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Kevin Mitchell is a Cape Verdean American who has been involved in the music and entertainment industry for sixteen years. He started out at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst as a college radio program director, campus and club DJ and concert committee director for the second largest student concert company on the east coast. After becoming one of the top rated DJs in Massachusetts he was recruited by Charlie Walk (current President of Epic Records)from Sony Music Entertainment to work the New England region for their prestigious college marketing department.
Kevin went abroad to England to study at Richmond College in London and while living there he was hired as an administrative assistant to the President of Def Jam Record and Uptown Record’s London office which handled the artist development and marketing for Europe and Asia for the label’s acts with their distributor Polygram. Mitchell remained there a year and returned to the United States to become an assistant to the President of Def Jam Records US, Lyor Cohen (Current President of Warner Music Group). After going back to complete college Cohen immediately hired him as a Regional Promotions Manager for Def Jam Records in one of their most vital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region (which encompassed Baltimore, Washington and all of Virginia).
After only five months in the field, Kevin was hired by the infamous Bobbitto Garcia to replace him as the National Director of Alternative Promotions in NY but before he left the region he helped several of his interns get positions with the company. The most well known being Kevin Liles who eventually became President of Def Jam Records (he is currently the Executive Vice President of Warner Music Group)and Young Guru (Jay Z's super engineer and a&r for Def Jam).The National Promotion’s job included overseeing the entire national promotional operations for the company. His responsibilities of this position included: formulating their national promotion team, overseeing the department, supervising national promotional campaigns and various talent acquisition tasks. The job that he did then has been divided into four different positions today at the company.
Eventually Kevin decided he wanted to be independent from working for a label when he was offered his first contract to provide marketing and promotional consultation for Geffen Records. The label was setting up a new urban music department with The Roots and GZA as their first new hip-hop acts. The contract was for two years and it required him to formulate a national promotions strategy, hire a 20 man regional promotions team and serve as an advisor to the President of the company. Soon his services were in high demand and several prominent record labels and production companies requested his services like Sean “P Diddy Combs†and NBA All-Star Shaquille O Neal.
Mitchell consulted on projects for Aftermath, Deathrow, Rap A Lot, BMG, Too Short, Atlantic, So So Def,Interscope, Priority and he also managed Grammy award winning producer Easy Mo Bee (Notorious BIG, 2Pac, Lost Boyz, Busta Rhymes, Alicia Keyes). He took on a project with Shaq and helped him acquire a distribution deal with Interscope Records. He also needed his label set-up, new talent, someone to executive produce his album and set up an international tour with Reebok in 8 countries in Asia and South America. Mitchell discovered an act named Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz for O Neal and the group ended up writing a lot of his album "You Can't Stop the Reign". The group recorded a song that he didn’t think was right for his company so Mitchell started a new record label to release the group's song on his own.
The label Codeine Records was started with a $2500 investment and Mitchell sold the copies from his apartment and provided all the marketing and promotions through his network of contacts. After 6 months of pushing the record he got the attention of all five of the major labels when the first release hit number one on two commercial radio stations in NY and Atlanta. A bidding war ensued and Sony Music’s Columbia Records emerged victorious and one of the biggest record deals for an independent artist at the time was signed. Kevin executive produced the Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz project and the single sold 1.4 million copies, received a Grammy, MTV VMA and Soul Train Award nomination and it won a Billboard Award for Hip Hop Single of the Year in 1999. Billboard Awards are determined by sales which made the song the number one selling single in the world that year. Billboard Magazine's Year End Issue listed his label Codeine Records as one of the Top 5 rap labels of 1999 amongst Bad Boy, No Limit and Def Jam Records.
In 2001 Mitchell decided that he wanted another challenge so he started Kevlar Entertainment. The company specializes in providing solutions for music related companies and artist management consultation. Since he started his clients have included Sony Music, BMG, EMI, Warner, Atlantic, Capitol, Columbia, Interscope, Island Def Jam, Virgin, Jive and several companies owned by professional athletes like Major League Baseball All-star Tony Gwynn and NFL phenomenon Trevor Pryce. As the music business evolved he expanded the scope of his consulting to include movie companies like Disney, MGM, 20th Century Fox, New Line and Lion’s Gate Films. He has placed songs in movies like Academy award winning movie Training Day, South Park, Daredevil, Girl Next Door, Drumline, Friday After Next, ATL The Movie and most notable was his work with Academy Award winning directors the Coen Brothers and Grammy Award winning music producer T Bone Burnett. They came together to work on the score and soundtrack for a Tom Hanks and Marlon Wayans film entitled “LadyKillers†which was a project for Disney sub company Touchstone Pictures. He has placed music in commercials most notably a Kobe Sprite commercial, a Victoria Secret commercial and a fashion show that aired on CBS last winter.
