NAACP Presses Black Record Stars on Industry Jobs

Denouncing what it called “hypocritical discrimination” by some of America’s top black recording artists, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People has begun a public campaign to pressure the singers and their record companies into hiring more blacks.

NAACP officials said this week that the campaign will focus on Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Diana Ross and Prince, superstars who, the NAACP said, have “almost entirely white operations . . . and who have excluded blacks from their operations.”

Spokesmen for the five artists denied discriminating against blacks. Most defended their clients’ hiring practices by saying they seek out the most qualified people, regardless of color.

‘Fair Share’

“This is the ultimate hypocrisy,” charged Melanie Lomax, Southern California coordinator of the NAACP’s “fair share” campaign against the performers and their record companies.

“Many of these people are the same stars who were so active in the USA for Africa project that is raising money for famine victims in Africa. While we praise their work in Africa, we are concerned that they are engaging in racist practices at home,” she said.

The national director of the NAACP’s economic development program, Fred Rasheed, said in a telephone interview that the crux of the campaign will be to negotiate fair share contracts with six companies that distribute the great majority of all records: Capitol Industries-EMI Inc., CBS Records, RCA Records, MCA Records Inc., Warner Bros. Records Inc. and Polygram Records Inc.

Over the past four years, the NAACP has signed fair share agreements with 36 companies, including McDonald’s restaurants and the Coors beer company. The agreements commit the companies to return to the black community in the form of jobs, contracts and contributions a share of the profits the companies make on black consumers.

Ken Kragen, who manages Richie and who created the USA for Africa Foundation, which has raised $50 million for African famine victims, acknowledged in an interview that there “may be a problem with a lack of black presence in the production side of the industry.”

However, he added, “I’m not aware of any conscious effort to keep blacks out. Richie, in particular, is very aware of and sensitive to the issue.”

Kragen said he sympathized with the NAACP effort but thought that the USA for Africa project was unfairly criticized.

“It seems to me that a sincere effort like USA for Africa should not come under fire by the NAACP, no matter what,” he said. “This could backfire on the NAACP in the long run.”

Lomax, anticipating criticism for singling out black artists, said the NAACP is focusing on black performers because it has “more leverage” with them than with white artists. She praised certain black artists--Harry Belafonte, Stevie Wonder, Lena Horne and Sammy Davis Jr.--for their strong support of black industry professionals.

Publicist Norman Winter, who represents Jackson, called the singer “color-blind” and pointed out that he donated all proceeds from his 1984 tour last year to charity. A third of it went to the United Negro College Fund, he said.

“Michael just gets the best people he can without worry whether they’re black or white,” he said, adding that Jackson’s staff includes whites, Asians and blacks.

Error Seen

Prince’s business manager, Fred Moultrie, said he agrees with the NAACP criticism as a rule but believes the group has targeted Prince in error.

“I know Prince and I know he has tried to involve blacks in his operation,” Moultrie said. “I’m black and I handle all his financial affairs.

“I try to hire blacks. But I agree there’s a problem as far as the industry’s concerned. The problem lies in blacks being able to gain the expertise in the first place. If it hadn’t been for people like Prince, I wouldn’t have gotten this far.”

Spokesmen for Ross and Turner said their clients would decline comment, because they had not been informed of the NAACP campaign.

A dozen black recording industry professionals interviewed this week indicated that most had begun working in the industry in the late 1960s or 1970s, when the industry was opening up to black artists and to blacks who work behind the scenes, including photographers, publicists, security directors, makeup artists, art directors, caterers, sound specialists and hair stylists.

Six months ago, however, they were among 40 professionals who formed a coalition called Black Business for Equity in Entertainment because they feared that job opportunities were not expanding with rising revenues from black artists, but instead shrinking. They are working with the NAACP in its fair share campaign.

“There’s a clear double standard and it’s getting clearer all the time,” photographer Bobby Holland asserted. “I can’t shoot a Barbra Streisand or Julio Iglesias, but white photographers can and do get all the juiciest jobs with black artists.”

Publicity Shots

For example, he and four other photographers estimated that of roughly 300 albums released by black artists last year, only about 25 album covers were shot by black photographers. They said black photographers were left with less lucrative publicity shots.

Members of the group said the decline in opportunities for blacks in the industry began in the late 1970s, when top black rhythm and blues artists “crossed over” into the white pop market.

Paradoxically, as black artists began to dominate the record charts and, in some cases, record company revenues, the portion of income going to blacks in the industry declined, they said. They blamed the phenomenon on white managers and promoters who lure away black artists who are on the verge of making it big.

Kragen, Richie’s manager, said many black artists, including Richie, were not lured away by white managers, but sought them out.

Enjoy Success

The five performers targeted by the NAACP began on black radio stations in black markets and with black managers. Four have white managers, according to industry sources, and enjoy success outside the black community.

