My town does fireworks on the 3rd, not sure why. You watch them shoot way up into the night sky, and explode with both sound and vision. The remnants of the physical rocket, replaced by a sparkling light show for a brief second, then reduced to a wisp of smoke. It served its purpose, entertained the young and old, then poof, it’s gone. It takes a big old gunpowder charge to send that fucker up into the sky, and even more explosive firepower to light up the sky with magic, for a brief second.

Comets, meteors, volcanoes, fireworks, and even the smallest little bottle rocket (that we were warned as kids, could blow off our fingers), all share a similar core. A highly combustible center, that is dangerous and fragile, but a beauty to behold and witness, seems to me familiar in an odd way. I said right at the beginning of this rambling and blundering blog that I have seen up close and personal, both the beauty of dreams, and the nightmares they can become. Sometimes, when you have everything, it truly makes you see how fucked up you or your life really is. It can mend the wounds or amplify the demons. I guess that’s luck of the draw.

Most of our most extraordinary talents have been through this. Some of our most extraordinary talents have gone the way of those fireworks I saw last night. Maybe because they possess such amazing incendiary talent, they have no option but to explode/implode and become that faint wisp of smoke rising on the evening air.

Thrilling us for a few moments and then poof, gone as well. Maybe talent that colossal takes its toll and creates the same internal combustion as the aforementioned, then bang! It just has to detonate.

Maybe it’s just the way it was meant to be, something entertaining and special for us to behold, fleeting and mesmerizing at once. Fireworks are of course man made, but those celestial bodies of galactic fireworks, well they’re something else. Did you ever see a shooting star? That’s some high tech fireworks right there boy! Whoever your God may be, he/she/them had to have a hand in that creation. I know science will argue that, maybe win, who knows. To me it’s all magic, even the man made fireworks are magic.

I always argue that music is subjective, and it is. However it would be a tough argument to not think Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Elvis, Kurt Cobain, and of course, Michael Jackson, had something explosive and special beyond compare.

The list is far more than that, far more. Like I said, once you get that elusive dream come true, don’t think it doesn’t come with a price, it does. I feel really bad about Michael Jackson, regardless of any of the rumors, innuendos and the like. A talent that big maybe never had an option other than to dazzle then explode. Maybe that’s the deal. Maybe that level of talent is intended to be brief. That level of talent is indeed, incendiary, fragile and highly combustible.

Dreams are so vital, so important. They become the oxygen we breathe, the focus we set. Without dreams, we are hopeless. In that quest just remember, they don’t answer everything, they don’t slay every dragon, they sometimes open doors better left sealed shut.

Well now, someone remarked on here that I am writing self righteous babble.
My oh my, the sting of that assumption!
Let me answer that with a tempered and succinct, please forgive me.

Unfortunately for you, your trail went somewhere else.
Fortunately for me, luck decided to intervene a few times.

Self righteous? No.
Just telling a story. One you don’t have to read.
I know yours, and have seen it far too often, in a business that discards once the heat goes cold.

I was asked to write here, and I have no problem doing so. Do I have an ego? Of course I do.
Do I think I’m terrific? Not so much. I think I am lucky beyond words and blessed beyond reason.

You see my intial goal was simple; make enough money to buy a Les Paul. That was the real goal, nothing more.
Did I know I would be fortunate enough to ride many meteors and find more than a Les Paul at the end of the ride? Hell, no!

Once we take this journey from passion to business, man the shit flies. It’s a very difficult adjustment for most, and that adjustment is paramount to maintaining sanity.
I never understood why people confuse art for arts sake and business. If you don’t want to deal with the nonsense and sundry bullshit of this game called the music business, then merely make your music for yourself, your family and friends.

Once you put it out there, into the great cosmos, as a commodity, it becomes an entirely new entity.

Whenever you dance in a theatre of war, you have to play by the rules of that war, or get eaten alive. You enter the battlefield and then have to be prepared to fight. Pure and simple.
Is it discouraging? Absofuckinglutely.