Mitchell moved on to video games with companies like Sony, Midway, Rockstar Games and worked on the highest selling video game series in existence which was Electronic Arts’ NFL game Madden and their other big seller NBA Live. The internet related projects he consulted included EMusic, Urban Box Office and The Source Magazine Online. Mitchell has done deals with several corporate sponsors for various cross marketing initiatives that included music. He’s worked with companies like Nike, Sprite, Nokia, Verizon, Levi, Adidas, Frito Lay, Budweiser, Jack Daniels, NFL Players Association, NBA Entertainment, USO, US Army, Sony, Brand Jordan, Reebok, Pepsi, Viacom, Mountain Dew, Technique, Victoria Secret, Sirius Satellite Radio, Cingular and T Mobile.
One of the highlights for Kevin in recent years is when he was asked by the President of Atlantic Records to provide artist management consultation and executive production for a band called Nappy Roots that they had signed four years prior who needed some help. He jumped on board, turned it around and took the project to the top of the charts. The band became the biggest selling debut hip hop act of the year in 2002, certified gold then platinum by the RIAA, sold 1.6 million albums and received 2 Grammy, 2 MTV VMA, 1 American Music and 2 Soul Train Award nominations. Soon afterwards Mitchell renegotiated their recording deal with Atlantic for ten times there original amount. Mitchell has toured with the likes of Mariah Carey, Dave Matthews, Eminem, Alicia Keyes, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, 311, Hoobastank, Ludacris, The Marleys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Wynton Marsalis and has booked shows in over 30 countries including Iraq.
Mitchell is currently consulting other entertainment and new media companies internationally on areas of business. His two most notable clients are National Amusements (the primary owner of Viacom International, CBS Corporation and Midway Games) and Shady / Interscope, who is currently the most successful rap label in history. In September of 2005 he was hired as a consultant by the Vice Chairperson of Viacom/CBS Corporation and President of National Amusements Shari Redstone, who is the Billionaire owner of the company to assist in the development new media related activities for her company. Her Dad Sumner Redstone is the Chairman of Viacom and they both own National Amusements, which is a 1500 screen movie theater chain that serves over 65 million patrons a year in 8 countries. National Amusements is the company that owns 77% of Viacom which is MTV, BET, Paramount Pictures, Dreamworks, CBS, UPN, VH1, Nickelodeon, Showtime, CMT and several other worldwide brands and they own 90% of Midway Games.
Mitchell's speciality remains in the areas of recorded music like production management, marketing, promotions and artist development. Kevlar Entertainment and his new company Talk Music America, is focusing on a number of new initiatives that include artist and corporate development, digital content acquisition and new media strategies which will combine the elements of music, internet, film, print, TV and wireless technology. Mitchell also manages new Shady Records act Bobby Creekwater who debuted on Eminem's Re-Up platinum compilation last year. Bobby Creekwater's highly anticipated album "A Brilliant Mistake" is coming out in Spring of 2008. Mitchell has just completed an executive education program at the number one institution in the world Harvard University.
Mitchell is currently making the transition into TV and new media with a number of new projects. The first project is produced, co-directed, music supervised and written by Mitchell and it contains a 3D holographic rendered dance performance for Pepsi that will appear in The Bridge Theater in LA. He is also providing talent for 2 new TV projects the first is a new show coming on BET called IRON RING and a new video model show called FABS SEARCH FOR A VIDEO MODEL that is airing in Europe first and then coming to America next year. The IRON RING is about UFC style fighters squaring off as celebrities like Jim Jones, Juelz Santana, Ludacris, Eddie Griffin and several others pit their fighters against each other in mixed martial arts style fighting. FABS(Face Attitude Body Sex Appeal) SEARCH FOR A VIDEO MODEL is America's top model with a music integrated twist as contestants compete for a chance to appear in a music video from a superstar as they are challenged weekly by a musical artist every week. Mitchell assisted in acquiring a global music partner for the show and he is excited about the potential of the brand launching globally through the production company that helped produced Big Brother, Fear Factor and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
Any questions or inquiries for Mitchell please email [email protected]
