No Need To Ask with Amani Duncan
No Need To Ask with Amani Duncan
No Need to Ask | A Conversation with Music Industry Leader Tina Davis, Part 1
Welcome to another episode of No Need to Ask podcast. My name is Amani Duncan and I will be your host on this journey.
Today’s guest holds a great significance in my life. Tina Davis was the person who gave me my first job in the music industry; Tina Davis was my Day one. I owe so much to Tina as she was a shining example of a powerful woman in the male-dominated music industry. In my early days at Def Jam, she was the Head of A&R (Artist & Repertoire) and a person I wanted to be just like.
On Part 1 of the episode you will hear her the story of her professional journey that spanned Def Jam, manager for one of today’s global superstars to Head of A&R for Empire Records.
Please make sure you have a pen and paper ready because there will be a lot of information shared and tips on how to be resilient and successful.
The second part of the conversation will go live later in the week, so make sure to subscribe! Oh and please feel free to leave a review.
Until we meet again, be safe and be well.
So today's guest. She means a lot to me. And I know you guys have heard her name on previous episodes of no need to ask podcasts. You've heard me talk about her constantly because she really had a huge impact and still does on my life as most of you know, I wrote a book and the book is part autobiographical, and also, you know, um, gives you helpful business tips, life tips. And during the editing process, the editor pointed something out to me and she said she was confused. She said, in one part of the book, you talk about Kevin Liles, the founder CEO of 300 entertainment a lot, and your days working with him at Def jam. And then she goes on to say, but you also talk about this woman named Tina Davis and you refer to Kevin as you're day one, but yet you started your career with Tina. It was one of those moments that I really had to take pause and sit with what she said for a minute. You know, it's, it's interesting how we women in the business were so eager to try to make an impression, especially in an industry that's so male dominated that you subconsciously find yourself not giving credit where credit is due. And so I wanted to take this time to publicly apologize to my friend, Tina Davis, for not recognizing and giving her the acknowledgement that she truly deserves. Tina Davis is my day one, no offense to Kevin Liles. But Tina Davis is my day one. She took a chance on this college kid. She taught me how to be strong and how to work in an environment that is so male dominated and not have my voice muted. So today's guests means a lot to me and Tina, I am sorry for not acknowledging you as my day one. And I don't even know the reasons why and the reasons why don't, they don't even matter. It was just wrong. And it was unjust to you.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 1:Welcome to another episode of no need to ask podcast. My name is Amani Duncan, and I will be your host on this journey. I am so honored and grateful to have the Tina Davis as my guest on today's show. Welcome Tina.
Speaker 3:Uh, wow. Thank you. That just threw me for a loop, but you know what, I, I thank you for even saying that that means more to me than you could ever imagine.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you for being so gracious. So Tina Davis, you guys Google her like she is responsible for so much. We're going to actually pull back the layers of the onion as much as we can. And this will actually be part one of our conversation because it's simply impossible to put everything that you need to know about Tina Davis within one episode. So please take a moment, grab a pen and a pad because there will be a lot of notes that you need to take during this particular episode. So Tina, where do we even begin? I mean, I don't even know where to begin, so I want to go back to, you know, I always want to go back to people's like the beginning of people's journeys, the reason why someone wanted to be a doctor or lawyer or in the music industry. And I really want the people to hear this story because when you started out, especially on the creator side, can I count on one hand the women that were actually creating the music we're actually running a and R departments within a major record label. So take us back to the reason why you were even interested in delving into an industry that was so deficient with women and especially women of color.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, it's, it's crazy because you know, when you're in it, you don't think about that. You don't think about, Hey, you know what? Um, there aren't a lot of women in ANR. I just had a dream. I just had a goal to work with artists, learn artists, learn the business. I want it to be creative. Um, I mean, I, I look back to when I was in diapers with my father playing the tar and my mother's singing and my brothers singing. And in a third grade, I started giving concerts at recess from my, my, you know, colleagues, you know, doing all the records that my mother and father played on the radio and then, you know, playing classical piano for 11 years. And it just, to me, it's, it's the path that was given to me. Um, I look back at around 27 and say, okay, what is this, what am I going to do? What, what is, what is God's path for me? Cause that's really, what's important for me. What is God's path for me? What am I supposed to do? And at that time I was at grandma's state and I was studying, um, mass communications. I want to