DEDICATED TO THE LIFE AND WORK OF TUPAC SHAKUR 1971-1996 THE MOST MIMEIN RADIO ISSUE 2123 SEPTEMBER 20 199 It's been s evious the last couple of years. Hip hop needs and deserves a seminar to call its own. We are proud to present it,in the form of The Sessions, Vol. 1. As with our A3 summit in Boulder, our A&R- intensive Gavin Presents SFO gather- \ ings. our breakout Country ppppSeminar, and fissIO the new Alternative Bootamp, there are twin goals for the Sesions in Oakland: education and ent ment. In f Sessions' subtitle is: The Educational Hip Hop Summit. To set the table for what we hope will be a beneficial and insightful as well as a fun weekend, Rap Editor Thembisa S. Mshaka and her crew have put together this special 6th anniversary (of Gavin charting rap) issue. Besides the full Sessions agenda, we've got Yo Yo, the Renaissance rapper OBS her album title says, total control. Chuck D: much more than history. And E-40, one of 40 - Six Years in iota plus performers who'll be playing at the Sessions. Plus: Sista Presidents, label leading ladies Lisa Cortes of Loose Cannon, Leila Steinberg of Control of the Alien, and Quinetta Chelsea of LTC. Also: the impact of "pirate radio" on rap, and Best of the Bay, with with Yo Yo, E-4 hip hop movers & shakers. Thembisa and Quincy McCoy reflect on the tra y of the loss of essm sVo Tupac Shakur. A our First Person is ChrisScew , CEO of RuffHouse Records. It's a packed issue, so hip hop to it. 1-41 CHUCK U 13ab s. Jeitre;)7JodyHoward WatleyLL LanielsFeaturing Hewett Cool and. J 11#1h4/46AWILIZIP6 On41111r-,444,yourdesk now. Going for Adds_ September4 24th. Producedhttp://wuw.t,on.com bo nabiace tor "xpiemeAr andProductionu,Management:Reg. Inc. nenry Pat.Co-produced Medina/llandprinl x Pm. O. bdLarva Tiab;iiace PegitArada./ Entertainment ior ECAP0 1996 Production.:, Jong Muulx Entertainment Inc. & LL Cool Inc. J. epocrecordsgrmerepic A First Person Inside As TOLDToKEVIN ZIMMERMAN 4 News 9 That's Sho Biz 10 Friends of RadioFaith Newman 28 Classifieds Chris Schwartz Al The Sessions Vol. 1 SRup conference lands in On Settling `The Score' at RuffHouse Oakland, Ca. September 26-28. Our handy pull -put guide Chris Schwartz is the CEO of wide- then it becomes obvious (which starts on page 29 of this RuffHouse Records, the six year -old to both parties that something like issue) introduces the sights, Philly-based label whose successes this needs to happen. scenes, and sounds that will include records by Kris Kross, What it means to RuffHouse is make Sessions special. Also Cypress Hill and-most notably- more operating income. We now included in the Program are our the Fugees, whose current album get a 50 percent share of the prof- The Score has sold more than 6.4 its, where before it was 20 percent, regular Rap, Mixshow, Urban, million copies worldwide. Here and we had to pay out the acts. rill 1,',,,.!gfie sections. Schwartz discusses the Fugees, the This is a move to the next level, FORMATS restructuring of RuffHouse's like what happened with Geffen 11 Top 40'reaching Top 40 arrangement with Sony from a dis- Records or Sire. Top 40 Profile:( anuwine tribution deal to a straight co -ven- We're also in talks with four of 13 Go Char. ture, and its imminent entry into the big publishing companies, and 14 Jazz music publishing. with some people in the investment On Z Corner: AFoundation banking community, about starting /hr the jazz Fallen Chris Schwartz our own publishing entity, focusing What caught my attention 15 Smooth Jazz & Vocals with The Fugees was that it kept going back and remixing the on young writer/producer signings 18 Gavin Americana TMBig Blue was all about performance. singles, and we sent them to and catalog acquisitions. They had an audition for us in their Europe three times, which has real- The philosophy is to take a cata- Hearts ral a Red Hot Trail management office, and it was unbe- ly paid off. log and have a song done by a new 21 Gavin RocksIt's Over for lievable. I was personally getting The setup on the first record was act, sort of like what happened with 'Mind ()Err Metal" very bored with hip -hop; you'd go really a textbook way of breaking the Fugees recording "Killing Me Rock Profile:Manowar to these shows and see these acts an act. If I was teaching a course on Softly," and in that way increasing 24 Alternative who'd sold hundreds of thousands how to break an act, I'd use the the value of the copyright. I don't Static:Seconds? Thanks, of records, and they'd just stand Fugees as the total example. want to just be signing rock bands Rut I'm Full there. That wasn't enough for me. The first album is a startup tool. If for $200,000 publishing deals. 