Tabu Productions was an American

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the prod ...

founded by

Clarence Avant Clarence Alexander Avant (born February 25, 1931) is an American music executive, entrepreneur, and film producer, who also went by the name of " The Black Godfather". Avant's 75th birthday was celebrated by ''Billboard'' in its February 2006 i ...

in 1975. The label, Tabu Records, focused on R&B and funk.

Founding

Avant founded the label after

Sussex Records Sussex Records, Inc. was a Los Angeles-based record label, founded by music executive and businessman Clarence Avant, that existed from 1969 through 1975. History Sussex Records was launched in December 1969 by Avant, who had previously set up ...

went out of business in June 1975. Tabu Record's

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the f ...

release, ''

Stormin' ''Stormin is the debut album by the Detroit, Michigan R&B group Brainstorm. It was released in 1977 on Tabu Records and produced by Jerry Peters. Track listing #"Lovin' Is Really My Game" ( Belita Woods, Trenita Womack) - 4:59 #"Waiting for ...

'' by Brainstorm, was released in 1977. Tabu Records had a short-lived distribution pact with

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westin ...

, which lasted a year before moving to CBS Records. The label focused on R&B and funk but expanded into other genres such as jazz and disco. Its artists included the Argentine composer and pianist

Lalo Schifrin Boris Claudio "Lalo" Schifrin (born June 21, 1932) is an Argentine-American pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. He is best known for his large body of film and TV scores since the 1950s, incorporating jazz and Latin American musical eleme ...

, who composed and scored theme songs for numerous television series, including Mission:Impossible, and released two projects on Tabu ("No One Home", 1979) and

the S.O.S. Band The S.O.S. Band (sometimes written as S.O.S. Band; abbreviation for Sounds of Success) is an American R&B and electro-funk group who gained fame in the 1980s. They are best known for the songs "Take Your Time (Do It Right)", "Just Be Good to M ...

Take Your Time (Do It Right) "Take Your Time (Do It Right)" is the debut single by the S.O.S. Band. It was released on March 18, 1980 as the lead single from the debut album '' S.O.S.'' through Tabu Records, three months before the album's release. Chart performance In the ...

," 1980) Jazz singer Sharon Ridley (Full Moon), pianist Manfredo Fest.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III (born June 6, 1959) and Terry Steven Lewis (born November 24, 1956) are an American R&B/pop songwriting and record production team. They have enjoyed great success since the 1980s with various artists, most ...

were hired to produce

's fourth studio album for Tabu, ''

On the Rise ''On the Rise'' is the fourth album by the R&B band the S.O.S. Band, released by Tabu Records on July 1, 1983. It was produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and Gene Dozier. History The album peaked at #7 on the R&B albums chart. It also reach ...

'' (1983), which was certified gold on January 16, 1984. While recording in S.O.S.'s home stomping grounds in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...

, on March 24, 1983, a freak snowstorm hit, grounding all flights from the city. The duo was scheduled to perform as a part of the Time in

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

at the Hemisfair Arena that night but couldn't make it. Subsequently,

Prince A prince is a Monarch, male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary title, hereditary, in s ...

, who owned and managed the Time, fired them on April 18, 1983. The duo stayed in Los Angeles and became songwriter-producers for artists like New Edition, Boyz II Men and most notably, Janet Jackson. Working with

Jam and Lewis James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III (born June 6, 1959) and Terry Steven Lewis (born November 24, 1956) are an American R&B/ pop songwriting and record production team. They have enjoyed great success since the 1980s with various artists, most ...

gave Tabu a much-needed shot in the arm. They brought

Cherrelle Cheryl Anne Norton (born October 13, 1958), better known by her stage name Cherrelle, is an American R&B singer and songwriter who gained fame in the mid-1980s. Her signature hits include " I Didn't Mean to Turn You On", "Where Do I Run To", "Ev ...

and

Alexander O'Neal Alexander O'Neal (born November 15, 1953) is an American R&B singer, songwriter and arranger from Natchez, Mississippi. O'Neal came to prominence in the mid-1980s as a solo artist, with eleven Top 40 singles on the US R&B chart, three of whic ...

