Years into his career as a songwriter in Los Angeles, Tab Nkhereanye realized a little too late that he didn’t read all of the fine print on a publishing deal he signed.
The deal, which was with songwriting impresario and talent scout extraordinaire L.A. Reid, stipulated Nkhereanye must move to Atlanta.
“I didn’t realize that, you know,” said Nkhereanye, who grew up in San Francisco. “So I kind of went kicking and screaming, but it turned out to be the best thing for my career.”
Over the next decade, Nkhereanye penned a number of hits across both pop and R&B genres, including Britney Spears and Madonna’s “Me Against the Music.” Around 2010, he found himself burned out on songwriting, and decided he wanted to transition into an executive role. He spent just under eight years at Island/Def Jam, where he helped sign and develop artists such as Frank Ocean and Alessia Cara.
Now, during a rapidly-changing time for the music industry, Nkhereanye is building out the Atlanta offices of global music company BMG, which opened in 2022. As the senior vice president of artists and repertoire at BMG, he’s signed producer and songwriter Bryan Michael Cox, who had a big year with Muni Long’s “Made for Me,” as well as Grammy Award-winning The-Dream and Lil’ Ronnie.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nkhereanye discussed shifts in recording industry in both Atlanta and the world at large.
Q: What was your journey into songwriting?
A: My brother was a radio DJ at the University of Santa Cruz, and I would always sit there with him. He had a late night radio show, and I’d try to convince him on what records he should play. I was always a poetry writer. I gravitated toward lyrics and melody, so I started there. I ended up moving to Los Angeles and writing songs with Robin Thicke. We’d learn to write songs together and we’d try to write the best ones and figure things out.
Q: You’ve been in the music industry for more than two decades. What has been the biggest shift you’ve noticed?
A: The advent of streaming changed the landscape of the business as we know it, and the rise of independent labels has happened in between that span of time. I’ve also seen a shift geographically in terms of our industry. I think there was a period of time when a lot of writers and producers in Atlanta left to come to Los Angeles, and then they realized that there wasn’t any magic out here. It was expensive to live here. Everyone moved back — Polow da Don moved back, Tricky moved back. And that turned out to be the best thing for us. I’ve seen a shift musically, geographically, in terms of our industry and in terms of streaming.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
And genres shift — there’s eras. I’ll never be the person to say that hip-hop is done at all, but I think it’s kind of figuring out a new identity.
Q: Tell me more about hip-hop trying to find its new identity.
A: I think what you’re finding is that a lot of hip-hop artists are springing up out of anywhere. No longer are they guided by a major label. When I was coming up, there was a West Coast era, there was an East Coast era and there was an Atlanta era. And now, I think it’s trying to find itself as maybe not by region anymore, but just how it’s discovered, the process.
Q: How are the labels responding to this?
A: You’re not finding a big deal. Nobody’s really signing that many hip-hop artists anymore, unless you’re proven or have a record that took off by itself, independently. Budgets are different. I find that no one’s spending a lot of money anymore, for the most part, unless you have a viral hit that takes off and does something like that. Labels are more cautious in their signings.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Q: With the rise of social media and the increasing accessibility of publishing your own music, the meditation on celebrity is very different now than it was decades beforehand. What does it take for an artist to stand out and cut through the noise?
A: It still comes down to good old-fashioned songwriting. I think social media will find the hit and amplify it, but I think it’s the artists who have a really good sense of self, and that comes from having not had early success right out of the gate. That’s almost to your benefit, in a sense. I think there’s something to be said about a little bit of struggle that allows you to find yourself and eventually get you to writing better records. If you are able to stick to it, I think that always ends up playing a role in the recipe of long-term success.
Q: Were your parents big music people? Were you raised listening to a specific artist?
A: Not really. But my uncle, who wasn’t a blood relative but was a close family friend, was a big-time jazz singer. His name was Al Jarreau. He passed away about three, four years ago, and he always played a role (in my musical upbringing). He was the reason why I moved to LA because he asked, “What are you gonna do with your life?” And I said that I wanted to be in the music business. He said, “Well, you can’t do that from San Francisco. Why don’t you come down to LA?” And he let me stay at his house while he was on tour, and I stayed with him. And if it wasn’t for him, I definitely wouldn’t be sitting here.
Q: What lesson did you learn from Al?
A: Hard work. He had this saying because his wife was fancy. He’d always say “think mink,” like mink coats. He’d say “I gotta go out here and write records so she could have mink coats.” I learned from that, you know, that you can make a career out of this business.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
He showed me that it was attainable. Watching him and his life, having a front-row seat to what he did and how he did it and how hard he worked, definitely was a foundation for my career.
Q: What are some of the fundamental differences between the music industries in both Los Angeles and Atlanta as it relates to songwriting?
A: The coasts are for signing deals, shooting videos and award shows. I think the fabric of great songwriting comes from the flyover states. That’s why I think you get great songs out of Nashville. There’s something about everyday life in the middle that is much more relatable than this fake glitz and glamour that you get out here. There’s a level of authenticity that you get when you’re driving around I-75 or 85 that you’re not going to get on Sunset Boulevard.
Q: Will Atlanta ever get to the point where more than just a handful of deals are signed here again, like the days when LaFace Records was signing the Ushers and TLCs of the world?
A: I don’t know. I sign people out of Atlanta, so I do deals there for the most part. But we have a big, 300-person office in Nashville. I don’t know if we’ll ever have that (in Atlanta). It’s unfortunate because film studios are there. Whole towns are built around movies in Atlanta.
I was having a conversation with L.A. Reid one time, and he said when he first brought LaFace to Atlanta, there was a company here called Green Limousine that had eight cars. At the height of what LaFace Records became, they ended up having 900 vehicles. That was part of the growth of the music industry at its height. It brought up and helped other industries become what they were.
Name: Tab Nkhereanye
Hometown: San Francisco, California
Hobbies: Golfing, searching for the perfect tequila
Select songwriting credits: “Wild Things” by Alessia Cara, “Take Me As I Am” by Mary J. Blige, “Me Against the Music” by Britney Spears and Madonna, “One Time” by Justin Bieber
This column has been adapted from the July edition of The Scene, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s LinkedIn newsletter about all things in the Georgia entertainment business. Keep up with the latest insider news about what’s happening in the business of film, music and TV by subscribing on the AJC‘s LinkedIn page, https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-scene-7260320785393766400/
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