|
What is your job at Violator?
James
Cruz-I'm the vice-president of marketing
and promotions for violator
management
and records. I'm day to day responsible for
50 Cent and Busta Rhymes in all of their
music as well as business endeavors and I do all the
marketing and promotions for all of the artists under
the violator umbrella which includes 50, Busta, Missy,
Tweet, Mobb Deep and with all of that I'm also the head
of the street marketing for RBK, Reebok as well as I
run the marketing division at violator management. We
have a marketing company called VMG.
How long have you been at
Violator?
James Cruz-5 years.
Five incredible years.
So wow! When you have an artist that is so huge like
50 Cent is there like a whole team of people who work
managing him?
James
Cruz-Absolutely. You are only as good
as your team. 50 has a bunch of incredible individuals
around him. He has Sha Money who is his right
hand who is the president of G-Unit Records, He has
Chris Lighty who is my boss and CEO of violator
management.
He's got myself day to day doing the business stuff.
He's got Chris Clancy who is over at Interscope
who is an incredible marketing person. He's got Jimmy
Iovine, Dr. Dre and Eminem. You are only
as good as your team. I preach that everyday. I don't
know if you look at sports, but Alex Rodriguez was getting
252 million dollars a year with the Texas Rangers but
he had no support system around him, they never came
in better than third place. He came to the New York
Yankees to play third base with a great bunch of team
mates. Michael Jordan is the best player that ever lived,
but he always had Scottie Pippen on his right. If he
didn't have Scottie I don't know if they'd have all
of those championship rings. You really are only as
good as your team.
So you work on getting endorsement deals for the
artists?
James
Cruz-I work on anything, any deal
not just endorsement stuff. Working on their music every
day making sure that every is set up properly from their
promo tour to their video to getting everything together
for the album release to looking at touring opportunities,
looking at sponsorships, looking at ancillary opportunities,
clothing lines, sneaker sales, endorsement deals, anything
having to do with taking their brand to a certain level
because each one of our clients is their own brand.
Missy is her own brand. She's got Adidas Respect
Me line. Busta is his own brand. Flipmode Brand.
50's got the G-Unit Brand. We're selling everything
from sneakers to clothes to water. So everyone of our
clients has their own brand.
When an artist has a big tour coming up is that something
you all handle or does the record label deal with it
or is it a team effort?
James
Cruz-Most of that stuff is spearheaded
by management but of course we work with record labels.
We do the budget, we do the negotiation with the booking
agent, we talk to the promoters through the booking
agent and we coordinate everything and the record label
comes in as support. They have something at the record
label called tour support. The record label will support
the tour in their own way. We'll go to them with a package
deal like, "This is how we feel the tour will help sell
records, so we need you guys to do X-Y and Z," and we
will go into a negotiating process from there. Interscope
is a different kind of record label because they are
probably the best record label in the business. Jimmy
Iovine leads his team a certain way and Chris Clancy,
those guys just get it. They know what's right, they
know what works, they know what's relevant and they
understand the urgency. So Interscope is a different
kind of animal. Some record labels do get it, some record
labels don't get it. It's our responsibility to translate
what we are trying to say and the needs of the client
are so we can make sure we have the best possible look
and the most amount of impressions so that we can sell
records, sell tickets, overall sell everything.
How many artists are managed by Violator right now?
James
Cruz-We have a bunch of different
artists that we manage. We never extend our overall
management list but I can tell you, 50, Missy, Busta,
Mobb Deep, we work very closely with Eva from Top Model,
Lil Scrappy, Olivia from the G-Unit camp, we are doing
some music stuff for Ron Artest the basketball player,
we work very closely with RBK and Reebok in terms of
solidifying their deals with entertainers since they
are so vested in the entertainment side of things. Every
day there are new people coming in and out. We are extremely
selective with the artists that we represent cause we
understand the importance of focusing on a client. We
don't want to just sign everybody up and not be able
to focus on them individually when they need it. That
could potentially hurt a relationship and hurt a situation.
That is why we are very selective on who we represent,
how they represent them. Each one of our clients is
unique in their own way and we respect their individuality.
Does an artist have to be somewhat established before
they come to Violator?
James
Cruz-Not at all. Olivia was not established.
Busta, Violator was the first management company he
ever got with. Missy the first management company she
ever got with. We had 50 before he signed his deal with
Eminem. It's not about being established it's about,
we're selective about who we pick. A lot of the clients
that do come through our doors have already created
their buzz. I enjoy managing and working with stars
because they find their own way. You can tell when an
artist walks into the office. You can tell where he
or she is going just by their dedication, their work
effort, their delivery, their attitude, their presence,
their charisma, you can take all of that and know. We
are very selective about who we represent. We aren't
going to just represent anybody and put the violator
brand on the back of just anybody because the violator
brand is a well respected brand out there too.
