ATLANTA — Music impresario Michael Mauldin's
office is like a family album covering three decades of music history.
The walls are lined with plaques showing his collaborations with
everyone from Luther Vandross to Kriss Kross, Arrested Development to
Wyclef Jean.
In a music career that spans 30 years, Mauldin,
52, has worked with all these acts and dozens more. He is a largely
unknown figure who has worked in this city since long before its "Dirty
South" sound propelled it to the forefront of hip-hop culture.
Mauldin was the first African-American president
at Columbia Records, serving as head of the black music division during
the 1990s. He takes credit for promoting the careers of artists from
Alicia Keys to Bow Wow.
Yet, much of his career has been overshadowed by
the megasuccess of his son, super-producer and rapper Jermaine Dupri,
who founded So So Def Records before he was 20 and is famed for
blockbuster hits with superstars such as Mariah Carey, Usher and TLC.
Even Mauldin's own press material acknowledges that he is "often known
simply as Jermaine Dupri's dad."
But Mauldin has his own business, Artistic
Control Group, a small, Atlanta-based entertainment firm. It includes
Mauldin Brand Films, which provided production and music on the 2002
movie Like Mike, starring Bow Wow; Mauldin Brand Agency, which
manages artists and specializes in connecting corporate brands to urban
consumers; a music publishing component; and a tour-management division.
The firm has just 12 full-time employees, and
generates most of its revenue from touring and management. "It's not
uncommon to gross seven figures, and in some years, eight figures, just
in this sector of the business," Mauldin says, declining to provide
specifics.
But he's willing to discuss his family's impact
on the city's red-hot hip-hop scene. "There's been very few artists that
came out of Atlanta that Jermaine or I don't have something to do
with," Mauldin says. "We, in some sense, have been associated with
probably 60% of the artists that come from the urban hip-hop side in
Atlanta."
And, for him, it all started because there wasn't
anything much to do in Mauldin's hometown of Murphy, N.C. — and because
he just happened to own a yellow "ghetto supervan" in the mid-1970s.
Rap City
Atlanta has emerged as a major player in the
music industry, due largely to its popularity among rap stars. The ATL
is home to some of the biggest names in hip-hop: the Grammy-winning duo
Outkast; rapper-actor Ludacris; the group TLC; T.I.; and Young Jeezy and
his group Boyz N Da Hood.
The hometown roster also includes Lil John; Bobby
Brown and Whitney Houston; India.Arie; Usher; Monica; and Blaque. Diddy
has a home and a restaurant here. The group Goodie Mob, credited with
coining the term "Dirty South" in 1995, is from here.
The city might not yet be on the level of such
traditional music powerhouses as New York, Los Angeles or Nashville. But
its music scene has come a long way since 1976, when Mauldin got his
break because the Atlanta funk band Brick — whose hit singles Music Matic and Dazz were rocking clubs from Underground Atlanta to Buckhead — needed someone to haul its equipment, and Mauldin had that cool van.
Today, the city has more than 300 recording
facilities and is the driving force in a commercial music industry that
has a statewide annual economic impact of nearly $1 billion, according
to a Georgia State University study. The 2003 study estimated that the
commercial music industry statewide annually generates 8,943 jobs, $1.9
billion in gross sales and $94.7 million in tax revenue.
Much of that success is driven by Atlanta and its emergence as Rap City.
Matt Miller, an Emory University graduate student
who has studied the emergence of Southern rap for three years, says
Mauldin — along with such better-known names as Antonio "L.A." Reid,
Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Dallas Austin and Dupri — helped Atlanta
reach that point.
"I'd say he's kind of an unacknowledged,
behind-the-scenes kind of person," Miller says. "He's not very well
known outside the industry, but when you start looking into the business
side of the music, you notice his importance."
The big break
In the early 1970s, Mauldin was a member of a
racially integrated band The Other Side, which played at small clubs in
and around his hometown of Murphy, which would become famous three
decades later as the hideout of Atlanta Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph. "We
were doing our thing," Mauldin says. "I had no clue then what the music
business was about. Most of the guys had no idea. I don't know what my
career would have been like if that band had had a Michael Mauldin-type
manager."
But they didn't. So Mauldin left Murphy for
Atlanta. "I was escaping, man," he says. "Escaping from a little country
town with literally one red light."
He briefly attended DeVry University but "I ended
up getting married to Jermaine's mother in 1972," Mauldin says.
"Jermaine came along shortly after that. So here I was, 19 years old
with a son."
His big break came because of his ride. Mauldin
was trying to make it as a drummer and vocalist and driving what he
calls the "ghetto supervan": a mustard-yellow, 1971 Ford Econoline van
with a sofa in the back. In 1976, Brick was playing a club in north
Atlanta when a band member's car broke down. "They needed to get their
equipment back," Mauldin says. "A friend of mine was with the group.
They called me. We put all the equipment in the van. They were like,
'Man that's cool. We've got a gig in Savannah. Why don't you help us
with that?' "
After that, he says, the band paid him $15 to $20
per show. They later hired him as stage manager, then production
manager. He went on to work with the funk and soul group L.T.D. and
later started a touring company that provided staff and crews for groups
such as Sister Sledge, Cameo and the SOS Band. He worked with Roberta
Flack, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, Luther Vandross and Arrested
Development.
The next stage
In 1982, Mauldin put together a Diana Ross
concert at the Omni here. At one point in the show, Ross invited
children in the audience to come on stage and dance with her. Jermaine
Dupri, who was not yet 10 but an accomplished break dancer with moves
patterned after Michael Jackson's, made his way to the stage. "He was in
the center of the stage by himself and turned the Omni out," Mauldin
says. "Diana was like, 'Why you come up here and try to steal my show?' "
In the mid-1980s, Mauldin produced the New York
City Fresh Festival, a national tour featuring rap pioneers Whodini,
Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC and the Fat Boys.
At the time, rap music was in its infancy, and
Mauldin says many record executives scoffed at the new sound. "But I
believed in it. I had a kid who was spending time and learning the
beats. I know some real powerful folks that laughed at it. A lot of
those cats have changed their minds, or they're out of the business."
From 1995-99, Mauldin was president of the black
music division of Columbia Records, where he signed off on such acts as
The Fugees, Nas, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, Destiny's Child and Keys.
These days, much of Mauldin's energy is focused
on branding — on taking advantage of the popularity of hip-hop culture
to market products to urban audiences. He is trying to help NASCAR
penetrate the young African-American market. He recently signed a deal
to produce an apparel line aimed at that market. He also runs a
non-profit, Hip Hop 4 Humanity, that he founded after the Sept. 11
attacks.
But Mauldin's always on the lookout for new
talent. During a 2002 Grammy Awards brunch, he heard a singer from
Charlotte named Anthony Hamilton. "He sang Comin' From Where I'm From.
The first thing I thought was this guy would be perfect for So So Def.
The next morning, I called Jermaine. I said, 'Y'all gotta sign this
guy.' He had a record deal four months later."
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