Named CEO of Hitz Committee Entertainment in September 2008, MeMpHiTz aka Mickey Wright, Jr. belongs to a brand new breed of creative music executives who have begun to establish themselves on the horizon. They are young and inspired, hungry for success, and – most of all – totally free of the encumberments of their predecessors.
True, Wright appreciates the ins and outs of his profession that he has learned from a handful of great record men – among them Antonio ‘L.A.’ Reid, Jermaine Dupri, Clive Davis, and most recently, Barry Weiss, Chairman and CEO, BMG Label Group. But what sets Wright apart is his ability to transcend those lessons, to build a foundation of entrepreneurship based on his own God-given talent – to spot the real-deal artist a mile away, and to hear a hit record before anyone else in the room. Those are standards of excellence that never go out of style, they just get harder and harder to find.
In Wright’s case, they have resulted in multiple successes, records – and artists – that have made a real impact on the pop and urban music landscapes: “Damn!” by the Youngbloodz (2003), J-Kwon’s “Tipsy” (2004), the emergence of T-Pain with “I’m Sprung” and “I’m ’n Luv (Wit a Stripper)” (2005), Huey’s “Pop, Lock, and Drop It” (2006) and UGK’s “International Player’s Anthem (I Choose You)” (featuring OutKast) (2007). Rest assured that more, much more, is on the way.
Adding to the MeMpHiTz saga is the fact that his rise to the 550 Madison Avenue corporate suite occupied by HiTz Committee – a joint venture partnership with Jive Records and Zomba Label Group (ZLG), a division of Sony BMG Music Entertainment – is only six years removed from Wright’s first day as a lowly intern making dubs in the Video Department of Arista Records. How he arrived at Arista – and how HiTz Committee became a music, film and television enterprise a fast half-decade later – deserve a script treatment that (who knows?) may very well be produced by MeMpHiTz someday in the near future.
Born and raised in Memphis, Mickey Wright, Jr. (the middle of four brothers and one sister) was this close to becoming a River City casualty for most of his childhood and teen years. A tug-of-war was always on between two traditional parents – his ultra-religious Jehovah’s Witness mother who wouldn’t let her sons listen to hit radio or even play sports, and his father who did his best to instill a more broad-minded working class ethic in his sons. It was only smoothed by the old school soul and R&B that filled the Wright house and left its mighty impressions: “Gladys Knight, Temptations, Al Green, this is what I grew up listening to,” he says. “BB King, Elvis, I know Elvis records, Marvin Gaye, Motown, Stax. My dad was always playing these vinyls through the house, and my mom listened to 104-The River, WDIA, Bobby Blue Bland, Curtis Mayfield. I listened to a lot of my dad’s and mom’s old music, and that’s what’s in my soul.”
Rap, hip-hop was forbidden, so naturally the three brothers jumped on it, and took turns playing the three parts in Run-DMC. “Curtis Blow, ‘Rappers Delight’ of course, Sugar Hill Gang, Slick Rick, LL Cool J, early Def Jam, I was on it like wow.” Church and school held little attraction for Mickey Wright, Jr. after a certain age. A stint at Shelby State Community College while working part-time at an electronics store (Elvis also worked at a Memphis electronics store!) did even less to inspire him.
A downward spiral into some shady pursuits nearly brought the 20-year old face to face with the law, but his father intervened and saved his son from “The System,” still thinking there was hope that he would follow him into the small printing business he’d established. It was a bittersweet coda when, some time later, his father was kidnapped serving zoning papers
to a known KKK member and was never found (later said to be murdered). His son heard the kidnapping news over the phone in the middle of a confrontation with his girlfriend at a café, telling him that she was pregnant.
Mickey stayed in Memphis as long as he could, but the walls were closing in. He made several exploratory trips back and forth to New York City, where there appeared to be more opportuni¬ties for an ambitious young man. Rather than stay in Memphis, with its dead ends, he made one last trip to New York on June 18, 2002 (a date he remembers). As green and country as they came, he went straight from the airport to enroll at the Institute for Audio Research (IAR) in Greenwich Village, the beginning of an 18-month stint at the school. One day in 2003, told by IAR to check off one box on a list of places he’d like to intern, he chose Arista Records.
His naiveté was almost laughable at first. When he was sent out to get pizza for a band, he returned with one slice, totally unaware that such a thing as a pizza pie even existed. Given one drudge chore after another, he quickly learned the ropes. One day he accompanied a mailroom pal to the A&R Creative floor, which was usually off limits. But one person after another befriended him there, and he was able to transfer his internship to A&R. With his thick accent, they soon began calling him ‘Memphis,’ and Dupri especially took a liking to the only other person from the South working at the 57th Street offices.
Little by little, Memphis was invited to attend the weekly meetings run by L.A. Reid. At one, the subject of the Youngbloodz came up. They were unhappy at the label, and a volunteer was needed to work with them at the studio in Atlanta. Memphis was the only one who raised his hand, because he knew them, knew their music, and saw an opportunity to get a foot in the door. Reid barely knew who Memphis was but gave him the assignment. When he found a hot track written by Lil’ Jon, with the combative chorus “If you don’t give a damn, we don’t give a f**k,” he knew he had a hit. Wary at first of being handed off to an intern, the Youngbloodz warmed up to Memphis as they began working together in Atlanta. When the record, “Damn!” began to explode over the summer 2003, Reid quickly took closer notice of the quiet young man seated in the corner of the conference room. While working his way up the corporate ladder, Memphis was befriended by Arista Vice President of Business Affairs, attorney Glenn Delgado, who believed in Memphis’ talents, and the two became partners and in 2004 they formed an entertainment company which later became Hitz Committee Entertainment.
