Virgin Bags Dupri
Jermaine Dupri has a new Virgin in his life.
But longtime "special friend" Janet Jackson has no reason to be jealous.
Dupri, the Atlanta-based hip-hop artist/producer and So So Def label head, was named president of Virgin Records Urban Music, the company announced Monday.
Dupri becomes the second big-name player from the rap world to take a high-profile post in the music biz in recent weeks. Jay-Z was named president of Def Jam Records last month.
Dupri, who first rose to prominence producing Kris Kross' huge 1992 hit "Jump" when he was barely out of high school, will bring his So So Def imprint to Virgin as well as record solo for the EMI-owned label.
"All of us at Virgin are thrilled to welcome Jermaine to the company," Virgin Records chairman and CEO Matt Serletic crowed Monday.
The tastemaker known for his "ears" in the music biz certainly has his work cut out for him at Virgin. The label home to Janet Jackson and Lenny Kravitz hasn't had much success in the rap arena since the mid-'90s.
But Dupri, who has prior experience in the upper echelons of the music industry (he held a brief tenure as the senior vice president of Arista Records in 2003), is up for the challenge.
"By joining So So Def and Virgin, I plan to do for Virgin what Russell Simmons did 10 years ago, when he moved Def Jam to Island Records," the hip-hopper said in a statement Monday.
"I will catapult Virgin into a young, hip label with chart-topping success in both R&B and rap music--I also hope to change the whole look of the company so when up-and-coming R&B and hip hop artists are looking for a home, Virgin will be the first stop," the six-time Grammy nominee added.
Dupri's stellar 2004 may have had something to do with his hiring at Virgin. He played a big part in the highest-grossing release of the year, Usher's Confesssions, producing the tracks "Burn," "Confessions Part II" and "My Boo." Dupri, who has worked with everyone from Mariah Carey to Ludacris, also executive-produced one of last year's biggest party jams, J-Kwon's "Tipsy."
Meanwhile, Dupri recently announced he would postpone plans to record a sequel to "We Are the World," called "We Are the Future," following next month's Grammy Awards due to the tsunami tragedy in Asia.
"The timing is not right for us to record a song about the future when so many people have lost their lives," he said in a statement earlier this month.
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