By: Kalia Inman
In the back half of February, at Bergen’s Ciccone Theatre, the Bergen Office of Multicultural Services and Activities held an opening ceremony to commemorate Black History Month. The honorary keynote speaker for the two-hour event was Michael “Blue” Williams. Williams is the head of Family Tree Entertainment and is most recognized for being the manager of OutKast, the famous hip-hop duo.
The event commenced with multiple speeches from members of the Bergen Office of Multicultural Services and Activities, Board of Trustees members, and a special speech from President Friedman.
After about an hour and fifteen minutes of speeches, Williams finally was announced onto the stage. In addition to Williams’s announcement, the audience welcomed the student interviewer, Amanda Halliday.
With the help of guided questions from Halliday, the audience gained insight into Williams’ backstory and advice about the music industry.
Williams grew up in the Bronx, three blocks away from the birthplace of hip-hop. “I was one of those kids that you’d see in the parks plugging things into the lights. DJs set up a whole stand. There would be kids over there break dancing,” he adds. This was where his love for hip-hop truly formed. However, at that moment, he wasn’t considering a career in music management.
In reality, even when going to college, Williams didn’t know what he wanted to do at all. While he figured things out, he started with the college’s prerequisites. There he considered obtaining a juris doctor (JD) degree. It wasn’t until Williams met a couple of business professors that things started to click.
“By my senior year, I realized that we weren’t being taught how to be entrepreneurs,” Williams explains. “We were being taught how to kind of blend into society. How to get a job. How to keep a job. Be a good worker. And so, the entrepreneur in me started to think, the best way to learn and to hopefully eventually be your boss and have your own business is to get out and get your hands dirty,”
Williams claims that attending Central State University, an HBCU–Historically Black College and University–was the best thing that could have happened to him. It was his “first sense of seeing other people from other places that weren’t all from New York,” he says. The institution also taught him one of the greatest life skills one could have: perseverance.
“You’re going to run into hiccups with housing, with student loans, and things. And you kind of learn to perceive and to push through. You don’t give up,” Williams advises.
The first chapter of Williams’ journey with music began with the R&B duo, Jodeci. After recognizing one of Jodeci’s dancers from high school, Williams went backstage to meet the girls. That night, he not only got to meet the musicians but also received an invitation to come along with them to Detroit. Williams answered, “Yeah, I’d meet y’all there,” although Dayton, Ohio, the location of the school, was three hours away from Detroit. After arriving in Detroit, Williams hung out with the guys and also backstage. The next day, when was invited by Jodeci to Chicago, Williams responded in the same manner, hopped into the car, and drove three hours again.
After spending the weekend with them Williams admitted, “There’s an energy that you get with being backstage and the passes and moving around and everything. I kind of caught the bug and was like, oh, this is cool.”
Soon after, an opportunity arose to go on tour with MC Hammer. According to Williams’ account, “It was an opportunity to go out with them on the lowest level you can go, like $250 a week and you do all the jobs nobody wants to do.”
This did not bother Williams at all and he jumped at the task with enthusiasm. His mother, who’s a college professor, is a doctor who is very very much into education, told him no. Williams then proceeded to call his grandmother, who gave him the go-ahead and encouraged him to “live his life.”
According to Williams, the experience of touring with artists such as Jodeci, MC Hammer, and Boys II Men, truly opened him up to so many things. “As a lot of you may not know or may not ever realize yet when you grow up in New York, or the Tri-state Area, we do think that we’re the center of the universe, especially back then,” he claims.
Touring with Jodeci also taught Williams that no one is ever too good for any job. “You can learn something from every job you take. It may not seem like the job you went in for. It may not be the job you applied for. But, if you can get your foot in the door, work hard [and] make yourself invaluable at any position you go for. Make yourself invaluable, then you hopefully can grow in that position. And eventually, when you don’t feel like you’re growing anymore, sometimes you can leave, and that can be scary,” he adds.
Working and witnessing MC Hammer’s work ethic greatly influenced Williams’ work ethic as well. MC Hammer was an American rapper and dancer, whose most notable hit song “U Can’t Touch This” earned him two Grammy awards: Best R&B Song and Best Rap Solo. Williams referred to Hammer as the “James Brown of hip hop” and expressed he doesn’t get enough credit. He continues, “He worked six nights a week. He gave the fans in LA the same show he gave the fans in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He worked every night. He didn’t take any of the fans’ money for granted. He knew that people came out to see him every night, so he gave the best show.”