You make the choice, you go in or you stay out.
I tell people all the time, if the music business was based on just talent, there’d be a lot of poor, rich people and a lot of rich, poor people.

It’s based on so many variables and so many things that aren’t even in the realm of tangible.

I like to use the an analogy; there are 4 tires on the car: the artist, label, management and luck. We can’t control the 4th tire, so we’d better be sure the other 3 are spinning in synchronicity. On 3 tires, we can get home, on 4 we are flying down the street, blasting the speed limit into oblivion. On 2, we can’t make it out of the driveway. If we have only 1, well, we’re fucked.

Make sure you have those 3 tires working, in the event you are insane enough to enter this business as a business. Once you have the 3, movement happens, then when the last one catches, it’s a ride. A big, giant explosion of a ride.

I really wish it were all about talent and talent alone, but them again, if it were, I would maybe be working at the mall selling pretzels, spewing my self righteous observations into a crowd of angry shoppers.

If you want to dance the dance, understand the elements that you need to address. Get your tires rocking on all 3.
Make sure your team is correct, and let the ball fly.

Oh yeah, avoid any of us old timers, who want to offer you advice or consultation, if it comes with an invoice. Myself included.

It was a big event, and playing Madison Square Garden, for even the most jaded, is always a big event. Backstage was insanity and it was tough speaking with everyone and going from person to person, great fun and a great feeling of accomplishment. This amazing team had pulled something off, and pulled it off big.

This tremendously talented young lady, less than a year ago, was playing coffee houses, and here she was the talk of the town, literally. It felt amazing and was a moment of pride that is hard to come by in this business. As I said, India was very shy and not one to go mingle, so even bringing her over to meet N’Sync was tough, let alone the horde of others who all wanted to talk with her.

It was a wonderful moment for all that included some odd ones as well. Of course, the Fellini like grip of the absurd on my world couldn’t just dissipate, could it? There was a quizzical moment for some of the Universal top brass as they asked me, “Who is the guy is the flowing outfit with the laminate?”, my response was, “That is the spiritual advisor, the psychic.”

The responses were interesting, yet there he was, all aglow and ready to spew forth his typical genius observations, like when India said she was hungry and he would respond, “I was sensing you had a stomach ache.” Complete moron, who was looking to ride the rocket. A great moment was when he, yes the psychic, gave me a demo. A demo of his songs well not really songs. They were him hitting a fucking bell over and over, but they were titled as individual songs.

This was an amazing moment for me in a long and storied career, being given a demo of a bell being hit by a guy who pretended to be in touch with another dimension. Fuck me.

During India’s show another interesting thing happened. Here at Madison Square Garden, her mom came out, took the microphone from India and proceeded to sing the song, while India played along. Then to make matters worse, at the end of the song she said into the mike, “I love you Jack Ponti.” and walked off the stage, as yet again Universal brass stared at me.

I had no idea that was going to happen and I assume it did because India’s mom used to sing and I guess this was a dream to sing at MSG, and so be it. India’s mom loved me and then hated me. It was a journey unto itself. We were very close in the beginning and she would call me constantly, she also had a nickname of “Jack A Roony”, which she would exclusively refer to me as. She was a terrific lady in many ways.

She was eventually put on as her daughter’s designer and wardrobe person, but it was further than that. She owned the merchandise and that was interesting. Well get deeper into that later.

After the show, we had our little backstage soiree, which wasn’t much of a soiree and India left early, with the psychic, my sister, my daughter and me, leaving Joey to drive back to NJ alone, but not after making sure his presence was felt by everyone. I think by the end of the night everyone assumed they knew Joey, and I could hear him saying to N’Sync, “Fellas, good to see you, keep doing good.” Joey is remarkable!

Joey was still schmoozing with all of his new friends, while we left to drop India and the psychic off in Harlem for some advanced reading of some sort.

