Blackground

About Blackground

Blackground Records is an American record label, owned by entertainment attorney and artist manager Barry Hankerson and his son Jomo Hankerson, and distributed through the Universal Music Groups' Universal Records.

Blackground Records (also known as Blackground Enterprises, Blackground Entertainment, Black Ocean Records overseas, and Barry & Sons Inc.) began operations as 'The Midwest Group,' a management firm owned by Barry Hankerson. Hankerson had used that company to launch the career of R&B singer R. Kelly in 1992, after he had made a move to buy out his rival, fledgling artist manager and record executive David Hyatt, who had discovered Kelly. Both saw the lucrative potential of Kelly and wanted to manage him. Hyatt, the owner of independent label Tavdash Records, refused to give him up, and was subsequently arrested and convicted of federal drugs and conspiracy charges in July 1993. He is currently serving a life sentence in prison; in one recent interview, he claimed that he had been framed.

In 2003, Hankerson signed Boston pop singer JoJo. JoJo caught the attention of Vincent Herbert who discovered her and brought her to Barry Hankerson where she auditioned for him at his house. The public took notice of the fact that Blackground were utilizing some of the same tactics to launch JoJo's career as they used to launch Aaliyah's, which JoJo herself admitted. They played up the age factor as a gimmick, while making her sing material that was seemingly beyond her age. That controversy helped push her single "Leave (Get Out)" to number-twelve on Billboard's Hot 100. Unlike Aaliyah, JoJo was given some creative freedom. Three of her own compositions made it to the album, though none of them were singles. On June 22, 2004, JoJo released her debut JoJo. Debuting at number-four, it became the first album on the label to go platinum without being linked to Aaliyah. JoJo's second album The High Road was released on October 17, 2006. "The High Road" was certified gold.

Timbaland's Timbaland Presents Shock Value has achieved gold status and scored the #1 pop hit "Give It To Me" and the top 5 "The Way I Are".
Tank's third album, Sex, Love & Pain became his highest debut peaking at #2 on pop and #1 on R&B with the single "Please Don't Go" barely missing the top 40.
San Diego singer Brianna Cara (escaped the San Diego fires) and her Dance pop/R&B/Synth pop group Kali Girls (previously known as Willow and LAX) released the break-up anthem "Forget You" in early 2007 to favorable reviews but it failed to chart and was one reason Wikipedia removed Kali from its pages. The release date of the Kali album is set sometime in the summer. However some songs rumoured to be on the tracklisting have surfaced including: '"Fall Back"', '"Sumthin' Ain't Right"', '"They Don't Know You"', '"Know Better"' (With 2XL), '"Stop, Drop, Roll"', '"Supa Hypnotic"' (Which was originally recorded by Nicole Scherzinger and Shaggy on his album Clothes Drop), and '"Forget You"'. '"Boy Just Go"', '"Disappoinment"', '"When I Cared"', '"Send A Kiss"' and '"Beach Girl"' are also set to appear on the album. Their second single Beach Girl has been added to their myspace and the video will be dedicated to the late producer Static Major. A secondary group called JAK was recently added to the Blackground family.

Website: www.blackground.net