Rico Love & the Double Edged Sword of Artist Development

I believe that it’s possible to gauge the trajectory of a music producer’s career based on their idea [if any] of developing a recording artist – guiding the entire musical persona of an entertainer from an executive position. Most composers with longevity were thrilled at the thought of it, years before their opportunity surfaced. I always thought that my first chance as an executive producer would be the debut of a singer, but I had no qualms the day that Atlanta rap artist and good friend NoTiQ sent me a Facebook message: “I want to introduce people to your sound, be the Aaliyah to your Timbaland …
show artists that they can write to your instrumentals.” [… oh yeah, I’m a producer. Hi!]  I accepted the challenge, and in the midst of everything that comes with it I still have no regrets.

Now, before we really get going; no I’m not firing up a producer vs. beatmaker debate. There is nothing wrong with just submitting instrumentals to a trending singer and wishing them and their team the best, sometimes. Hell, it might be your easiest way to a Grammy out here. However, in the same way that rappers with full writing teams have always been present in hip hop, solely selling beats is all well-and-good … until the “Generational Greats” conversation gets rolling.  And it always does.

To an extent having your own artist flourish is a rite of passage for top tier composers. Only Pharrell and very few others have been crowned Grade A producers without really laying claim to cultivating their very own artist(s) … and no, The Neptunes, N.E.R.D. and his In My Mind album don’t count, more on this in a sec.  P’s transition into scoring Disney movies definitely made up for his lack of breakout artists, so he’s “in.”

Then there’s the curious case of the Rico Love, and the goings-on under his Division 1 Music imprint. You see, if Pharrell’s personal projects counted as artist development then Rico Love’s status as a producer wouldn’t be nearly as debatable after releasing his Discrete Luxury EP and the Turn The Lights On album, on top of all aforementioned achievements.

But here we are with a relatively-unsung producer and songwriter whose extensive discography includes songs [singles, at that] for Beyonce, Diddy, David Guetta, T.I., Rick Ross and the Sex & the City movie OST (via Fergie and Ciara) - all while prolonging Usher’s career within every one of his albums post 8701. And with all of this said, only the listeners who breathe today’s music know anything about Rico Love. You just might recognize his tagline “Turn the Lights On!” when you hear it in a song.  
You might.

Eventually media personalities started to recognize his track record and ask: what’s keeping him out of the conversation among this generation’s celebrated tastemakers?  Even though he contributed to five of Usher’s eight albums (damn-near resurrecting him with #1 singles from Raymond v. Raymond), Diddy and Jermaine Dupri really split credit for Usher’s emergence.  And even if he was Rico’s artist, Usher’s legacy hasn’t kept himself from struggling to find his place among this era’s key demographic [see Hard II Love, (2016)].  So what was Rico’s response to being slept on? Yep, discover and develop a brand new Division 1 artist to finally get himself over the hump.

And how convenient it seemed when associates of rapper Wale introduced Rico Love to Tiara Thomas in late 2013, the songstress first associated with Wale’s least annoying single “Bad.” In a deal that left everyone involved telling completely different stories, Thomas signed with Rico Love and it looked like the easiest layup. He didn’t just stumble upon a diamond in the rough; this diamond was already fairly polished – singer, songwriter, rapper and guitarist that already had the look and work ethic. This is the first time a producer compared his artist to Lauryn Hill and I didn’t instantly get mad at them both.

Then it got quiet.

I looked around a year or two later and she was indie again. She’s still doing her thing, but I had hella questions. Perused a couple interviews.

“I signed her based on amazing songs that she wrote but after the deal was done she didn’t want to put those songs out … she started writing different types of records that I didn’t think were superstar caliber records for her. And this is a girl who is super talented and could write anything,” -Rico

“That [Sallie Mae EP] wasn’t really 'Tiara Thomas' as an artist … artists should be able to do what they wanna do.”  -Tiara

We’re all used to record labels being the biggest roadblock to developing artists organically. Rico has told plenty of stories of labels thwarting he and an artist’s efforts at the last minute to follow Top 40 trends [unsuccessfully]. But what has to happen when it’s the artist changing directions?

…well, there’s really no telling why they couldn’t work out these creative differences, but at least it sounded like an amicable split. Clearly, this case was closed years ago; maybe it's sticking with me because it's the first casualty that I cared enough to watch closely in this era of ultimate transparency. Within the realm of tangible reasoning (because it could be anything), I’d say that both parties had to be equally stubborn for this deal to not work out. Although Rico has been in the industry long enough to know the importance of letting artists be themselves, he also had a personal mission to validate himself with his own protégé. And while Tiara had to be aware of how big of an opportunity she had with Division 1, many artists in her position who are self-contained and highly self-aware start fighting tooth and nail for as much creative freedom as humanly possible.

I still think that it's a blessing to develop an artist who already has a sense of self, but they would definitely have to understand my vision for them and for myself before we put pens to paper. I'll just leave it at that, for now.