The man behind LaFace

How he got the nickname "L.A.": Stories vary, but he says the truth is heused to wear a Los Angeles Dodgers T-shirt all the time when he was a kid and a good friend gave him the name.

His first break as a producer: "Our producing career sort of kicked in because when it was time to do the second record [for the Deele, the group he and Babyface were in], our producers, for whatever reason, didn't necessarily want to produce the second record. So I got a call from the president of our record company at the time, Solar Records, and he said, `Hey, why don't you go on and give this a try?' So I said, `Oh really? . . . Cool.' "

What he brought to the L.A. and Babyface production team: "I think my biggest influence was I always spotted the new people that we should [work with]. And I'd like to think that I havea knack for picking who I think is the next star. And I think my partner, at the time, who really loves music, has more of a love for established artists. I was always into the unknown. I was always into the underdog because I always felt you make a significant contribution when you do something for someone who's starting at the beginning. And you also have a major impact on their life."

When he's not working he's . . .: "I like to watch movies, although I want to make movies, so it won't be a hobby long. Otherwise, I like to play with my children. And I don't do much else. My family likes the beach, so I like going to the beach, sitting in the shade and watching them enjoy the sun. That's fun for me."

Next month Atlanta's LaFace Records celebrates its fifth anniversary. But even as LaFace pauses to look back at how it became one of the country's most successful record companies, its leaders are looking toward diversification and surviving the recent production-team split of founders and co-owners Antonio "L.A." Reid and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds.

In less than half a decade, LaFace has helped establish Atlanta as a record-producing hot spot, indelibly linking the city with such musical superstars as Toni Braxton and TLC in the minds of their fans.

It also has become a paragon of African-American business, a sort of junior Motown that develops its own talent, such as the rap group Outkast, instead of dabbling in the high-priced marketplace of famous free-agent talent (although Reid/Edmonds have produced Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown and other big-name acts outside the LaFace fold).

"The thing about Motown is that it had a wide range of talents and LaFace is showing that now, " says Nelson George, author, screenwriter and former R&B Billboard columnist. "The diversity is really remarkable when I look at other [black-owned] labels like Philly International and Solar, which basically had one sound. LaFace is doing every sound. And the image development aspect is also a strength it shares with Motown.

Adds George: "Atlanta is the most important city today in the black music business, and a key city in bringing back R&B, mainly because of LaFace."

But even while the Motown comparisons are inevitable, the company - industry insiders say it is worth between $250 million and $300 million - is aiming even higher. Think Time Warner. Think Toni Braxton as a movie star; the hip-hop trio TLC as cartoon characters.

The business force behind LaFace, Reid is looking to branch out into films, television and interactive technology.

At least that's the master plan brewing on the 15th floor of a Buckhead skyscraper near the corner of Piedmont and Peachtree roads. That's what's keeping Reid on red-eye flights to Los Angeles and cooped up for the usual 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. workday in his slick camel and black corner office with a view that spans from downtown Atlanta's skyline to Stone Mountain.

You might have heard of LaFace's plans sooner if Edmonds was the co- owner responsible for LaFace's day-to-day business. Or if he was as vocal as he is visible. He's the solo recording artist-producer being interviewed on BET's "Video Soul" and performing during the last hurrah of "The Arsenio Hall Show."

But it's the more elusive Reid, a man who can go unnoticed while ringing up thousands of dollars in CDs and laser discs at Around Lenox's Tower Records, who "basically runs the company, " he says. And for some reason the man who likes to be "the man behind the stars" is stepping forward for the first nonindustry publication interview he says he's done in some time.

"I'm in the middle of an interview with the local newspaper, " Reid says as he hurries his wife, singer/Savvy Records president Perri (a.k.a. Pebbles), off the phone. His tone is part matter-of-fact and part incredulity.

"I know it, " he quickly replies, as if she's said "I can't believe it."

Interviews are something Reid and Edmonds have skirted since their split as a production team in September.

The duo, along with longtime associate Daryl Simmons, has won two Grammy Awards for its work on the Boyz II Men single "End of the Road" from the "Boomerang" soundtrack, and the Whitney Houston single "Queen of the Night" from "The Bodyguard" soundtrack.