I really applaud her spirituality but it caused some issues and near disasters, like the night she called me and said she was leaving the tour to go to Africa. It took hours to convince her not to and then hours smoothing away issues with the consulate who had set up the whole thing and now had people at the airport awaiting her arrival, or so I was told. This of course was suggested by one of the many spiritual advisors now circling the camp.

Genius idea, go to Africa, now, cancel the Sade tour, the spirit world says you have to. She was a perfect target as she was deeply spiritual, incredibly sincere, wonderfully forgiving and had a general concept that people were as honest and real as she was. I don’t care what she thinks; these clowns were all full of shit and played into everything for one reason and one reason only; to get a paycheck. Everyone now wanted a paycheck and everyone got one.

I barely got a paycheck and that was ok. We had very little tour support for the Sade tour and the only way I could eliminate short fall was to defer my commission. So while everyone else was hands out and pockets deep, I was deferring pay to make things work. Why? Because I was a manager and it was my duty to things right by my client and always think of me last. I didn’t care and I don’t care now.

I will always do the right thing and if you fuck me, fine, and then fuck you. If I can’t fuck you back, karma will one day and I’d rather put my head on the pillow at night knowing where I stand than gloating over taking someone for a ride.

Let’s take a break from the story for a moment, so I can hypothesize and ramble, and in this ramble, oddly enough, connect it to India. I have tremendous passion and devotion to animals, in particular dogs.

Over the past few decades, I have been deeply involved in the perpetuation of a few breeds, namely the Fila Brasileiro (Brazilian Mastiff). The Fila is not a dog for everyone and requires a huge amount of time and especially understanding. This animal will show the greatest love and devotion to its family, unlike anything you can imagine.

It is also extremely suspicious of strangers and is not a dog you can come up to and pet on the street. It will attack, and this is not a learned trait, but a genetic predisposition. I have learned to understand that it is their reaction to thinking those they love most may be threatened.

At well over 150 lbs. it takes a very responsible owner to deal with this dog. When I first became involved with the breed, I was shocked at how strict and rigid the proper breeders were before they would allow you to purchase one. Videos of your home and yard were required. Something akin to a background check was the norm as well.

When I got into breeding, further shocks, when I was made to sign a document, which amongst other things, made me promise that I would euthanize a puppy if it didn’t meet standard. I was appalled. Then I understood. It was to protect the dog, keep the line pure.

So many breeds have been diluted and in that dilution, the dogs are afflicted with terrible health problems that lead to a short life of suffering. That was reason one. Reason two was again about dilution, and you can’t have a Fila with crossed wiring, a dog who becomes a threat to everyone and itself.

This dog is capable of extreme power and action, so one that is unstable is very dangerous and could lead to great harm, and ultimately the poor dog being put down, not to mention harm to others.

I am constantly searching for new breeds that are as pure as can be. I have fallen in love with the Caucasian Ovtcharka, a dog so primitive that it requires even more care than the Fila. There is a grand majesty and beauty in these animals. You need to be as devoted an owner as the dog is a companion.

It breaks my heart to see puppy mill and back yard breeding that dilutes the genetics and allows for poor, helpless animals to be born sick and on course for pain. How does this relate to music? The creative gene pool, its dilution, and how influence shapes everyone as a musician and particularly, as a songwriter.

When I first began playing guitar as a kid, I was influenced by Ritchie Blackmore, Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and others of that ilk. They were influenced by the great blues players, Ritchie by classical music and a bit of Django. My playing reflected those influences. By the time I became a producer, everyone played like G.I.T and was using scales and runs, far beyond our beloved pentatonic.

They were influenced by Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Randy Rhodes. I couldn’t play anywhere near their technical proficiency, but many couldn’t bend a note and make it cry like B.B. King. This new generation of gun slingers were far removed from the influences that shaped the playing of say, Jimmy Page, and therefore sounded nothing like him. Good and bad, I suppose.

They could dazzle you with mastery but not really move you to cry. That is only my opinion. Django could do both, but he was much closer to the source, or perhaps even the source himself for many.