The producers The Trackboyz, whose production Memphis used on the Youngbloodz album, told him about they're new artist, a young rapper in St. Louis named J-Kwon, and the A&R intern easily obtained a round-trip plane ticket from Arista to check him out. J-Kwon was brought to New York to audition at a live showcase in Reid’s office. When the rapper started cutting up – mooning Reid, jumping on his white chairs with his shoes on – Memphis thought he was sunk. Instead, Reid congratulated him on his first signing. “Tipsy” was released in the last weeks of 2003, and became one of the hottest pop/R&B crossovers of ’04.
By now, the young man from ‘Memphis’ who was always looking for ‘hitz’ had acquired a new handle, ‘MeMpHiTz.” He and Reid were on a first name basis when the intern (who’d been working gratis for over a year) was given a formal annual (non-staff) consultancy deal in early 2004 – but within weeks, the floor caved in. 29 years after it was founded, Arista was folded up. Reid was enjoined from taking MeMpHiTz with him to Def Jam, his new label, so Reid did the next best thing and hooked up his young friend with New York music business attorney Steve Shapiro. The bidding war began as Shapiro handled the employment negotiations for MeMpHiTz while partner Delgado handled the negotiations for their budding record label.
When the smoke cleared, it was Barry Weiss’ offer at Jive that won the day, with its promise that MeMpHiTz could carry on his entrepreneurial spirit at the label as an A&R Director, and head of his own label. In early 2005 MeMpHiTz, the street kid-turned-Arista-intern-turned consultant, was now a full-term executive with a contract. He was having lunch at a restaurant in Miami Beach, “working on some Bone Crusher stuff” (as he says), and wondering where his next discovery was waiting.
It turned out to be a dirt poor house with a dirt poor yard in Tallahassee, 400 miles north of Miami, where MeMpHiTz was greeted at the door by Faheem Rasheed Najm, aka T-Pain. His auto-tune vocal distortion (a la Roger Troutman) had captivated Memph, and become a T-Pain trademark. At a local showcase the same night, Memph came across Akon, who had already signed T-Pain to his Konvict label. Memph convinced Akon that Jive was the only place that Konvict, and especially T-Pain would get the attention they deserved, and it turned out to be true beyond anyone’s beliefs. After recording his debut album in 2005, which produced hits like “I’m Sprung” and “I’m n Luv (Wit A Stripper),” the T-Pain momentum began to take off in 2007, as he became the “go-to” collaborator on dozens of singles and tracks with the Who’s Who of pop: Kanye West (“Good Life”), Chris Brown (“Kiss Kiss”), Flo Rida (“Low”), R. Kelly, Bow Wow, Fabolous, and too many others to name.
By now Wright was itching to get his label deal off the ground, which he had named HiTz Committee Entertainment. His home run was waiting back in St. Louis, but Memph owed it to his (then) four year old daughter Mikkya Arie for the tip. After driving around Memphis with her in the car listening to Huey’s infectious track on a demo CD, MeMpH was blown away when she ran into the house chanting “Pop, Lock, and Drop It…Pop, Lock, and Drop It.” The phone call to Barry Weiss was made instantly, and HiTz Committee had its first inaugural artist. “Pop, Lock, and Drop It” ate up the physical and digital charts over the course of 2006-07, went Top 10 across the board, was certified double-platinum by the RIAA, and MeMpH was named Vice President of A&R.
As of this writing in late-2008, HiTz Committee has its sights set on a number of projects that are coinciding with Wright’s announcement as CEO. Among these are the debut from 18-year old Dallas rapper Trai’D titled Traidmark, featuring the single Gutta Chick; Huey’s second album, titled Strictly Business, featuring the singles 24-7/365 and PaYOW!; the debut album from Memphis R&B singer/songwriter K. Michelle titled Pain Medicine, which includes the singles Self Made and Fakin It; and the debut album from Baton Rouge rapper Derty titled Thuggish and Messy, featuring the single Uh-Oh.
In 2007 - fulfilling a lifelong dream - MeMpH had the honor of working for the first time with Texas collective UGK (Underground Kingz) on their self-titled 7th album, their last record with the late Pimp-C. The album yielded "International Player's Anthem (I Choose You)" (featuring OutKast), UGK's first chart single ever, after some 20 years of recording. "I grew up on them," Memph says. "So for me to get a chance to work with them was more fuel to my fantasy fire, my dream fire - I never even thought I would ever get to meet those guys, but I got to actually get on a personal level with them, and get them their first single." He continued to work with UGK on their next Jive album, UGK 4 Life (due in 2009).
The Hitz Committee deal includes a motion picture and television division and a film project is already underway, a movie idea that Wright has been thinking about for a long time. Beyond that, he is planning a compilation album called Nothing But HiTz. The album will exemplify MeMpH’s personal credo, and promise to his father: Do Work. If you want something hard enough to work for it – anything and everything can happen. Mickey Wright aka MeMpHiTz is living proof of that.
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