be Oprah. I wanted to be a reporter, but at the time I had a love for music and a friend of mine LaRonda Sutton was working in music and her husband was also working. Darrell Sutton was working in music. He was the vice president of an or for Virgin. And she was, um, in a publishing company, I think EMI at the time. And at Grambling, you know, we had Erica Badu, we had different people there and it was just a natural love for it. And after awhile I decided, you know what, I want to go get in the music business. So it was, but before that, um, hip hop was introduced to me when I was about 13, really young and I wanted to work for Russell Simmons. That's all I wanted to do was work for Russell Simmons. Wow. And I wanted to work for Def jam because I saw that Russell had Def jam. He was working with the artists who was finding talent. And that was when I realized what position actually want to find the talent and nurture the talent to put them out. So I said, that's what I want to do. I want to immediately sign Richie rich from, from, um, Oakland, because he's, he's the best rapper in the Bay area to me. So fast forward. And, um, the Rhonda asked me to come work for her at Christmas music publishing as her assistant. And at that time she literally told me, listen, we're best friends. We go back. So after about a year, we're going to be at each other's throats. So this one year, and this time I'm going to let you go. Just so spread your wings. Wow. And literally a year later she was like, you got go. And I was, I was totally stunned, but lo and behold, she's, you know, helping me all along. And, um, it just turned out, you know, Paul Stewart had PMP and Def jam and, and he said, Hey, yeah, you know, I hear you're going, you're leaving Chrysalis. Are you open to come work for Def jam? So I said, um, I, I want to know more about it, but I'm excited to come work at an R for Def jam. Now it was just for an, our admin and I was inside an ANR. And I said anything to get me closer to the real record business. Cause to me, publishing was in the business, right. Dealing with the artists directly. Right. So, and I also told him, I said, and if I do come, I need Def jam to be on my check. That's what I need that for me. He said, well, if I do that, then I need to put you on the phone with Leo Cohen, everyone. Yes. Cohen. And I said, okay, let's go. That's right. So, and again, I'm not thinking, Oh, I'm one of the only black women that wants to do. And are now there were other women, Vivian Chu and others that I was looking up to that were mentors that didn't even know me. Cause I was like assistant at the time that I was looking up to, you know, they're all a lot of Cassandra meals, wrong women in the music business and running departments. And our, there weren't as many women hip hop, there were little or none. There was Judy Dickson before me. Um, there weren't that many. Right. But I didn't care that wasn't about it. Wasn't about that. It was what I wanted to do. So he put me on the phone with your, and it was my interview. And Leo said, okay. So tell me why you want to work for Def jam. I gave him my spiel about hip hop and Russell Simmons and Def jam. And he said, okay. He says, you know, my company's janky. Right. I can't believe he said that. And I said, it's janky. I said, okay, well cool. He said, I said, if it's janky, thank you for telling me that, because I know when you do some janky shit is to be expected. And he laughed. And he said, you're hired. And I went from there and started crying too. Because at that time it was very hard. There was someone before me who wasn't necessarily closing the deals and trying to work out situations with studios around the area part because of the teams I had to clean that up. And then, um, somehow PMP split from Def jam and the are asking me to run Def jam on the West coast. And he wanted me to look for, you know, get all of our equipment and move this. We found an office. And in that process I found this song and that song was, this is how we do it. Montell Jordan to this day, those him, his wife, his family, they are beautiful people. They are, they are just beautiful people. Um, but that was the beginning of my and our career. And what a hit. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean, you came out of the gate like gang busters.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man. It was, it was a blessing because at that time we didn't have a lot of people and you know, you could do a little bit of marketing, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. We had more than one job. We just did whatever was needed. Exactly. So at that point I was like, okay, we're moving to a new office. And I think that was close to around the time when you started calling Charlie. Yeah. I have somebody in here. Somebody has to answer the phone and do it. It makes me rest in peace. So when you kicked in and I tell this story
Speaker 1:All the time, like I had just graduated from college and had a complete meltdown and decided one morning I was going to work in the music business.
Speaker 3:I looked in the yellow pages, found Def jam West called and you answered the phone.
Speaker 1:And I went into my little like recent college. You were just like show up tomorrow. I was like, uh, okay. Okay.
Speaker 3:I think,
Speaker 1:Okay. And the rest is history, man. I remember sitting in your office or one of the offices and trying to transcribe lyrics. I was like, what is Reddit?
Speaker 3:I can't
Speaker 1:Like rewind, rewind, rewind.
Speaker 3:Like it was just
Speaker 1:Fall in and figure it out.