The Beatles were influenced by the great songs and writing of Motown, the Brill Building, Stax, Chess, Buddy Holly, etc. The Stones, even more so by Stax and Chess, but the point is, their influence shaped their style and what they were drawing from was closer to the core.

That core was of course was the blues, gospel, etc. You have to wonder if Lennon and McCartney’s extraordinary sense of melody would have been the same if not exposed closer to the core. You can see how their lyrical depth altered after being exposed to Bob Dylan, who of course was influenced by so many greats, closer to the source.

Nothing is original; everything is a result of synthesis and interpretation, shaped directly by our influences and exposure.

Our ears and familiarity is shaped very early on in America, by virtue of the lullabies we are sung as babies, further permeated by the first scale we learn in school as kids; the major scale. In Europe that is very different in terms of exposure and explains why there is sometimes a lack of music translating from country to country.

Analyze most “hit” songs, and I am sure you will find a very familiar intervallic distance and core scale that the melody is built from. Instant familiarity and it doesn’t “grate” against our senses. You’ll find this in the beauty of Buddy Holly, Brill Building, Motown, etc. and certainly in the genius melodies of the Beatles.

India’s influences were not of the standard for a “kid her age”. She was highly influenced by exposure to the greats, such as Donnie Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye etc. The music her parents surrounded her with influenced her, and set her on the course to find her own interpretations of that influence.

You can hear name check them on the intro and outro of Acoustic Soul. Her influences shaped her music, as it does to all of us. Her exposure was deeper than someone of her generations and her music hit a nerve, because it was a beautiful interpretation of a core that was deeply imbedded in the psyche of the public.

There was very little dilution from the source. Just a beautiful majesty.

It was a big event, and playing Madison Square Garden, for even the most jaded, is always a big event. Backstage was insanity and it was tough speaking with everyone and going from person to person, great fun and a great feeling of accomplishment.

This amazing team had pulled something off, and pulled it off big. This tremendously talented young lady, less than a year ago, was playing coffee houses, and here she was the talk of the town, literally. It felt amazing and was a moment of pride that is hard to come by in this business. As I said, India was very shy and not one to go mingle, so even bringing her over to meet N’Sync was tough, let alone the horde of others who all wanted to talk with her.

It was a wonderful moment for all that included some odd ones as well. Of course, the Fellini like grip of the absurd on my world couldn’t just dissipate, could it? There was a quizzical moment for some of the Universal top brass as they asked me, “Who is the guy is the flowing outfit with the laminate?”, my response was, “That is the spiritual advisor, the psychic.”

The responses were interesting, yet there he was, all aglow and ready to spew forth his typical genius observations, like when India said she was hungry and he would respond, “I was sensing you had a stomach ache.” Complete moron, who was looking to ride the rocket. A great moment was when he, yes the psychic, gave me a demo.

A demo of his songs well not really songs. They were him hitting a fucking bell over and over, but they were titled as individual songs. This was an amazing moment for me in a long and storied career, being given a demo of a bell being hit by a guy who pretended to be in touch with another dimension. Fuck me.

During India’s show another interesting thing happened. Here at Madison Square Garden, her mom came out, took the microphone from India and proceeded to sing the song, while India played along. Then to make matters worse, at the end of the song she said into the mike, “I love you Jack Ponti.” And walked off the stage, as yet again Universal brass stared at me.

I had no idea that was going to happen and I assume it did because India’s mom used to sing and I guess this was a dream to sing at MSG, and so be it. India’s mom loved me and then hated me. It was a journey unto itself. We were very close in the beginning and she would call me constantly, she also had a nickname of “Jack A Roony”, which she would exclusively refer to me as. She was a terrific lady in many ways.

She was eventually put on as her daughter’s designer and wardrobe person, but it was further than that. She owned the merchandise and that was interesting. Well get deeper into that later.

