Heavy D: The Business Of Artistry

November 19th, 2008

I remember when I was at Uptown records, I was a Senior VP at Universal. I had great success. I had Monifa, Soul For Real, I had me. I had great success there. But there is nothing artistic about running a label. It made me realize how much of an artist I am. I remember going to Doug Morris who is one of my favorite people on the planet, there was a buyout that went on for 12 billion, and I remember saying you gotta make this back fast. I knew it was going to turn into a machine, and it was going to turn into a machine where the creativity and artist development started going out the window. We just had to make money. I couldn’t turn into that guy so I went to Doug and I was like I love you but I’m not going to be the guy to do this. It takes two or three years to break an artist. I’m not built for that, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m not a business man that way. I love finding the artist, cultivating the talent, producing the records and letting the management and the system take it from there.

At the same time, I was focused on my acting and I fell in love with doing theater and acting, and you could do it ‘til you take your last breath. It changed my life little by little. And it put me in a great place and it made me realize a lot of different things. There will always ALWAYS be the struggle between commerce and art. It’s the natural progression. But because of money and the power of it, commerce will always win. You take a Talib Kweli who is brilliant; he will never sell as many records. It probably has less to do with people not wanting to hear it, I’m sure there’s an equivalent amount of people who want to hear it, but it’s there. You have somebody like Mos Def, who says, I’m not making another record, until you guys promote it right. I’m gonna go do whatever I do. Or he might just be crazy to begin with who knows. You can’t tell somebody to walk away from a million dollars. I wouldn’t, especially when it’s legal, and you aren’t killing anybody and most of these cats’ upstart labels started with drug money and they had a chance to clean themselves up. It’s a big deal.

Kanye is the person I respect the most right now, because he pushes the bar. He’s the dude. I love the bravery, you put yourself out there, go be an artist.

–HEAVY D. Heavy D.’s Vibes CD will be available in stores on Dec. 16

TAGS: business vs. art, Heavy D, hip hop, Kanye West, Mos Def, Talib Kweli

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