The Grammys were the culmination of seven years spent together crafting such hit singles as Sheena Easton's "The Lover in Me, " "Dial My Heart" by the Boys, the Mac Band's "Roses Are Red, " Karyn White's "Superwoman, " Bobby Brown's "Don't Be Cruel" and Aretha Franklin's latest, "Willing to Forgive."

"I think those guys are some of the best songwriters in the business, period, " Franklin said recently. "Face, L.A. and Darryl - whooh - you can't get much better these days. I'm glad I got them before [they split up]." Edmonds, who has moved back to Los Angeles, chose not to discuss his relationship with Reid. But he did say he was "very comfortable4 in terms of the success the label has had, and I'm confident about the direction it's headed in. We're becoming more like a major label, stepping up, instead of staying a boutique label."

Reid was willing, somewhat, to elaborate on the specifics of his current partnership with Edmonds: "We are both co-owners of LaFace Records [whose product is distributed by parent company Arista Records] and we both work very hard to make LaFace records a success. I obviously run LaFace Records and I'm more hands-on as it relates to LaFace.

"Face [Edmonds] is still a writer and producer, " Reid continues. "He is in the studio right now with [multiplatinum rap trio] TLC, " working on some songs for the album. "He just finished a couple of songs with A Few Good Men [an upcoming LaFace act]. He serves as an absentee owner, so to speak, but also as a writer and producer. And my focus is that I run it. I'm the guy that you can call when there's a problem. And that's basically what our relationship is now.

"We meet and we talk often about how to continue to make this label a success."

And what of the rumors about a bitter separation and poor personal relationship?

"Let me put it like this, " Reid says in a measured, confident tone. "I have been very successful at staying out of the news as it relates to any rumors surrounding myself and Babyface. And I'd like to keep it like that."

Next challenge: The movies

That said, the most prominent player in the Atlanta music scene speaks candidly about his rise from his days as a drummer from Cincinnati, and enthusiastically about why he sees Grammy's best new artist Toni Braxton, near-gold rap duo Outkast and all the other acts on his roster as movie stars.

We first meet Reid at Pricci. He chose the posh Buckhead restaurant because he thought it "would be nice . . . kinda cool." The 38-year-old custom-tailored, well-built executive says he's "not into food these days, " but lists The Cheesecake Factory and Cafe Intermezzo as his favorite local spots.

On this day there's a hearty bowl of potato soup sitting in front of him, followed by a mixed leaf salad that envelops the plate. He finds time to do damage to both while talking incessantly about movies he's seen, what sank a film or made it soar, and the kind of movies with which he'd like to be associated.

The 1992 Eddie Murphy film "Boomerang, " for instance.

"We fought tooth and nail to make sure that we had the music for that soundtrack, " says Reid, now comfortable in the high-back black swivel chair in his office. "The reason we did the "Boomerang" soundtrack had as much to do with the fact that it was an Eddie Murphy film as it did to do with the fact that it was a lifestyle that people did not know existed in the black community. That was the significance.

"When you look at that film . . . when you walk into the successful black company and you see all the beautiful faces of all the beautiful black women and black men who work there, you see the success, " he continues. "And the general population of America said that that was a fantasy.

"What LaFace represents to me is the rhythm of black lifestyles. And that means in black lifestyles, there are several social clashes. We have the struggle of light skin vs. dark skin. We have the struggle of high school dropout vs. college graduate. We have the hip-hop lifestyle vs. the upward mobility lifestyle. But LaFace, we are all of those things. We are everything that black life is. And we have every form of black entertainment right here on our roster."

Making things happen

When you hear Reid speak so enthusiastically about, say, experiencing the train crash in "The Fugitive" on the sound system in his Country Club of the South home, you can easily imagine what he's like in staff meetings. And who the driving force of LaFace is.

"I've never been involved in any organization that I wasn't behind, " Reid says, with an easy smile that signals a lessening apprehension about discussing himself. "And I don't know if that was for any other reason except that I'm a very motivating person. Let me correct that. It's for others to say whether I'm motiva-ting or not. But I'm very motivated and very focused on things that I like to do. I never really was patient enough to wait for someone else to sort of deliver my goals and my dreams."