After the show, we had our little backstage soiree, which wasn’t much of a soiree and India left early, with the psychic, my sister, my daughter and me, leaving Joey to drive back to NJ alone, but not after making sure his presence was felt by everyone. I think by the end of the night everyone assumed they knew Joey, and I could hear him saying to N’Sync, “Fellas, good to see you, keep doing good.” Joey is remarkable!

Joey was still schmoozing with all of his new friends, while we left to drop India and the psychic off in Harlem for some advanced reading of some sort.

I really applaud her spirituality but it caused some issues and near disasters, like the night she called me and said she was leaving the tour to go to Africa. It took hours to convince her not to and then hours smoothing away issues with the consulate who had set up the whole thing and now had people at the airport awaiting her arrival, or so I was told.

This of course was suggested by one of the many spiritual advisors now circling the camp. Genius idea, go to Africa, now, cancel the Sade tour, the spirit world says you have to. She was a perfect target as she was deeply spiritual, incredibly sincere, wonderfully forgiving and had a general concept that people were as honest and real as she was. I don’t care what she thinks; these clowns were all full of shit and played into everything for one reason and one reason only; to get a paycheck.

Everyone now wanted a paycheck and everyone got one.

Now comes Madison Square Garden, the apex of every artists dream and the big show, really big show. India is going to play two nights there with Sade and it’s all media frenzy with a guest list that would knock your socks off.

Funny enough, people were taking bets if I would show up or not. I found that comical. Though I long threw travel to the wind, I wouldn’t have missed that for all the money in the world. I will repeat, it all begins and ends with the artist, but as with every artist, success is a team effort and we worked our asses off night and day to make this happen.

I felt great pride for India, great pride for Motown and great pride for our management company, because if one of those cogs were out of place, I assure you, it would have never happened to the extent that it did.

It was great artist married to great label married to great management.
I don’t typically toot my own horn, or pull my own dick, but on this one, I know what we did and how much we brought to the table. In my entire career, I have never worked as hard and with as much conviction, sweat and diligence, as I did with India. It took every ounce; of every skill set I could find, to pull shit off. This was a twenty four hour a day job, filled with drama and adversity at every step, it wasn’t easy and I wanted to quit a thousand times, but I knew we could pull it off.

You bet your ass, I was going to MSG and I did. I called my old friend Joey and we rolled up to NY, my sister and daughter was there from the day before and they were telling me how many people were betting on my no show. I was laughing my ass off on the drive up. Joey was laughing too, but Joey is fucking priceless and was the perfect companion for that ride. I’d known Joey for decades.

Joey was just Joey, which was beautiful! He didn’t care, like backstage at Mellencamp when he informed John, “You did good, you write good songs.”, or upon meeting Giants quarterback, Kerry Collins, “You did good Terry.” even though his name is Kerry. Me and Joey had played in bands together in the 80s, and neither of us changed much, in attitude or appearance. We roll up to the Garden and head backstage.

It was pretty funny seeing the shock on people’s faces when I actually showed up. I had no idea this mystery thing had grown to such epidemic proportions. I was in the process of speaking with India, making sure she was ok, when our security chief pulled me aside and said he needed me to speak with some people. He brought me to a private room (I took Joey of course) and introduced me to N’Sync, at which point Joey told them, “Hey fellas, you guys did good.” Perfect!

They, especially Justin, wanted to meet India. This was the height of their fame and let me tell you, they were very nice kids, very down to Earth and very confused by Joey, who was now literally patting them on their backs, repeating that they did good.

It was pretty hectic and a star studded backstage for the first show from Sade in almost a decade and the new shiny explosion named India.Arie. Then comes the moment everyone was waiting for, the first face to face between Kedar and me. I walked up to him, introduced myself, and we started hugging and acting like two lost friends from high school. Kedar looked at me and said, “You look like a rock star.”

I guess he, like most people, expected me to look very different (like my Roy Thomas Baker moment), I have a very gruff voice and I think they expect someone older and taller and perhaps with at least half an eye on fashion, and I dress like a bum or less. Kedar and I truly showed each other respect and I think the ice completely melted at that moment and it was very genuine between both of us.

