10 Questions
10 Questions with Dwayne McClary
Name: Dwayne McClary
Title: Principal/Owner/Founder
Market: New York, NY
Company: Uplifted InC. & Bedford Music Marketing
Social: LinkedIn
Born: New York, NY
Brief Career Synopsis:
After graduating from Rutgers University and interning at Virgin Records, I ran the video promotion department at EMI’s hip-hop subsidiary label, Wild Pitch Records. In 1995, I joined MCA Records and headed their Urban Video Promotion department for ten years. While at MCA, I also created the Sports Entertainment Relations division at the company. From there, I continued in music video content strategy at both Geffen and Universal Motown Records. In 2009, I formed Uplifted Consulting, a content strategy and marketing company. That same year, I completed my professional studies in Digital Marketing at New York University. For the past few years, I’ve been a part of the Bedford Music Marketing team. Lisa Frank, founder of BMM, whom I worked with at MCA and Geffen asked me to join her team and with her company being the premier content strategy firm in the industry, it was an offer that I couldn’t refuse.
1) What are you up to these days?
I’m now a Reverend, an officially ordained Baptist minister. I’ve been preaching at various churches in the New York City metropolitan area. In addition to marketing and promoting music projects, I’ve also served as a Chaplain at New York University Langone Hospital and with the Hartford Healthcare system. I just recently accepted a position as a Spiritual Care Counselor with VNS Health, specializing in home hospice patients and families.
2) How do you see video promotion evolving?
The networks and platforms have kept up with the current times and have integrated the various platforms such as linear TV, online, mobile, and social components nicely. In recent years MTV partnered and launched platforms with Pluto TV and created genre specific channels such as YO! MTV, MTV Spankin’ New, and MTV Biggest Pop! The On Demand features that the networks have such as MTV and Music Choice allow viewers to see what they want to see, when they want to see it. There are so many more options now that music fans have to access and view music videos beyond the remote control.
3) What got you started in the music business?
I interned in the Urban and Rap Music Promotion and Publicity departments at Virgin Records during my senior year in college for Rodney Shealey and the late Duane Taylor.
4) Why do you think your business has expanded?
The labels appear to be downsizing, yet the volume of content that they release is not. It’s quite common now for some artists to have two and three music videos out simultaneously. Labels and distributors need companies such as Bedford Music Marketing and Uplifted InC. to help heighten the exposure of their content and artists.
5) Who influenced or mentored you over the years?
Benny Pough, Rodney Shealey, A.D. Washington, Hank Shocklee, and David Harleston.
6) What do you think of the current landscape in the music business?
So many more artists and independent labels are getting it done on their own. The major label muscle that was once required in the industry in ‘90’s and early 2000’s isn’t nearly as powerful. Through content, streaming, licensing, and social media some independents are generating more revenue themselves.
7) Would you share some of your other business pursuits?
I’ve put my expensive Journalism, Mass Media, and Communications degree to work more as I’ve been writing a lot. I write as a freelancer for various trades, sites, and publications. Writing is therapeutic as it allows me to express myself in ways in which I often can’t verbalize. I’m also trying to get some of myTV show ideas that I created and developed into production.
8) Have you expanded your reach?
I’m still doing talent buying for various organizations and companies. For example, a few years ago the Alzheimer’s Association utilized my services to secure a celebrity speaker for their annual fundraiser, in which I booked Hill Harper.
9) Didn’t you write a book about baldness?
My book, Hold Your Bald Head High: Win While Losing Hair is a literary guide for men with self-esteem issues over losing their hair through Male Pattern Baldness. Instead of getting suckered in by the many alleged and pricey hair loss remedies, I encourage them to save their money, shave their heads, and be proud of the appearance. I also discuss how a shaven head makes a man appear younger and his age less evident. A shaven head enables 75-year-old men to wear the same style as 25-year-old men. A feat that men with hair and of the same ages can’t accomplish. The skin on the head does not wrinkle as other parts of the body such as the face and hands. If a bald man has a smooth head today, chances are he will still have that same smooth head in 25 years. The book is available at most online bookstores.
10) And your advice for those wanting to go into entertainment and the music business?
I’d suggest that they get into a revenue generating side of the music and entertainment business. If a dollar amount can be directly attached to your efforts and results, your company value will never be questioned. Pursue publishing, licensing, streaming, sales, those areas that bring in the bucks. The creative, marketing, and promotional roles are so much more handled by the artists themselves through their own social and digital efforts.