Macy Gray on How (Great) Life Is--as a Talent Manager

When Macy Gray wasn’t busy in recent months giving concerts or picking up critical accolades, the soul singer spent time learning a couple of new languages. But it’s not so she can talk to fans while touring overseas.

The languages are retail-ese and market-speak, where phrases such as “point of sale,” “inventory control” and “electronic audio surveillance source-tagging” can pepper otherwise normal conversation.

Most artists can delegate such drudgery to their managers, something Gray was quite happy to do while on her way to becoming one of the big successes of 2000.

“As an artist, you don’t trip on budgets, you just want to get your record out and be famous,” says Gray, whose debut collection, “On How Life Is,” has sold more than3.1 million copies. “You don’t care how much it costs to put out an ad or that kind of stuff. And it’s not very interesting, to tell you the truth--it’s not a lot of fun.”

So why is she doing it?

For Sunshine.

Sunshine Anderson that is, a 25-year-old Charlotte, N.C., singer-songwriter who has one of the nation’s fastest-rising singles in “Heard It All Before.” She is the first client for Macy Gray, talent manager.

It’s a facet Gray stumbled into, but it’s a role she’s relishing--and not just in name only.

“Macy’s experience combined with her creative brilliance in helping to mastermind the Sunshine plan has been an incredible asset to our efforts,” says Atlantic Records executive vice president Craig Kallman. “She’s been very active and aggressive in breaking Sunshine.”

Gray’s management career began just as her as her own career was taking off in 1999. An old friend, Soulife Records co-founder Chris Dawly, asked her if she’d help Anderson, a neophyte singer on Soulife’s nascent roster.

Anderson had recorded “Heard It All Before” and was at work on her debut album, “Your Woman,” which is due April 17 as the first release under a new partnership between the L.A.-based label and Atlantic.

“She was going through a lot and she didn’t have anybody looking out for her, so Chris asked me if I would,” Gray says. “At first it was like, ‘Nah, I don’t have time for all that.’ But he kept asking me, and I met her and she’s a sweet, sweet girl. It started out with me just wanting to help her get stuff together, like finding a lawyer. Then I got into it a lot and me and my assistant, Kobi Wu, formed Scam Inc., a management company, to look out for her. It was all real gradual.”

A big part of the attraction is that both singers feel strongly connected to the wellspring of ‘60s and ‘70s soul music. Anderson’s album has elements of contemporary hip-hop, but it’s largely built on classic soul.

Beyond that, it’s an extremely ambitious and deeply probing look--almost a song cycle--at the many facets of a relationship, from the rush of a first encounter and the blossoming of love through betrayal and forgiveness. Most of the songs were written or co-written by Anderson and Soulife vice president Mike City.

Anderson clearly is delighted at how quickly “Heard It All Before” has become a hit--it’s No. 22 on Billboard’s Hot 100 this week. Yet she has a grand vision that reaches beyond charting a hit single, or even a hit album.

With the album, she hopes to change the perception that contemporary R&B; must contain “bump-and-grind sexuality” in order to sell. She even prefers her music to be called R&S; (for rhythm & soul) rather than R&B.;

She’s also preaching the message that musicians don’t have to be dragged down by the trappings of celebrity, and that fans ought to view a musician’s job like that of any other professional.

“I got into this to sing,” Anderson said over hot tea at a Studio City restaurant last weekend, a few hours before performing at a private showcase at the Conga Room. “This whole thing where people treat musicians like superstars, like they’re different from everybody else, that part makes me angry. I want to let the world know that we are everyday people just like them.”

Gray says it’s no act.

“She’s not gimmicky,” she says. “In the [“Heard It All Before”] video, she’s just like the girl next door. She’s not all dolled out, she’s not naked, there’s not spaceships everywhere, and it didn’t cost a lot of money.”

Anderson, in fact, has become the poster woman in Soulife’s mission to put music ahead of flashy production and choreography, and to promote musicians who rely on live bands rather than programmed backing tracks.

“It’s quite an ambitious concept,” says Atlantic’s Kallman. “Using all live instruments and putting together a real old-fashioned soul revue harks back to the days of James Brown. . . . They are really quite impassioned on the importance of classic soul music being a part of the mainstream pop music business [again].”

Dawly says the feedback he’s getting from the public causes him to think Soulife is onto something. “People are saying, ‘Finally, something for us that is not totally marketed and sealed and we’re tricked into buying.’ ”

That philosophy also excites Gray, who says, “That kind of turned me on as far as being around what they were doing.”

So is she now living out a lifelong dream of being a manager?

“Not at all,” says Gray, 31, with a laugh. “I never, ever had that idea. But you never know--now that it’s a real company, I get a lot of people coming up to me now. . . . I haven’t thought about it that much, but if someone really dope came along and I thought I could help them, I probably would.”