Ross has a white attorney but does most of her own career management.

“A white manager comes along just when an artist is about to make it big and says, ‘Look what connections I have and what I can get for you,’ ” said Chris Jonz, an independent promoter and manager who was formerly national promotion director of Motown Records. “And thereafter the artists may leave everything to the managers.”

As white managers are brought in, they in turn hire their “contacts” for dozens of other positions, according to the black professionals’ coalition. Those contacts, they added, are mostly white.

One example of the problem cited by the coalition was the USA for Africa project. The project, in which 45 pop music stars donated their talents to record the hit single, “We Are the World,” was written by Jackson and Richie.

Hit Video

While many of the faces in the hit video that accompanied the song were black, none of the faces behind the camera--ranging from producers to cameramen and makeup artists--was black, the group charged. Several said they had tried to donate ideas or services to the effort but were turned down or never called back.

Asked about the criticism, the deputy director of USA for Africa, Myra Lebo, said that more than one-third of the directors on the project’s advisory boards are black doctors, singers and professionals.

Lebo said, however, that she knew of two blacks who worked behind camera on the recording itself. One, she described as a “go-fer” and another as a “utility person” on a video team.

“I don’t think it was an attempt to keep blacks out,” she said. “We’re about saving lives in Africa, and we want to do our part.

Turn to People

“What happens is something peculiar almost to the entertainment industry. You want everything to be right, and you turn to the people you know, and if you know whites, you bring in whites.”

Lebo, who is black, said she personally agreed with some of the goals of the NAACP’s campaign.

“I’ve been in the entertainment industry for a long time, and for a long time this has been something people pretend is not there. It’s damned sure about time somebody began paying attention to it.”

David Lombard, a concert promoter who has worked with top black artists, said he is considering moving out of promotion work because of declining opportunities.

“I worked with Prince on his first headline tour five years ago, co-promoting a Nashville concert,” he said. “We lost money on the show and split the loss. I co-promoted Prince’s last concert in Long Beach in March. But this time, when profits were guaranteed, there was no split, only a fee. I’m just a farm system for Avalon (a major promoter).”

National Promoters

Prince’s business manager, Moultrie, said Prince hired both black and white promoters and that two of his three top national promoters were black.

It was complaints by black promoters that prompted the NAACP campaign, Rasheed said.

Most of the recent complaints have focused on Turner, Rasheed said. Because Turner is scheduled to begin a 90-city tour of the United States and Canada on July 21, the initial phase of the NAACP campaign will focus on seeking fair share agreements with Capitol Records, which distributes her albums, and Pepsi-Cola, which is sponsoring the tour.

“We have not gotten the letter yet,” said Robert O’Neill, vice president and general counsel of Capitol Industries-EMI . “When we do, we’ll certainly study it and take whatever action seems appropriate.”

Received Complaints

A Pepsi-Cola spokesman said the company has received complaints from black promoters about the tour, but he declined to comment on the NAACP campaign.

The Beverly Hills-Hollywood chapter of the NAACP announced last year that it planned to give one of its annual awards to Turner for her dramatic comeback after a decade-long decline in her career. The award was withdrawn abruptly in response to anti-apartheid protests over the fact that Turner had once performed in South Africa.

A spokesman for Roger Davies Management Inc., which manages Turner, said the singer was not aware of the current NAACP campaign.

A similar campaign was announced recently by the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of National Youth Movement, a New York-based civil rights group, who said he would organize sit-ins at Turner’s concerts if the singer does not substantially increase the number of black promoters involved in her tour.

Same Issue

Sharpton said Turner had five black promoters, at most, among the 50 involved in this summer’s tour. Sharpton’s group picketed some Richie concerts over the same issue last year and also worked with Jackson on similar issues, he said.

“This is becoming a national issue, the accountability of these black artists, and it should have come up a long time ago,” Sharpton said in a telephone interview. “The black community, especially black youth, supports this industry.”

While there is no way to calculate the exact amount spent by black music fans on records, Lomax said NAACP figures indicate that black artists bring in about $2 billion a year. A spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Assn. of America said the industry had $4.3 billion in revenues in 1984.

“Blacks are without doubt one of the--if not the most--dominant creative forces in the recording industry,” Lomax said.

Consumer Support

“And blacks have shown a massive level of consumer support in buying records,” she continued. “Yet these record companies blatantly exclude blacks from business opportunities and, in many instances, black artists refuse to use their clout to help them.”

Trish Heimers, a spokeswoman for the New York-based Recording Industry Assn. of America, a trade group representing 85% of the record companies in the United States, said, “If the NAACP feels justified in their allegations, they should contact either the association or individual record companies and we will be glad to hear what they have to say and take a look at the situation.”