When I was Growing up record labels were a lot cooler. In NYC You had Russell Simmons who was the CEO of Def Jam at the time who provided a larger platform for guys like Sean “Jay-Z” Carter, Damon “Dame” Dash, and Kareem “Biggs” Burke to promote their label Rocafella Records. We saw Sean “Puff Daddy aka P. Diddy aka Diddy aka Love” Combs rise to fame with his popular Bad Boy Records, while down south we had powerhouse labels like LaFace founded by, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and L.A. Reid and So So Def founded by Jermaine Dupri. Notice the all male trend here? Although there were some female executives like Sylvia Rhone she wasn’t as visible as the guys.

There was nothing I wanted more as a kid than to work at one of these labels as an A&R. I would see pictures of Clive Davis and I thought he had to be the coolest guy in the room, because was friends with my favorite artists and I wanted to know “How do I do that?!” He even had his own label and is responsible for introducing Whitney Houston to the world! Owning a label never really seemed practical considering there wasn’t really any female representation. It seemed really cool, but it was definitely male dominated. However, the influence of those labels I named above and others like it, were so dominant in the 90s and early 00’s that they influenced just about everyone who wanted to be apart of the industry to start some type of a indie label.

In the early 00s a couple of my guy friends formed a label named 100Ent and I eventually I came aboard and received the title FIRST LADY. Mostly because I was the only woman in the room. I don’t really know what my official role was, I did some artist management, I built websites, and even started on the early wave of social media management on MySpace. Ironically I’m not a fan of any of those roles today, but I have always had the, “do whatever needs to be done attitude.” My parents instilled that kind of drive into my siblings and I as kids playing sports. In our house everyone wasnt a winner. Winners put in the work to earn their wins, and even then you may take some L’s. You just dust yourself off and keep putting in the work. I’m always striving to be the best.

My friends and I were in our early 20s back then in the small town of Chattanooga, Tn, so although we had a lot fun and made some pretty good music, things didn’t go as planned. We started getting “real jobs” and moving to different cities and eventually we just stopped. I still love all of those guys and I’m proud of their own personal journeys.

For me life took me to Orlando, FL where I graduated with a degree in Psychology with a focus on Behavioral Analysis and and even more detailed focus on criminal behavior from the University of Central Florida. That landed me a job doing social work where I was pretty miserable. My passion for music never really left so I still dabbled on the management side, but finding artists who have the same tenacity as myself was difficult so I quit and became a 9-5er. My best friend Renaldo Stewart whom is a crazy talented musician & producer and is now the head of production of the label told me that I would be back to the music and after about two years he was right.

I met a young lady who was super gifted singer-songwriter. I sent her demos to Renaldo and he immediately said he wanted to work with her. At the same time another friend of mine Joseph Ebanks who is a talented Director said he would like to shoot her music video. The only problem is they didn’t know each other, so that left me as the common denominator to run point this project, so I put on my A&R hat and got to work. I was back!!! Eventually things started clicking and Talented10th Entertainment was eventually born after some trial and error.

I chose that name for many reasons, but to giveva little context and history, W.E. De bois made the term The Talented10th popular in his published essay of the same name in 1903. The Talented Tenth is a term that designated a leadership class of African Americans in the early 20th century. I personally feel like artist and entertainers are leaders rather they like it or not, so we aren’t just developing artists, we are developing leaders. There were a few other nerd factors that went into choosing the name, but I’ll spare you those details for now.

We are a full service record label that focuses on helping artists and producers reach their full potential. I modeled the company after Motown who is known for their intense artist development program which enabled them to put out some of the greatest music and artists of all time. Because we follow Motown’s Ford factory model, we like to say we build Bentleys instead of Fords. Why Bentleys? Well Bentley’s take much longer to produce, but they hold their value for a very long time. Not only that they arent produced in mass quantity, every Bentley car and SUV is hand-built by trained artisans. From the engine to the upholstery. We put that kind of care into our music.