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