Speaker 3:And you would give me these contracts
Speaker 1:Or build out a BMI contract. You know what I mean? And I'm like splits and what the, but you were just like, figure it out. And you gave me the courage to just figure it out. And you know what I mean? And you were just so instrumental. And I was like, this woman is incredible
Speaker 3:To see you interact with
Speaker 1:Chris Lighty and Lee, your and Kevin, like, I was like, wow, this woman is I'm going to be her. I'm going to be like her. You know, I was like, she's showing me how to represent. And you were so you're so respected and you did it on your terms. And gosh, Montel was just the beginning. I mean, you create it, tell the people you created death bowl.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Def so yeah. How did that,
Speaker 1:I mean, that was such a great time. I mean, how did that come about what made you say, okay, w we're masters, you know, in hip hop, we are literally literally running the game. Okay. Why not?
Speaker 3:How did that come about? It's so crazy because, um, we had case was already signed at the time and, and this is how we do it was built, obviously did great. And we were moving forward with other projects with him. Um, and we started getting other artists, we had milk and stuff. And what I realized is that for years when we sent and at that time, radio was key. You'd couldn't move without having radio. Absolutely nothing would move without it. So I had, I thought about it and I said, you know what? Every time we send a record to radio with our logo, because our logo was on every single record. It didn't matter if it was method, man, red man LL cool. J we had our bright that's right. Brian was bigger than the artists and the employees took the logo. And I realized that being in mind, you prior to me, even, even getting into music when I was in college to pay for my books and some of my other things, my fun, um, I was on air. I was an on air personality. I was literally doing my homework and programming, whatever they were listening to in the city next to Grambling, which was rust in Louisiana. I was at my, my on air personality name was prophet T. So, but I, I realized then even when I was programming, then you couldn't put a lot of reps in and out. They weren't allowing rep to take over that hour. So that being said, I said, you know, we need to maybe put Def soul on the things that are R and B, so that when it is sent to radio, they know to differentiate between our rep stuff and our R and B stuff, because they won't program it. If they think it's just another RMB, a rap record. Wow. Thought it was brilliant. Paid me for the idea. And we trademarked it and stamped depths on everything that was R and B. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So smart. And that's the one thing that I have to cause I haven't found it really. I mean, those years at Def jam were so special and the way we, you know, and I say, we, because we were all so invested in running the company, you know, and Leo just gave us the license to own a piece of the company. You know what I mean? And it really taught us how, at least it taught me how to stretch, how to know something about each department. So that, I mean, we could have all left and ran our own record labels easily, easily. You know what I mean? Because we, there was no closed doors. Like if you want it to sit in Kevin's office and here, you know, just listen to him, do radio calls, which I did. And that taught me how to close because Kevin was a closer, we all know Kevin Liles closed all day every day, but to hear him close, I was like, I'm just getting like a master's class. You know what I mean? To watch you identify, you know, this is going to be a hit. Like this is the one not everybody can do that. I know everybody thinks they can, they can pick a hit. They can't, you know what I mean? I learned so much from just observing you and being able to listen in on these top level conversations. It, it really well rounded us. And I think the one takeaway the most prominent takeaway, and I think everyone says it, but they were hard on us. You know, there, there was no room for excuses and that was tough. You know, we were young. We were, you know, a lot of times this was like our first year
Speaker 3:Real job, you know? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1:It's hard, but it taught us. There's always a soul.
Speaker 3:Yes. Don't I don't want to, I don't want to hear about it. Exactly. Lastly, you are would say that all the time, don't leave a stone unturned. Exactly. You come to me, every stone better be turned off. Cause he's going to pick it apart. Has he's going to find a stop. He's going to find it. He's going to find it. You're like boom.
Speaker 1:And him and Kevin with the, make it happen. I don't care. Make it happen between both of them. You had no refuge.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm going to try to figure this out.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I'm just going to use it.
Speaker 3:Every resource, everyone I know. And we're going to make it happen. And the thing is we always did. Yeah, we did. Every single time made it happen. When I started at Def jam. Kevin was the head of promotions. Yes. The president at that time, you know, we were like sisters and brothers desks. We can argue and turn around and still hug each other on the way out, go to dinner, have a drink, have a drink. It was never personal. We accepted each other's passion and women. A lot of times in corporate settings or in those types of settings, they feel like, Oh, you guys are just emotional. No, they knew that we were the passion. And at that time, by the time you got there, especially there were women all over that lot of women running different, um, projects, we were strong. We were balanced. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes. And that, that really, you know, when you're a young kid, a young woman coming up, I mean that to see, you know, that there's a tribe. I mean, that's just like, I can, you know, we can lean on each other and we can make anything.