He emphasized to the audience at Bergen the value of persistence and patience when making decisions. It’s not a guarantee that one will find their stride by the time two or three years have passed. Sometimes it takes ten years and sometimes one may experience setbacks, which is where patience and resilience come into play. Williams states, “We always think that the destination is the goal. But as someone who has been and done a lot of stuff, I’m telling you the journey is what you pay attention to. The journey! What you guys are doing right now? School, the friendships that you’re making, the relationships that you’re building, this journey is what you’re going to remember.”
One of Williams’ setbacks was when R&B singer Mary J Blige fired him as her bodyguard. According to Williams, the experience sent him home feeling embarrassed and weird. He wasn’t sure if that firing would mean the end of his music industry career. However, six months later the vocal trio SWV invited him out and he was back in the industry once again. One of Williams’ most difficult setbacks was OutKast’s decision to break up: “It was a tough thing to adjust to because we’ve been together twelve years. We’ve done so much, we reached such heights, and then it’s kind of like space. So, I had to kind of find the hunger again,” he says.
Williams shared some of the “mottos” he uses to guide him. The first one he spoke about was that one can learn from everybody. “Listen, a lot of people get around people, famous people, bigger people, or the people they look up to and they think they need to just talk to them. Sometimes you need to just sit there and listen and soak up the information,” he says. “Appreciate the access that you have to whoever that person is. I had great mentors in the industry who would let me come and kind of shadow them or just come and listen to their work. And I picked up those jewels.” He advised the community that if you can get into those rooms and be around smarter people, do it: “It may feel awkward, it may feel uncomfortable, but that’ll pass and then you’ll be collecting knowledge.”
As an example, Williams referenced Shakim Compere, a film producer who also manages rapper and actress Queen Latifah. Williams credits Compere as the gentleman who placed him in his first managerial position. Compere convinced Williams to come work for him, at Flavor Unit Entertainment, by telling him he “was never going to get rich working for someone else.” At the time Williams indicated that he was never going to get rich being on the road providing security and road management for people. Instead, he should work for Flavor because he would make more money.
However, after three years of working at Flavor, Williams learned the deeper significance of what Shakim Compere shared with him: Williams was never going to get rich working for Compere either. This notion compelled him to venture out and form Family Tree Entertainment to get rich. His reason was, “because no matter what, Flavor Unit was their company, and so I was still going to be working for them. So, I had to take that lesson, start on my own, and take that chance.”
Another motto Williams lives by is to make his idols, his rivals. He emphasizes, “…don’t settle for just idolizing. Make them your competition. How can I be them?” Making them your rivals doesn’t mean you respect them any less and it doesn’t take away from what you learned for them. However, making them your rivals is the next step. According to
Williams, we ought to be asking, “How did they get there? What can I learn from their journey? What can I steal from their journey, implement to myself, and grow and get myself into their life?”
Williams advises the crowd to find someone they look up to or somebody who’s doing what they want to do and…steal. “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” he says. “A lot of people have come before you that have laid the groundwork for things so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
For Williams, managing was a process where he learned as he went. He explains, “I read it once somewhere and I try to get it right. But when you start, you don’t know what you don’t know. And then as you grow, you learn a little bit of what you know, but you still don’t know. And then eventually you know what you know. And in the end, you’ve learned what you don’t know and what you don’t. It’s like you grow, as you do it.”
When Williams started managing his first group, he claimed he was just pleased to be there. By the time he was managing the biggest rap group in the world, OutKast, everything was fantastic. He reports, “Nobody could tell me nothing.” However, managing is never perfect, just like anything else in life. Williams acknowledged he had hit a few stumbles but according to him, that is when “you have to learn how to reinvent yourself.” For this reason, by the time he was managing rapper and singer CeeLo Green, Williams had a different appreciation for events.
