THE WOMAN BEHIND THE MIC A CONVERSATION WITH ENTERTAINMENT MARKETING MAVEN, MICHELLE JOYCE by Chloé Francena Adams
“Y
ou need to get your sh*t together.” That’s what Michelle Joyce said to me one day on the phone while I was frustrated with where I was in life. “Girl, I don’t say much, but you’ve got so much going on. It’s time to step into your magic.” Think of the golden era of hip hop. I’m talking 90s, Bad Boy top of the charts, Puffy Combs, Biggie Smalls, Faith Evans, Lil Kim, and Mary J. Blige. I can almost guarantee you wouldn’t see a thing without the magic touch of Michelle Joyce (also known as MJ), the former marketing director of Bad Boy Records.
there she made her way to Bad Boy Entertainment via a connection with her good friend, Kirk Burrows. “I just remember my eyes filling with tears because it was my first opportunity that I got to see an office staffed solely with beautiful, young, black people,” said MJ. “I just felt like ‘Wow! This is our moment. I’m going to go really hard because this is one for us, this is one for the culture.’” And she meant that.
There’s no doubt MJ has always had a love for music, born and raised in the Boogie Down Bronx. “There’s always been a very eclectic sound that ran through my house,” said Joyce. “My dad listened to a lot of jazz and soul, and my mom liked rock and country.” But coming from the birthplace of hip-hop, MJ was no stranger to this genre, either. “People would walk by with boomboxes on their shoulders, and DJ’s would host parking lot parties. And that’s when I fell in love.” Having got her start at a college radio station, MJ quickly worked her way up with the help of someone who pushed her to do so. “I got my first job at The New Music Seminar,” she said. “Anita Daly was my first mentor. She believed in me, she gave me that first shot. I was really lucky because she really educated me on the process [of marketing]. That’s when I fell in love with the art of marketing: taking something from nothing and growing a brand. I loved all of it.” From there, she took her talents to a label called East West Records. Under the supervision of Manny Bella and Jodi Williams, she had the opportunity to develop a new division, the College Promotion Department. There, she partnered with Fred Jackson from Elektra Entertainment to launch the WEA Urban Street & University (WUSUP): a platform created as a tool to promote new and developing artists to colleges and universities nationwide through PR packages, live shows, and more. She then went to Big Beat Records to become the manager of urban marketing. It was
64 THE SQUEEZE SPRING 2020
Original Bad Boy Staff (1994)
“You may not know me by name or know my face,” said MJ. “But, I promise you that you know my work!” As the first director of marketing for Bad Boy Entertainment, she and the female staffed marketing division laid the blueprint for what went on to become the most successful hip-hop record label of all time. Bad Boy disrupted the market in a way that had never been done before like with the legendary B.I.G. Mack campaign featuring The Notorious B.I.G., Craig Mack, and Puffy (a.k.a. Diddy). You may have seen the picture floating around social media on popular hip-hop pages or on Diddy’s personal page. In the ‘90s, this single campaign transformed the scope of ads from magazines and