86 Adult Contemporary The Fugees' show was a full you can sell a lot of records, that's [RuffHouse president] Joe Nicolo Inside A/C:ittlitizerSongs '96 theatrical presentation, although I great. But with the second and third and I are basically records guys- 92 A' Album Adult Alternative wasn't quite sure where they were records you can start garnering we'd never had the patience to get going musically. It was such a cor- those big sales. into the whole nomenclature of pub- Extension 606: nucopia: rap, hip -hop, R&B, and a And a great live show can get you lishing. We had a publishing co -ven- Postcard From Dublin whole island flavor to it. through a shitty record. Aerosmith ture with Sony when the company 102 College Don't Tamper I didn't think The Score would be for a lot of years were doing what a was new, hut we didn't put the time With Patti Smith this big this fast. I thought it would lot of people thought were substan- and effort into it. If we had paid 104 Country be a double platinum record, but dard records, hut their live show attention to it,it would have been K7PK: Tailormade for Topeka not quadruple platinum within one kept them going. great to have a publishing company and a half months. And the reason Our new deal with Sony is basi- to mirror the record company. I feel for it,I think, is that talent wins out. cally 50/50-not unlike what like we wasted five years. NEXT WEEK But we worked their first album Uptown did with MCA. We We've always tried to be more Fourth Quarter for over two and a half years, and it approached them about it a cou- than just a record label. That's part Predictions ended up at close to 140,000 at ple of months ago, and it came of why we run Studio 4 near Our Top 40 department takes its SoundScan. Two years into it, we together very quickly. When you Philadelphia. Recording gold and annual look at the year-end were still selling 400 to 600 a week, start to sell records at the volume platinum records is great, but spate of releases... and the coin- which told us that the Fugees were that we were-since 1989 we've owning a piece of those records is ciding football season. finding nt.w fanst'N el\\',('t 'k\X.(' soldin-'')() million records world- even better.GAVIN Plus: A Return Journey The '70s supeigmup njuiles First Words another go at the top. In an ironic stroke of synchronicity, our first hip hop summit, cess is not only acceptable; it takes The Sessions, Vol. 1, takes place in the immediate aftermath priority over stability and maturity. of the death of Tupac Shakur. That, along with other aspects of It is inevitable, then, that 2Pac will be Topic A-and B, and 2Pac's life and work, is debatable. Founded by 11W Gavin -1958 C-over the weekend in Oakland. It is also appropriate. The Sessions offers a forum for such The Sessions is primarily about learning, and 2Pac, in life and discussions. Here's to a weekend of GAVIN is published 50 weeks a year on Friday of each death, offers many lessons. He exemplified the contradictions learning from each other and of week Subscription Rates $325 for 50 issues or $180 of art and success. Talented but tortured, he was barbaric working with each other for the good of the rap com- for 25 issues. Subscription and circulation inquiries: (415) 495-1990. All rights to any or all of the contents toward some women, but generous to those who brought him munity, and of the community beyond. of this publi, ation are reserved. Materials may not he up and made him whole. He was brutally honest about the reproduced n any form without the publisher's permission. holes in his soul. He was a savvy molder of his own image; yet, ©1996 GAVIN. Miller Freeman Entertainment Group unable to compromise, he did and said things he shouldn't 140 Second Street, San Francisco have, and, apparently, paid the ultimate price. Ben Fong -Torres California 9-1105, USA EIBBleiey,#!ef.,11,r4p, wanting and flaunting money and suc- Managing Editor mg, Miller Freeman A L nixed News & Media company at INK GAVIN SEPTEMBER 20, 1996 "Some people had Elvis. Some people had (John) Lennon. The hip -hop community had 2Pac." -L.D.