After thirty years in the business, the power broker confessed that he no longer enjoyed managing as much as he once did: “I used to wake up. I wanted to eat labels up. I wanted to just take on the world, but the games changed. And at some point, you’ve got to kind of figure out if it’s passed you by, the way that you’re used to doing it.”
This taught Williams that managing isn’t his life forever. Rather, it was just a great first phase or first time. It was now time for him to move on to other entertainment areas, such as production, film, and events. Williams feels he has a niche in the entertainment industry, so straying elsewhere such as a corporate structure would be a “horrible failure.”
Moving forward, the CEO of Family Tree Entertainment believes his long-term objective is to assist in guiding the current hip-hop industry. He admits the industry has been generating a lot of money. However, since hip-hop has given a lot of opportunities, it feels like it is floundering. Williams marks the shift in hip-hop during the Kardashian era. He explains, “As a country and as a culture, we stopped rewarding; we stopped reaching for greatness; and we started rewarding mediocrity.”
Williams elaborated on the country’s pattern of rewarding mediocrity regarding the hip-hop industry: “When hip-hop used to be about lyrics and the message in the streets and everything like that, it was special; it was something different.” He clarifies that he’s not attempting to “diss” any particular artists. According to him, the artists who claim, “It’s not about the lyrics, it’s not about this. It’s just, I’m trying to do this,” ultimately result in “a country that’s rewarding the Kardashians for no talent or whatever.” Williams adds, “Then you have shows, like ‘American Idol’, ‘X Factor,’ and those that made people think you could be a star like that.” Williams believes that reality shows like these “took the work out” and that the instant fame “isn’t real.” This causes us to lose sight of the labor, pain, and effort that goes into the profession. He states, “Donald Trump is the accumulation of this country deciding that mediocrity is good enough.”
While there are advantages to the increased use of technology in music production, there are also drawbacks. He suggests we all have to get out of this mindset that everything needs to be platinum or needs to sell millions. Williams states, “We need to go back to the seventies, where artists would have a gold fan base (which is around 500,000 records sold). And they would feed those fans, an album, a tour, and an album and a tour. They’d have 20-year careers. And you’ll have artists like Nancy Wilson, who had like 80-something albums. And you’re like, wow how’d she do that? Because she fed who she needed to feed. She didn’t keep chasing Ice Spice. She didn’t chase GloRilla.”
Williams explains how the music industry is different because it fell out of its cycle. Before, it used to survive on the “superstars”, such as Mariah Carey or Michael Jackson. The money made from superstars like these allowed the industry to invest in new artists. The superstars would then emerge from among those new artists. Williams claims that since now we’re in the streaming age, the industry prefers volume above stardom. The labels aren’t what they were before, which is why we don’t see boy bands or girl bands. “Those artists all require development. And the labels aren’t in the development days anymore,” he adds. Labels now expect individuals to develop themselves, find someone else to finance this development, and then swoop in after.
Steaming off the discussion of the music industry, Williams dove into the concept of “branding” and how it has changed over time. More specifically, how the term “branding” has become overused. Williams contends that because of social media, branding is something that everyone does. According to him, developing a brand entails making something that consumers desire to support, subscribe to, or be a part of. “When people come out, I meet artists all the time, and they don’t even have a record out. And they’re like, ‘I want to do a clothing line, and I want to do this.’ And I’m like, ‘For who? Who said people want to dress like you? Who said you were flying? Like, what have you done to show people that you’re that cat, that people want to dress like you?” He questions. The overuse of the word has resulted in people getting away from actually building it. He claims building a brand requires expressions, meaning, and a message that is something besides you in your brand. The internet has made everything seem bigger and easier. However, in the process, it’s creating fewer stars.
Towards the end of the keynote, Williams shared with the Bergen community the positives and negatives of being a manager. He claims, “If you like to be in the mix, if you like to fix, if you like to make people’s dreams come true, if you like to organize and brainstorm and come up with great ideas, management is for you.” Williams describes the manager as the “conduit between them [the client or artist] and the outside world,” and “the general manager of their business.” He continues, “I coordinate things with their label, with their business manager, with the company, with their lawyer, with the booking agents. Like, everything kind of comes through me.” His primary goals are to protect his artist’s vision and brand, and protect them from themselves. Then, he has to go out into the world and sell everybody on the vision that his client is pushing. He states, “It’s my job to be the set, I’m the backstop of everything because artists wake up every morning and wonder what the world could do for them. Managers wake up and
we have to figure out what we can do to make the world run smoother for our clients.” This allows managers to get a great deal of expertise in a variety of roles, which is why a large number of managers go on to establish their own companies.