(the original

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

lead vocalist) to the label and both did well; O'Neal released his self-titled studio album in 1985, and Cherrelle's '' Fragile'' hit the American R&B

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent ta ...

in 1984. The SOS Band had more hits with "Just The Way You Like It" in 1984 and "Sands of Time" in 1986, the album of which was certified gold on April 6, 1987. So influential was the sound that

Robert Palmer Robert Allen Palmer (19 January 1949 – 26 September 2003) was an English singer and songwriter. He was known for his powerful, soulful voice and wikt:sartorial, sartorial elegance, and his stylistic explorations, combining Soul music, so ...

covered Cherrelle's " I Didn't Mean to Turn You On" in 1986, and

Beats International Beats International were a British dance music band and hip-hop collective, formed in the late 1980s by Norman Cook (later in his career known as Fatboy Slim) based in Brighton, East Sussex, England, after his departure from the Housemarti ...

covered the S.O.S. Band's "Just Be Good to Me" in 1990. In 1985, Cherrelle and Alexander O'Neal

duet A duet is a musical composition for two performers in which the performers have equal importance to the piece, often a composition involving two singers or two pianists. It differs from a harmony, as the performers take turns performing a solo ...

ed on "

Saturday Love "Saturday Love" is a song performed by American R&B singers Cherrelle and Alexander O'Neal. It was released in October 1985. The song peaked at #2 on the US R&B chart and became a moderate pop hit peaking at #26 on the US Hot 100 in the sprin ...

," which was a hit in the UK but caught on later with American

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...

. Other acts like Kid Fire and Demetrius Perry recorded on this label.

Sony era

Tabu Records, in its deal with CBS, became associated with

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainmen ...

in November 1987 when the Japanese group bought CBS Records. During this period, Tabu released '' Diamonds in the Raw'' (1989) by the S.O.S. Band, which performed disappointingly. In 1991, Alexander O'Neal's ''

All True Man '' All True Man'' is the fourth studio album by American recording artist Alexander O'Neal. The album was a success in the UK, peaking at number 2, though sales did not reach the levels of his previous album, ''Hearsay''. On release, the album ...

'' was the last album Tabu Records released under the new

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

regime; it was certified gold on August 26, 1991.

A&M era

In 1991, the label resurfaced under

PolyGram PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be ...

A&M Records A&M Records was an American record label founded as an independent company by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. Due to the success of the discography A&M released, the label garnered interest and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989 and began distr ...

, who distributed it from 1991 until 1993, releasing four albums and about 20 singles. Avant was hired to run

Motown Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''mot ...

(another PolyGram label), and, in August 1993, he brought Tabu Records under its aegis. It released collections by the S.O.S. Band, Alexander O'Neal and Cherelle, while signing other

artists An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the ...

such as

Lucky Dube Lucky Philip Dube (pronounced ''duu-beh'';
luckydubemusic.com, Retrieved 19 October 2007 3 August 1964 – 18 October 20 ...

and

Identity Crisis In psychology, identity crisis is a stage theory of identity development where it involves resolution of a conflict over the 8 stages of the lifespan.(Schultz, 216) The term was coined by German psychologist Erik Erikson. The stage of psychosoci ...

. However, this reappearance was short-lived as well. In 1999,

Seagram The Seagram Company Ltd. (which traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was once (in the 1990s) the l ...

bought

and merged it with the MCA family of labels, which became

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

. Shortly after, Tabu Records was absorbed into

Re-issues

In 2002, Avant brought Tabu Records to

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 2012, ...

's reissue label the Right Stuff, which began to re-release Tabu Record's catalogue. In 2012,

Demon Music Group Demon Music Group (DMG) is a record company owned by BBC Studios that is mainly concerned with back-catalogue rights and re-issuing recordings as compilations on physical media (CDs and vinyl) via supermarkets and specialist stores. History DM ...

announced it acquired the licensing rights of the Tabu Records catalogue. The company announced the news on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, throu ...

2013 and released a trailer of the label's return on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

. The licensing agreements come with reissues of the entire catalog on

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octo ...

as well as digital download and

Vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from viny ...

. The Tabu catalogue of Alexander O'Neal and Cherrelle were made available on iTunes in Fall 2012. Greatest-hits albums by the S.O.S. Band, Cherelle, and Alexander O’Neal were released through

Universal Music Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

, as part of its Icon series, during 2012.

References

{{Authority control American record labels Record labels established in 1975 Record labels disestablished in 1999 1975 establishments in California 1999 disestablishments in California

Founding

Sony era

A&M era

Re-issues

See also

References