Speaker 3:It was great. It was so great. How long were you with Def jam? 10 years. Wow. 10 years. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1:And you know, we can't forget under that imprint death, soul. I mean music, soul child. I mean, there was just,
Speaker 3:I mean, you were just killing it. I mean, I's, Lee's Patty. I mean, he was just like, Oh my gosh, you were killing it.
Speaker 1:So you're over there at the height of the height. Why like what prompted you to journey?
Speaker 3:What the regime changed, Russell Lee or Kevin Julie. Everybody left. Yes. And, um, I was one of the few people who were still there and at an LA re came in and I actually knew LA Reed prior to working at Def jam really young in the Chrysalis days because now pass was signed to Chrysalis. Right. So I got a chance to meet him and Babyface and Tracey Edmonds and the family. So I kind of introduced them to Lee or, and Russell. Wow. I had already known them. So when LA came in, you know, I was like, okay, this is all he let me just go and do even more or do even better than I did before I was there for about six months after everybody left six months, I signed Neil. I tried to invite a few other people, but I learned so much from LA in just that six months.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute, we have to pause because I need people. These are the gyms. Tina Davis signed Neo. Y'all like, she says it like, it's just, you know, like nothing, but this is a woman in the business, a black woman in the business and signing acts that are worldwide at this point. So I'm sorry. I just needed to take that moment and acknowledge these gyms. Okay.
Speaker 3:Carry on. Yeah, man. So I, you know, I signed them and um, LA of course was like, you know what? I love Neo. He's amazing. I need somebody younger. I really need someone younger that can dance that, give me another usher or something. And I had Chris Brown, but I wanted to Def jam. Cause I wasn't sure if he was gonna let me go. Cause usually when regimes change, they let you go. He's going to eventually let me go. You know? And so I said, well, you know what? It doesn't hurt. Let me just play it form. So just in case, so I played it for him. He was like, who is this guy? Whoa, to meet this kid. And by this time I already gone to Virginia. I've asked him to come in because LA used to have, you know, people coming to office have to perform so you can actually see how they would perform and see whether they had the it factor. Right. So I had them come in and I said, okay, I need you to perform for all my assistants in my department. So he performed and he was cracking and things like that. It wasn't as clear as you would want it to be. But he was a 13 year old kid, you know? So I turned around and said, listen, I want you to go and perform for my counterpart, Karen Kwok. And then I want you to go to LA, but I want you to first fix these little things that I need you to work on, which is here, I'm giving, I'll give you some tea, so you're not cracking. But what I'd like for you to do is I'm going to put more people in the room and I'm going to bring them in, in the room as well. And he said, okay. And I said, I want you to only sing to the women, do not sing to the men. Okay. Acknowledge them when they come in and say hello, but when you start singing, sing to the women, respectfully grabbed their hand. When you say, Hey there, Hey girl, you know, act this out for me. I said, and the main woman will probably be sitting at her desk. When you finish on your last note, I want you to go to her and get on your knee and sing for. And he said, okay, I love it. How old was he at this time? He was 13. Oh my goodness. 13. So I brought him in, he sang for her and she was like, Oh my God. I was like, LA is next. I like, for real, she was like, Oh my God, he's a star. So she's hidden LA I had already hit LA. So by the time we finished, that was like, okay. LA is like, bring them up. We put, we did it. I told them again. Now we're going to have more people again. I want you to only talk to the women. Don't even look at LA your whole performance. I'm out of respect, but I need you to make sure you talk to the women, touch their face
Speaker 5:Respectfully. Right, right.
Speaker 3:And he said, okay. I said, and again, fine, whatever woman you choose, but I want you on your last note, on your knee singing. The last note, he said, Oh, he murdered it. Of course he did killed it. And of course you did LA stood up and was like, what? So long story short in that time we started negotiating his deal on Thursday. LA LA my mind you let me take two steps back. LA gave me a contract for three years.