We did something magical together and we just banged heads along the way, but in reality, we admired the Hell out of each other and you could feel it at that moment.

Everyone was relieved.

Via Mellencamp, we suddenly had exposure and access to other radio formats, like AAA, Hot AC, AC, Top 40, and Mainstream Rock. John was gracious (or smart) enough to bring India on his radio interviews and that opened up a whole new world for us, and the very world I was trying in vain to reach.

With John we did the VH1 Fashion Awards, the Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller Center on NBC, late night TV and a ton of other appearances that would have been completely closed to her as an artist without any palpable fan base outside of what we had. It was a very important turning point for us. She had a great urban fan base, the love of Oprah, stars singing her praises, a highly visible tour, with an artist people were dying to see, who also happened to have a bit older demographic and now a duet with an icon and rebel rocker.

Connecting the dots, time after time and finding new consumers in our police sketch.
We were happening, hitting on all eight cylinders and it was working. India never lost her urban base; on the contrary, she grew it while also developing a fan base outside of urban. This is exactly what happens when the team is working in synergy and all the dots are connecting.

The Sade tour was wonderful, but you’d be surprised on how very little units will move when you are an opening act. It indeed adds to the picture and allows you to maximize being in that town by hitting all media outlets, but it really doesn’t move the needle.

It does on the indie scale, but not on this scale. It’s just another (yet very important) cog in the machine and another well put, repeated impression. At this juncture, India finally agreed to the GAP campaign, so now we added massive television adverting to our arsenal and the “feed” of awareness multiplied thusly. It was still very difficult as India was fighting back against the wave and was having a very hard time adjusting to her new found fame, so much in fact, that I had to bring on security because she wasn’t very comfortable with the daily interaction that could happen out of nowhere.

Around this time we got hit with one of the lawsuits that would come our way. Regardless of who you are, once you have success, you get sued. These are called “deep pocket” suits, because that’s the entire concept; sue someone and hope they realize a settlement is cheaper than the fight. Most times it is.

There happened to be a Latin singer named India or La India or something like that. She had trademarked the name India for anything concerning music, period. Now India.Arie”s real given birth name is India Arie Simpson and here we were actually being sued over it!

Unfortunately we didn’t have wiggle room, can you fucking imagine that? We had no choice but to settle and pay this person for the right to use India’s own name. Ridiculous, but she trademarked, copy written and etched in stone the exclusive use of that name. Deep pockets number one, and a few more to come, like the raging lunatic in Chicago who claimed India must have broken into her apartment years ago and “stole” her ideas from her secret notebook and then wrote songs. OK, lunatic, we didn’t settle that one and told her to bring it on.

Dear Lord the nerve, and it went away. How about the ex-boyfriend who claimed he once uttered a sentence with a phrase in it similar to one of her song titles and now he was claiming co-authorship. Had he even been a songwriter, musician, co-writer or anything that resembled a creative force? No, but he wanted credit for inspiration over a phrase in a sentence. That one was also told; bring it on and I wish that went to court because it would have been priceless.

People are so fucked up.

I explained to India what I wanted to do and why it would work. She wasn’t interested in selling more records and wasn’t that familiar with John, but she agreed to do it for one reason; she knew Mellencamp was my favorite writer of all time and she would do it for me. She was a really good kid, back then.

Immediately John’s manager and I made arrangement for India to record with John and also appear in the video. This was a massive breach of protocol, as I did not have permission for either thing from her label, but I had to make it happen.

Mellencamp flew India and her mom out to Indiana to record and then they went on to Georgia to film the video, which would be his first single, “Peaceful World”. I told you about all of the red tape and politics to allow these guest appearances to happen, well this roadblock was astronomical. I then went back to the label for clearance, and a resounding no was once again uttered. Shit, now what?

