Geffen Shifts Its Hip-hop Acts To Mca

LOS ANGELES‹In a move of corporate synergy designed to better promote Geffen Records' hip-hop acts, while freeing the label to concentrate on its core rock business, the label's hip-hop acts have moved to MCA, under a joint-venture agreement made by the two Universal Music Group labels.
Artists affected by the plan include the Roots, Genius, Sauce Money, All City, Rahzel, Phats Bossi, and the Flip Squad All-Stars.
The move comes on the heels of MCA's success with such R&B acts as Mary J. Blige, Keith Washington, and K-Ci & JoJo, whose single "All My Life" has been No. 1 on the Hot 100 for
three weeks.
"[Geffen Records (U.S.) chairman/
CEO] Eddie Rosenblatt and I began having conversations about the fact that MCA was staffed with experts in marketing, street promotion, radio promotion, as well as a field staff specifically oriented to work R&B, hip-hop, and rap projects," says MCA Records (U.S.) president Jay Boberg.
Rosenblatt says he was concerned that Geffen didn't have the staff to properly market its hip-hop records. "All of a sudden, we were looking at six or seven great records ready to come out in eight or nine months," he says. "In the past, we put out one record at a time, working it for four or five months. We never had this many records ready to go. In our concern about the artists' careers, we discussed it with MCA and Universal. We realized that they had the staff and the room to do it, so we did it."
Rosenblatt adds that A&R executive Wendy Goldstein is the only person at Geffen who will move from that label to MCA.
Boberg says that the company is in the process of meeting with the artists involved and their managers. So far, he adds, the artists and the managers have been receptive to the change.
Also in the works under the new venture is a possible production deal with DJ Quik.
Killah Priest's next project will be worked by MCA, while his current album, "Heavy Mental," will continue to be worked by Geffen.