Inside Uptown Records: The Real Story of the Early Days
Bob Celestin breaks down his path from Columbia Law School and a Park Avenue corporate law firm to the front office at Uptown Records
In this episode of BIG CED’s My Friends Are Better Than Yours, our guest Bob Celestin breaks down his path from Columbia Law School and a Park Avenue corporate law firm to the front office at Uptown Records. He explains why breaking into the music business was so hard for a young attorney, how a year in Arista Records’ legal department changed his position, and how persistence got him a meeting with Andre Harrell.
He also takes us inside the early days of Uptown, when the company ran out of Andre’s apartment, and what it took to build a label from scratch. He then covers his move to Eddie F’s Untouchables Entertainment and closes with a story about Puffy’s work ethic as a Uptown intern.
Topics Covered
- Graduating from Columbia Law, and why labels wanted attorneys with “seasoning”
- Working M&A at a Park Avenue law firm while chasing a music industry career
- Going out Thursday through Saturday and staying “in the mix” while working a corporate job
- Landing at Arista Records (home of Whitney Houston and Kenny G, run by Clive Davis)
- The Billboard “new executives” listing that made his phone start ringing
- Trying to find “the next Spike Lee” and meeting Reggie Hudlin
- How Reggie connected him to Andre Harrell
- Calling Andre for two weeks straight, and the first meeting outside Flatbush
- Uptown’s deal with MCA and Gerald Busby, and how Heavy D’s “Mr. Big Stuff” changed Andre’s leverage
- Becoming VP and General Manager and building Uptown from Andre’s Warren Street apartment
- Bringing Arista’s employee manual and structure to a startup label
- Meeting Teddy Riley and signing Guy
- Joining Eddie F at Untouchables Entertainment (the Uptown → Untouchables → LaFace → Arista “full circle”)
- Eddie F’s business mindset
- Puffy as a Uptown intern, and why he was the best intern ever
Inside Uptown Records: The Real Story of the Early Days