Me being me, I broke protocol big time and pissed Kedar off even further, went over his head and right to higher powers at Universal. This time the answer was, again no. I was told how Columbia and Universal had a problem on a St. Lunatics track, I was accused of being Donnie Ienner’s boy, I was told no way would they allow the clearance, I was like, “Doesn’t anyone understand I am trying to break a record? Donnie doesn’t give a shit about Mellencamp, it’s not a favor to Donnie, and it’s what’s right for India.”

It went on and on for days and here we are with a single recorded and video shot, ready to go.
Kedar was livid; I won’t even go into detail what he said to me. You wouldn’t believe it and it doesn’t matter, as I forgave it because I know too well about speaking from emotion, which is one of my faults. Universal was livid, it seemed like the whole fuckin’ world was pissed and I was just trying to find a way to introduce my artist to more people. Sorry about that, it’s called doing my job.

Now I know I breached protocol and completed recording and filming without approval, but fuck me, you’d think I killed someone. Sometimes you have to do, what you have to do, to make it all work. After meeting upon meeting, we might have been more intense than the damn Geneva Convention, bartering, promises, trades, insanity, ill will and a lot of baby shit, we finally got India cleared for the both the single and video and I am certain to this day, that those appearances and the ensuing involvement with Mellencamp and all we did with him, is the primary reason we had as much Grammy recognition as we did.

Hands down the primary factor, because we broke through the ceiling and her name recognition sky rocketed and that, unfortunately, is the key to the Grammys. Let me talk on that for a moment and explain my position. The Grammys have one giant flaw in my opinion, and that is you should only be allowed to vote in the genre or genres you have experience in.

When it becomes a blanket vote, you will vote for the name most familiar and that is just wrong. I myself am guilty of that, and it’s similar to voting for the party across the board, rather than voting for the individual during an election. It explains many mysteries of the Grammys, like when Jethro Tull won, or when Metallica lost. I’m not sure a classical violinist in their seventies knows a Metallica from a miasma, but somewhere in the corner of their mind, they may have heard of Jethro Tull. Maybe got it confused with Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hillbillies, but a Jethro nonetheless.

It just makes no sense and to me, makes the Grammys a marketing game more than anything else. I still have great respect for the Grammys, I understand their value and I am humbled when involved.

When something like that happens, the flood gates open, opportunity changes and it becomes time to drive faster, with focus and goals. Press was wonderful, glowing and in abundance, the reviews were terrific and we had access to many outlets that were once denied. India hated doing press and she did some of what we asked, but not all of it.

She was really not happy with all of the attention, and I truly believe would have been just as happy playing in Georgia and selling a small amount of records. That attitude would change in time as well.

During this time, Alicia Keyes was also exploding, but she did what was asked of her and for every interview India did, she probably did fifty. She also had the mighty machine of Clive Davis and J Records working her.

Also a tremendous artist in her own right, it was all about Alicia, but we were holding out own. A few times we felt over looked and over shadowed, but that would change and we had nowhere near the budget they did, not even a fraction. We also had an artist who hated the spotlight and attention, talk about having your hands tied, we were bound and shackled in a million ways.

A strange thing started to happen around now, stars from music, film and TV started to reach out to us concerning India. They we enthralled. Stevie Wonder was an early supporter and gracious enough to give quotes long before we shipped the record, but others started gravitating such as Elton John, Kenny Loggins and oddly enough people like Woody Harrelson, who begged me to have India attend his birthday, because her record caused an epiphany for him while sitting in a hot tub in Hawaii.

People wanted to collaborate with her, and one of the first to ask was the legendary jazz great, Cassandra Wilson. I thought this was perfect and would expose India to a demographic we couldn’t reach, so we did it with the blessings of Motown.

Then Oprah, wow, Oprah is the Holy Grail of all mediums and she got it. After India performed “Video” on her show, Oprah said, “Girl we needed that song.” And apparently she was right. That song and India herself, was touching a nerve deep inside a lot of people. My concept of using the self esteem message to get press was working. It set us apart from the competition.

It was getting magical.

