J Bird - THE ONE AND ONLY LADY OF THE HOUSE

I am an entertainment agent and manager and I must say this entertainment business certainly has its trials and tribulations.What I have certainly learned these last 13 years of my life is that one person's experience of someone is not going to be the same as yours. I have learnt not to believe the hype, good or bad but to be my own judge of a person's character.While at school I was first credited as a writer social and political issues on WH Smith titles The Melting Pot, Stage Steps and then moved over to music magazines. The highlight of this period of my life was attending the Mobo Awards and seeing BB King, P Diddy, Eve and Maya in the flesh and getting to interview them in the press room.During the firs year of my A Level studies, my big break came that year when I was invited on tour with Michael Jackson. I was credited as a writer on the HIStory world tour brochure after staying with Jackson and entourage in Prague and the UK leg of the tour. I spent time hanging out with famed choreographers Lavelle Smith, Chris Judd, Travis Payne and the musicians and backing singers.I entered into the live entertainment booking industry in 1997 supplying my first soul artist to night clubs and resorts across the UK. In those days I designed, cut pasted and printed publicity in my front room to send out to venues, hounding venues to book him and arranging record company meetings. On tops of this I was still studying, and working part time in the office and bar work to fund my vision but student debt nearly killed me! Pasta and Toast is all I saw and ate during these early days!!!By 2004 I had a number of artists on my rosta and thanks to a good friend and business partner we got sponsorships for our vision. They believed that I had a good eye for talent and knack at landing contracts through making contacts. 12/13 years later I can't count how many artists I work with via the 2 agencys I am affiliated with. I am still in the entertainment business booking for resorts, clubs, tours, theatre, T.V. and film.I currently also tour colleges and schools lecturing on employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Artists I love working with have to be the amazing Freddie Lee, Musical Youth, Junior Giscombe, Audley Anderson and so many other wonderful people. Don't get me wrong there have been a couple of bad apples along the way. I definitely has not been all glamour and glitz. I just call the bad times "A learning curve". Sometimes people seem like your best friend as long as you are a conducive tool to their careers, don't always expect the credit you deserve, it can be a thankless job where people not only use you to get where they are going but they will also either erase you from their history or discredit you to justify their own questionable actions.I would say that am a born fighter. In all adversity I survive. There were some lean times in my life where being yong and stubborn, afraid to ask for help, I could not pay my rent, I did not have food, the power was going to get cut off and I was too proud to turn to mum and dad. I made some bad choices fell in with some bad people, did stupid things but I persevered knowing that something had to give and that one day I would succeed.I look back on the ups and downs of 13 years and smile. Everything good and bad has made me into a much stronger and rounded person.