"He can be a cult leader if he wanted to be, " says Davett Singletary, senior director of artist development and marketing. "He has a gift with words. When he's talking to you about where he sees LaFace, you walk away thinking you've been painted this wonderful picture and you just want to go out there and make it happen. Bring that picture home to him."

''I remember being in the studio, " recalls Toni Braxton. "And L.A. was telling me how to bring the right emotion to 'Breathe Again.' He was like, give 'em that Michael Jackson 'She's Out of My Life.' And I knew exactly what he meant. He knows how to bring a song, an idea, home."

Reid's only brother, Bryant, who's director of artists and repertoire at LaFace, noticed his older brother's leadership qualities when they were growing up. "He's always been into music, " says the younger Reid, 30. "He was always pursuing different things for his band. He's always the guy that made things happen for his band. And it's happening now. He's the guy that makes things happen here.

"So, in growing up with him, I see some of the same things now that I saw then, " adds Bryant, who also has two sisters in their hometown. "The leadership. He always took that role. And I don't know if it was something that people said, 'L.A., we want you to lead us.' Some people are just go-getters. And he was always a go-getter."

Reid has had his sights and ambitions set on owning a record label since he was 10 years old. Even when he organized R&B band the Deele, which Edmonds later joined, he was hoping he wouldn't be onstage long.

Behind his chair, underneath a sultry poster of his wife, sits a stack of books including John Grisham's "The Pelican Brief, " Tina McElroy Ansa's "Ugly Ways, " a hefty textbook titled "Law and Business of the Entertainment Industries" and Ebony magazine mogul John Johnson's "Succeeding Against the Odds."

"I'm very much a student of all the record executives, especially African-American record executives because their struggle is very different, " Reid says. "So, I've always studied Berry Gordy, Dick Griffey, Clarence Avant, you know, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, Al Bell. And I've watched them. How they built their companies. The different deals they would make with distributors."

LaFace's master plan

His immediate role model is Gordy, who built the Motown empire in Detroit.

"First and foremost it is Motown, " says Reid, who says he prefers working with an artist from scratch rather than established artists. A direction similar to Motown's distinguishable foray into the industry.

"What Motown was able to accomplish has yet to be matched. And I don't say that I can match it and I'm not even out to try and match it, " he says.

"The goal that L.A. and I talk about on a daily basis is for LaFace to be the pre-eminent black entertainment company in the business, " says Scott Folks, executive vice president and general manager of LaFace.

"And while we recognize that records will always be the foundation, we're in a multimedia society now. And when we sign artists and we talk about the vision for those artists, we see that vision in a very wide- ranging point of view. Moving into film and TV and interactive technology with any one of the artists on the label is just a natural extension of their creativity, and our creativity, " Folks says.

"TLC could be cartoon characters, easily, " Singletary says, referring to the young hip-hop trio of Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas.

(Lopes's recent troubles with the law regarding alleged arson at boyfriend Andre Rison's home hasn't affected the group's relationship with its record label, LaFace executives maintain.)

"Toni's [Braxton] got movie star written all over, " adds Singletary. "There aren't any specific projects, outside of records, that we can talk about yet. But it's in the master plan."

Atlanta entertainment lawyer Joel Katz - who represents TLC, Braxton, producer Dallas Austin and others - says the possibility of LaFace stepping up its status from record label to multimedia force is "very feasible." And that it should begin taking shape very soon.

"It will happen, " Katz insists. "I think that L.A. is an unusual person because I think he not only possesses deep creative talent, but a business acumen which enables him to blend both the business and creative world together. And with his music credentials, we will basically, within the next two years, see him in the film world. And then beyond."

"Outside of my family, the most important thing to me is to build something that can be thought of as a legacy, " says Reid, a father of three.

"I wanna make history, that's really want I to do. So success to me isn't any amount of money. It isn't any amount of hits. It's the fact that what we do can be thought of as important enough that it can go down in history and never be forgotten."