According to Williams, one of the negatives of managing is that it is “a thankless job.” He adds, “The Artists are never wrong. They don’t blame themselves. It’s everybody else’s fault, but their own. When the record doesn’t sell or something doesn’t go right, you’re the first person they blame.” Another drawback of being a manager is the lack of loyalty in today’s music industry. The music mogul states he managed OutKast for twelve years and they never had a contract. All that was needed to solidify their contract was a handshake. This is something, Williams points out, he couldn’t do nowadays. He States, “These kids, the next place that looks like they got a shiny object, they’re going to be like ‘Whoop, I’m going over there now.’” Nevertheless, Williams clarifies that it’s a cool job if you believe in the artist. “There’s a lot of good to it. I wouldn’t change many things in the last 30 years.”
Williams then proceeded to tell the audience the long-awaited story of how he found OutKast. At the time, Williams was still working for Flavor Unit, and Shakim Compere and him were tasked to get the R&B artist Monica, in Atlanta. While in Atlanta, the two stopped by LaFace Records, where OutKast was signed to at the time. LaFace Records was led by record producer L.A. Reid and was known for having artists such as TLC, Usher, and Tony Braxton. Williams and Compere were asked to meet with OutKast. Following the meeting, Williams was assigned to manage both Monica and OutKast. Williams admits at the time he was unaware that OutKast would grow to become the biggest rap group in the world. He just tried his best to do what Compere asked him to do. However, once the duo began to grow and Williams saw their potential, he wanted them to be the biggest rap group in the world. Once OutKast rose to prominence and became the biggest rap group in the country, Williams then wanted them to become the biggest band in the world. He states, “My goal was to turn OutKast into U2.”
Seeing the potential in OutKast was an easy job for Williams because they had star power. In today’s industry, Williams refers to it as a “popularity contest.” When searching for artists, he used to look for talent, but today talent alone is insufficient. “Just talent isn’t a given. Like you have to be willing to fully expose your whole life on social media and stay engaged with your fans.” The CEO points out how a lot of individuals think they want to be artists, but in reality, they just want to be famous. According to Williams, fame is hard to manage. “You can have a great day. But your mind, when you look through your social media and look at comments, is going to zoom to the worst comment.” This results in multiple mood swings throughout the day which become hard to manage. “The struggle and the push that you need to be a star is different than you want to be famous,” he adds. Someone who aspires to be famous will
do anything foolish to achieve and maintain fame. On the other hand, someone who aspires to be an artist will learn, practice, and study their craft. Williams explains, “You got to rehearse. And that’s more work than a lot of these people who think they just want to be the next Drake, the next Ice Spice, and that. So, it’s harder to choose artists these days.”
Although Williams is CEO of Family Tree Entertainment and has a management career that spans thirty years, humility is still of great importance to him. Williams credits his AAU basketball coach, who was in the crowd that afternoon, for laying the foundation of his humility. “Humble was just part of what you were going to be. You didn’t have an option but to be humble,” he states. Williams also quickly learned that “A lot of this world is designed to build you up so they can chop you down. When you start to think you are as great as people say you are, you are in for a rude awakening.” We all have triumphs, and we all have failures which is why Williams stresses to focus on the journey. What keeps him humble is the fact that he’s been in the business long enough to know that the tide can turn.
Williams offered some parting words of wisdom to the audience at the end of the presentation. He informed the community that however you deal with strife is going to be your umbrella during a rainy day. This is because your treatment of others during your ascent influences how far you will descend during a hard time. Williams applies the notion to the classroom life of college students. “You can’t blow off class and half-ass two classes for a whole semester. Then go whining to the teacher, on the last week, and ask, ‘Can you bump my grade up?’ It doesn’t work here, and it doesn’t work in real life.” Williams closes his lecture before opening it up to questions with this: “How you respond and how you deal with things, is going to help determine how things turn out for you and how long a rough patch will be.”