What are your professional goals outside of your
job with Violator?
I read in the bio, that you had played professional
baseball but that didn't work out.
James
Cruz-I played sports but that didn't
work out. I was young and hurt my leg. Wound up doing
an internship in the music business. My dream was to
be a professional baseball player, but I think part
of God's plan, because I believe in God and am very
spiritual, part of God's plan was he wanted me to understand
what it was like to be part of a team and being a leader
of a team. It made me adopt that attitude in the music
business.
Have you ever considered writing a script about your
life or an autobiography?
James
Cruz-I don't think it's as exciting
as people make it out to be.
The bio makes It sound exciting!
James
Cruz-Well you know to be honest with
you, there is always that opportunity. Maybe not a full
length feature but maybe an HBO story.
I saw this story today, and I'm sure you saw it on
Allhiphop.com in the rumors and they had these pictures
of people picketing the violator
offices?
James
Cruz-Did that really happen yesterday?
There were people picketing outside of violator
because there is a campaign against 50. It's called
G-U-Not instead of G-Unit. It stems from his break up
with The Game and realistically they are trying
to create some awareness on their end to sell records
as a marketing person I've seen it done before. It's
been done where Bad Boy has picketed outside of major
events, it's nothing that we haven't seen in the past.
It's part of marketing and promotion. It's competition.
Competition can only make things better because it makes
you work harder.
This is how I saw it. I was like, "What is the purpose?"
Usually, when people protest they have a purpose but
it just didn't make sense to me. It looked kind of foolish
these grown men walking around with these rat signs.
James
Cruz-Everybody will see it differently.
So your opinion is you're your opinion.
Cause it was hot outside.
James
Cruz-It is what it is. What are
you gonna do?
I know you had a lot of good things to say about
Interscope, but in the past has there ever been a time
when a label wasn't marketing one of your artists the
way you thought they should be?
James
Cruz-Absolutely. When Elektra
was working on Missy and Busta, Busta was very unhappy
with the way he was being marketed and promoted and
he moved over to J Records. There's always issues. J
Records, you know, and I don't want to take anything
away from Sylvia Rhone she's a great leader and had
a great team, it's just the times were changing and
the staff wasn't as relevant to what was going on at
Elektra. There were arguments about the guy who works
radio is to old to actually deal with the young program
directors and music directors coming up. The street
team guys were way too comfortable. You can't do street
team for 6-7 years. At some point you have to grow into
another situation. So quite honestly there have been
times when we have had disagreements with record labels,
Elektra was just one that comes to mind off the top
of my head. It's just everything is a battle. Interscope's
the best but that doesn't mean that we always agree.
There are always differences of opinion, there's always
a difference in strategy, they have an agenda for their
brand, we have an agenda for our brand and clients,
but that's healthy too because that only makes you value
other people's opinion more.
So what are your long term goals in the entertainment
industry?
James
Cruz-Long term goals are to grow
the brand. Grow the management skills of the individuals
around me. I've got an incredible team mate on the West
coast named Barry Wilkers who I have raised in the business
since he was 17 and there's that feeling of a proud
dad watching his son grow into a superstar. I've got
a great team around me at violator
. Brent Walker my right hand. Du-Lo my left hand. I
used to always think I was the hardest working man in
the music industry until I met Du-Lo. He probably works
harder than me which I thought was humanly impossible.
My long term goal is to develop their skills to get
them to the next level and to use my managing and marketing
skills and implement them on a broader scale whether
that means sports management or whether that be Hollywood.
But right now the next five years the goal is to make
violator marketing
group a relative agency to compete with the Leo Burnett
and the Arnell Groups, to take our artist or a certain
product and communicate and articulate a message to
the consumer that we speak to every day and decipher
that and translate that into sales. That's what our
main goal is.
For more details visit http://www.violator.com
 Interview
copyright Dorrie Williams-Wheeler, and Thabiz.com 2005
Dorrie Williams-Wheeler is the author of Be
My Sorority Sister Under Pressure and the Unplanned
Pregnancy Book for Teens and College Students. She
is the founder of Thabiz.com
and Imissthe80s.com
and writes for the Rap,
Teen, and
1980s section
at Bellaonline.com. She is an ASCAP member as a writer
and a publisher. Please contact Dorrie for advertising
inquiries, lyric writing inquiries, reprint rights,
paying
entertainment jobs, or general comments.
Visit Dorrie on the web at www.sparkledoll.com
or e-mail her at webmaster@thabiz.com.
May not be reprinted, copied or distributed. You may
link to this interview.
Interview copyright Dorrie Williams-Wheeler, thabiz.com
June 2005.
|
