When he wasn’t solving technical problems for the department of labor, Rodney “Scratch” Taylor liked to play music that made people dance and support whatever his teenage son was into, at the time.
Mr. Taylor moved to the Atlanta area ten years ago with his then-wife and young son, with the hope of growing a music production business, Way Upstairs Productions, that he started in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, said his brother, Reginald Taylor, of Lithonia.
“That production company was his passion, next to his son,” Mr. Taylor said of his younger brother. “He was serious about his music. He wanted to be a part of something that would make music better, because he didn’t always like what he heard.”
Rodney Lamont Taylor, known to many as Scratch, of Clarkson, died April 9, at Emory University Hospital, from complications associated with acute leukemia. He was 43.
A funeral service is planned for 3 p.m. Monday at the Donald Trimble Mortuary, Decatur. His body will be buried in Toledo. Dexter T. Sims Mortuary, Royston, is in charge.
From a young age, Mr. Taylor surrounded himself with music, said his mother, Helen Taylor, of Toledo.
“He worked on the jazz station at Scott High School,” she said. “And when he went to Eastern Michigan for college, he worked on the station that was connected to that school also.”
He graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. After graduation he worked as a disc jockey at a Toledo radio station and he was a counselor for children at St. Anthony's Villa.
In 1996 he married Patricia "Patti" Stinson and they soon had a son, Jared L. Taylor. The family moved to Atlanta, but the couple eventually divorced. Mr. Taylor however, stayed a constant presence in his son’s life, his brother said.
“He loved being a father,” Reginald Taylor said. “He would sponsor Jared’s youth football teams, and he was into whatever Jared was into.”
At the time of his death, Mr. Taylor worked in the information technology division of the state labor department, his family said. Reginald Taylor said his brother was good at his job with the state, it was his steady job, the one that paid the bills. But the music company was his career, something he wanted to do for as long as possible, his brother said.
Rodney Taylor’s dream was to make his company a full-service music studio, including a mobile DJ service, where the two worked together, his brother said. Reginald Taylor said he would have loved to see how big his brother could have gotten in the music production and engineering world.
“He started Way Upstairs from the ground up,” Mr. Taylor said of his brother. “He named it and everything. I might have been an early influence, but the company was all his.”-+
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