody besides working for myself of course. I would want to be an A&R and I am looking for the next big thing and I will find the next big thing and I will break the next big thing on radio.

What’s your overall objective while in this industry

You know what, honestly I used to want to be Puff and you know that’s one person that I’ve always looked up to since I started the game because he was a young cat like myself that had a drive and he didn’t care what anybody said. I would love to be a CEO of my own record label but because the game has changed and the records ain't selling like they are selling and the money is kind of different. I’m still up in the air on exactly where I wanna land in this game until I learn and start to realize where technology is gonna take this game because before everybody wanted to be a CEO to sell records because they had a physical product they could sell. Now the game is changing because of MP3 and downloading and things of that caliber and ringtones, so its just trying to figure out where the game is going and how I can find my niche and my place in the game and that’s where I’m at in my career right now. Its still cloudy for me right now

If someone was interested in doing mixshow what would they have to do.

Like in any position in the music industry at an actual label there is no set way to get in. You can talk to anybody and everybody has a different story on how they got in but the best way to get into anything is to just be out there. Just put yourself out there. That’s what you do and one thing we all have that can't be taken away from us is our word. If you stick by your word and you say you gonna do something and make it happen, you make it happen and you build on your relationships and you find records and you network with DJs and you do for DJs so they can do for you. Just start working the record and you know hopefully when the record does pop everybody can credit your name to it and then people will start looking at you as a guy trying to get a chick. A chick is not interested in that guy until everybody is talking about that guy so when people start talking about you that’s when the interest will come

Is there anything else you want to say?

You know Young Executives is the new company that started. What it is, is young cats that’s under 30 with their own businesses that’s gonna take over the game and young and vex is the future, Chad Brown is the future, "what can brown do for you?, you know the slogan.  If you got some hot music just hit me up. Man shout out to my boy De for the interview and Young and Vex is the future.