Sahpreem Aaron King, Chairman
Sahpreem Aaron King is a Native American author, rapper, producer, writer, consultant, educator, film director, and public speaker who resides in south Florida. He contributed as writer and producer to the multi-platinum albums “It’s About Time” (SWV Album) and “Shhh” (A.B. Quintanilla Y Los Kumbia Kings), and Latin Mix USA 2 (Sony).
He has been a panelist, keynote speaker, clinician, and consultant for music industry conventions and conferences including the SXSW, Winter Music Conference, DJ Times Convention, How Can I Be Down?, Atlantis Music Conference, Midem Music Conference, DJ Laz Music Conference, and Ultra Music Festival. Sahpreem has also served as a product clinician for Akai Professional and Numark, conducting seminars and training sessions for professional audio production & recording equipment.
King is the author of the top-selling book Gotta Get Signed: How To Become A Hip-Hop Producer (Schirmer Trade Books, 2005) along with Surviving the Game: How to Succeed in the Music Business and Dude, I Can Help You: 18 Mistakes Artists Make and How To Fix Them. As an author, his articles and commentary have been featured in music trade publications including DJ Times Magazine, The Source magazine, Play Magazine, Urban America, Beat Talk Magazine, Black Beat Magazine, MIX Magazine, Remix Magazine, and Music Connection.
Sahpreem is currently working on a Doctorate in Education Technology and holds a Master of Education (Media Design & Technology) degree from Full Sail University, a Bachelor of Information Technology (New Media & Internet Marketing) degree from Kaplan University, an Associate of Applied Science in Business Management degree from Kaplan University and a professional certificate in Audio and Video Production from the Connecticut School of Broadcasting.
Jerry Heller, Ruthless Records
Jerry Heller is best known for managing west coast rap supergroup and gangster rap pioneers NWA and Eazy E and was a co-founder and CEO of Ruthless Records. Jerry Heller can be counted as one of the select few in the music industry who has had a significant role in shaping trends and musical movements for five decades. Truly a unique force with his unparalleled ability to predict the movements of the music industry, Jerry Heller rose to prominence in the 1960s and 70s as one of the preeminent super agents.
During this historically important time in the music industry, he was responsible for bringing Elton John and Pink Floyd to America for their first United States tours. Among the many other notable accomplishments of Jerry Heller during this time included his representations of such foundational artists as Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Boz Scaggs, Grassroots, Guess Who, Marvin Gaye, Joan Armatrading, Van Morrison, War, Average White Band, and Crosby Nash. Following the momentum of the 1960s and 70s, he continued to generate many of the groundbreaking record deals in New Wave and Punk-which defined and reinvented the music industry for the next decade.
Starting in the mid-1980s, Jerry Heller was the moving force and marketing genius behind the emergence and crossover of Rap music to the record buying public. His musical vision continued to demonstrate its capacity to be nothing short of astounding. He not only founded Ruthless Records with the late Eazy E, but he discovered and managed NWA, Egyptian Lover, World Class Wreckin Cru, LA Dream Team, J.J. Fad, The DOC, Michel’le, Above the Law, and other trend-setting artists who formed the foundation for the incredible successes of Priority Records and Interscope Records.
To date, Ruthless Records has sold in excess of 110 million records, not counting singles. The artists (including the heir apparent to the NWA legacy Bone Thugs ‘N Harmony, discovered as homeless Cleveland youths by Eazy and Jerry) and producers such as Dr. Dre whose careers Jerry Heller established sold millions upon millions of records for Interscope Records, Priority Records, ATCO/Atlantic Records, MCA Records, Relativity/Sony Records. At the time of Eazy-E’s death and Jerry Heller’s departure from Ruthless Records, the company was earning $10,000,000 per month. Jerry Heller is arguably dollar-for-dollar the most successful record company executive of the entire Rap Era. He started Ruthless Records with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of his own money along with another $2.25 million dollar contribution by Sony/Relativity when the P&D deal was struck. To date, the Original members of NWA have grossed somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.75 billion dollars.
Victor Antonio, Sales Influence
Author, trainer and speaker Victor Antonio earned a B.S. Electrical Engineering, an MBA and built a 20 year career as a top sales executive before becoming CEO of a multimillion dollar high-tech company.
Prior to being CEO he was President of Global Sales and Marketing for a $420M company. He was tasked with building a global sales force, establishing contract agreements, developing financial pricing models and in charge of developing the corporate brand and marketing the company’s services for worldwide acceptance.
He has conducted business in Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America, The Caribbean, South Africa and The Middle East.
Honorary Board of Directors
Vincent “DJ Maseo” Mason
Vincent “DJ Maseo” Mason is a rapper, producer, DJ and one third of the groundbreaking hip hop group, De La Soul. He claims, “I’m a b-boy at heart drawing inspiration from life experience and contemporary global events.”
Maseo is also a member of the Spitkicker collective, a group of artistically-minded people who release work by Spitkicker artists and engage in social, community-based activism. In addition, he is the founder of Delasoul’s Dugout, an online community of Hip Hop celebrities, fans, aficionados, performers and critics.