Speaker 5:Okay. At this point. Right? Okay. Lock you in. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It might be, keep trying to keep me okay. Yeah, because my contract was up. So yeah. And one day Montell Jordan's wife came to my office and I was holding the contract. Cause I was like, I don't know. Am I gonna, should I look at somebody else? Should I talk to someone else? My attorney was reaching out to other people, other labels, acid, man. I don't know if I want to go back to another label though, because I did leave Def jam for seven months and worked at Columbia. And I didn't like it. I said, I don't know. And she came in the office. She said, you know what, babe? I'm in LA, in New York. And God told me to come in here and tell you if LA has you to sign another contract, sign it because he's probably going to fire you right after it. This is just her saying this to me. He's probably going to fire you right after that. But God is telling me to tell you this, to sign it. So you have security for the next three or four years. And I said, I said, Oh, you are. Like, I told you, all I need is for you. God is I follow what he brings to me. It's my, his path. Right? It's my path. So I signed a contract. No problem. So going back to where Chris was negotiating his contract, his attorney wasn't negotiating the contract on Thursday. We worked out the last deal term on Monday, Chris was coming to New York to take the signing photo. You know, back then we used to have signing
Speaker 5:Photos in the conference room. Everyone's hovering around
Speaker 3:That Monday. He was supposed to come well, Friday morning, I get to the office and human resources asked me to come upstairs. We've negotiated the last term on Thursday, Friday, I get up. I drop everything on my desk and go upstairs. By the time I'm done, they've let me go. They've given me my severance package. Nice. And I said, okay. They, they didn't escort me out. They just asked me to leave today. So I went down to my desk to grab my purse and grabbed my phone. And the phone was ringing when I got into my office and it was Chris. And he said, ms. Tina, don't go to work. They're going to fire you today.
Speaker 5:Wait, how did he know that?
Speaker 3:I said, how do you know that? He said, cause they called me and said that they want me to still sign. Even though they're going to let go of Tina Davis. And I said, what I say, wow. I said, sweetie, honestly, it's okay. I, wow. Let me go. And if there is anything, I don't care. If I'm at a label or not, you are the next Michael Jackson and you are special. And if there's anything I can do to help you call me, I'm here. So that Saturday, his mother and, and Chris and his mother called me and said, would you mind being our manager? What I said, absolutely. I would love to be your manager. Now, mind you, I didn't want to be anybody's manager. Right? We'll never want it to be a manager. Right? You don't do, you know, look at Chris Brown and know what it is and ignore that. Exactly. So I said, okay, well I can't work in another company because otherwise my severance packages void it. This is what God's plan is for me. Oh my God, Tina. So I ended up, I said, well, do you want to try a couple other labels since I'm no longer at Def jam? And I'm your manager. Cause I can reach out to other labels. And since they don't even know who you are, they aware that we're getting ready to sign the next Michael Jackson. So when I do that, I can up your deal. Exactly. And he said, okay. I said, so by Wednesday I had five other offers on the table.
Speaker 5:It's been beside himself.
Speaker 3:He was beside himself. But he was more beside himself when Chris said, I want to meet with Def jam, but I want to, I want LA and Karen Kwok and everybody in the room, but I want you on the other side of the table with us. And I want to see what they're and feel their energy and see how they act in that space.
Speaker 5:And I was like, okay,
Speaker 3:If you go at Def jam, it'll be good business. I'm not going to, I don't have any hurt feelings by this. This has been right. Exactly. Exactly. And this happens all the time when you have a regime change. So just know that. And he said, okay, so we got in there and we sat with him on the other and LA and Karen, Oh, we love Tina. We love Tina. And Chris said, well, why'd you let her go? Well, because you know, we have a new regime and we have multiple people in that same position we left elec. Chris said, no, I don't believe them. But LA put usher on the phone with him. So they were all trying to do certain things to get him. The thing is, is before Leo and Kevin even saw Chris, they sent an offer to me that doubled with Def jam had on the table. Wow. If you want me telling, listen, this kid is it. So I had already had that. Um, but we went and met with several other people, including jive and Kurt. And you know, Chris said, well, slate and Johnson told me that jive is horrible with their black artists. And I need to not work for John or sign a jive. I said, you should go into jive form. Like it's the best performance that you're going to give regardless because the chatter and the business helps to build this momentum. And he said, exactly. I said, just go have fun. I said, okay. He killed it. Of course, before we got, when we got downstairs, I said, we shouldn't have let you leave the building. Please don't leave the building. I said, I'm already on my way to his attorney's office. He's hungry. I'm getting something to eat. And then over to the attorney, I'm trying to make a deal within the next two or three days. So by the time he went to lunch and got back, the deal was even doubled. So now we have like two, 3 million on the table versus like, God. So we chose jive because they had experience with, um, younger artists that are, and they also provide it homeschooling and paid for. It. Had a whole separate budget for that. No one else even thought of that. No one else even considered that we went with jive and the rest is history, but that's what made me leave.
Speaker 1:Tina. I am literally on the edge of my seat. I mean, I thought I knew everything about you and I'm just finding more and more gyms, friends. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Part one as much as I did. And you have to stay tuned for part two. We need to find out more about Tina's for Ray, into management and with one of the biggest global artists today. So Tina, thank you. And I look forward to chatting with you again for part two of a conversation with Tina Davis.
Speaker 3:Yes. Thank you. This was awesome.