We sailed past gold (500,000 units) and were still going, but I knew the ceiling was coming and coming up fast, and I had to do something to expand the audience immediately. Motown had an incredible radio promotion staff with Sandra and Manny driving the ship, but they had no staff beyond the urban formats and I had to get to Hot AC, AC and Top Forty, if we were going to go past the projections.

Universal wasn’t in the same flow of synergy as they are now with Motown, so forget them working it. The independent radio promoters I approached had bad blood with Motown, so forget that as well. Kedar, Motown and Universal were thrilled with the results thus far with the record, and knew it would get to platinum or a little under, just based on present trajectory.

I wanted more and knew we could get it. Everyone was happy, but I saw the next phase and in my typical world of luck, a very lucky thing happened.

John Sykes at VH1 was a very early supporter and he was also close with John Mellencamp, who at the time was recording a new record with the central theme being of all things; racism. This was perfect and Sykes got Mellencamp a copy of the record, and began hyping him on the possibility of a duet with India. Mellencamp got it immediately and I began speaking with his manager on making this happen.

You would think people would be thrilled, and though they were ok with the Cassandra Wilson duet, word came back that Motown was not interested in the Mellencamp duet.

Word came back, because Kedar and I were not speaking again.

I wasn’t preoccupied with India, on the contrary, my sister Nikki was handling all day to day for India and worked her ass off, and without her, it would never had happened. I would do the strategy and the heavy lifting, but Nikki did it all.

The next call was on one of those rare days when Kedar and I put aside our differences enough to actually speak to each other. His ominous prophecy was, “Watch, she is going to turn on all of us after this happens.” I didn’t believe it at the time, and in many ways he was right, unfortunately.

We did the video for “Video” that sounds funny; it was a cute little thing and worked well for perpetuating her image. I think MTV added it early, in fact, I know they added it early when I got a call from them saying, “You’re not getting enough radio to justify us keeping this in high rotation.”

That was true, but I begged them to stay on it until we hit “street date” and if the sales sucked they could run away without any hard feelings. I argued my case that though radio wasn’t exactly exploding, I could feel something big about to happen, and just stay with us until street. They were kind enough to do so. BET was already there and being highly supportive and we were starting to get a little love from VH1 as well.

I could feel the heat, but I truly think there were two people who knew we had something about to explode; me and Kedar. No doubt our respective teams were believers and many, many industry mediums were as well and God bless them all for taking a chance, but me and Kedar, the two guys who fought each other every single day, agreed on one thing: this was about to explode.

With street date looming, we all poured it on, connecting every dot we could find, and going at it guerilla style, as we had virtually no budget, at least not by current industry standards. This was truly the little engine that could and we were working around the clock knowing a bad showing on first week sales would kill our inertia immediately.

That’s a real fucked up thing about this business that has changed since the advent of Soundscan, first week sales. Before that, a record was allowed to grow, find its market and progress. Now it’s like Hollywood, bad opening weekend and you are dead in the water. A real cause for problems yet no one really gets it.

We were sweating out week one even though we saw great orders coming in. Of course we knew those orders could easily convert into the dreaded “returns”, records shipped back when they gather dust on retail shelves. We believed in her and we believed we had enough intangibles happening that would all converge, not in the standard fashion, but nothing was standard about this project.

We had a fraction of the radio, TV and press that most explosive records had. We had a miniscule budget, but we knew something was connecting, you could feel it. First day sales were impressive and we watched and cultivated all data like you count contractions before childbirth.

Again, Kedar and I were screaming that this was going to pop and pop big. I’m pretty sure our teams thought we were nuts, but then street date comes and out of almost nowhere, a girl with an acoustic guitar, a God given voice, and a small team of crazed believers, explodes onto the Billboard sales charts with over seventy six thousand units sold, entering at nine with a bullet in the top ten and causing the first of many, “Who the fuck is India.Arie and how did that happen?” ponders to be blasted across the industry.

We went nuts and most people shook their heads. We were off and running big time.