Clive Jay Davis is an American record producer, A&R executive, record executive, and lawyer. He has won five Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer, in 2000.
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Arista Records, and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, classical, rock, hip hop, afrobeat, electronic, R&B, blues, jazz, and country. Its name is derived from the initials of its defunct parent company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). RCA Records was fully acquired by Bertelsmann in 1987, making it a part of Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and became a part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment after the 2004 merger of BMG and Sony; it was acquired by the latter in 2008, after the dissolution of Sony/BMG and the restructuring of Sony Music. RCA Records is the corporate successor of the Victor Talking Machine Company, founded in 1901, making it the second-oldest record label in American history, after sister label Columbia Records, founded in 1889.
Arista Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously handled by BMG Entertainment, the North American division of German conglomerate Bertelsmann. Though the label was founded in November 1974 by Clive Davis, Arista in its current form was re-established in 2018. Along with Epic Records, RCA Records, and Columbia Records, Arista is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels.
Jive Records was an American independent record label founded by Clive Calder in 1981 as a subsidiary to the Zomba Group. In the US, the label had offices in New York City and Chicago. Jive was best known for its successes with hip hop, R&B, and dance acts in the 1980s and 1990s, along with teen pop and boy bands during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) was a division of a German media company Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Sony Corporation of America on 1 October 2008. Although it was established in 1987, the music company was formed as RCA/Ariola International in 1985 as a joint venture to combine the music label activities of RCA's RCA Records division and Bertelsmann's Ariola Records and its associated labels which include Arista Records. It consisted of the BMG Music Publishing company, the world's third largest music publisher and the world's largest independent music publisher, and the 50% share of the joint venture with Sony Music, which established the German American Sony BMG from 2004 to 2008.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment was an American record company owned as a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann. The venture's successor, the revived Sony Music, is wholly owned by Sony, following their buyout of the remaining 50% held by Bertelsmann. BMG was instead rebuilt as BMG Rights Management on the basis of 200 remaining artists.
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), simply known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Sony Entertainment and managed by the American umbrella division of Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony. It is the recording division half of the Sony Music Group, with the other half being the publishing division, Sony Music Publishing.
J Records was an American record label owned and operated by Bertelsmann Music Group until it was transferred to Sony Music Entertainment when they acquired all of BMG’s record labels in late 2008. It was distributed through the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 2000 by Clive Davis and was dissolved into RCA Records in 2011.
The Zomba Group of Companies was a music group and division owned by and operated under Sony Music Entertainment. The division was renamed to Jive Label Group in 2009 and was placed under the RCA/Jive Label Group umbrella. In 2011, the RCA/Jive Label Group was split in half. Multiple Jive Label Group artists were moved to Epic Records while others stayed with Jive as it moved under the RCA Music Group. In October 2011 Jive Records was shut down and their artists were moved to RCA Records.
BMG Heritage Records was the record label of the BMG Strategic Marketing Group reissue division of Sony BMG Music Entertainment which handled the reissue of recordings first issued on the RCA Victor, Arista, Buddah, Windham Hill and Jive Records, as well as other labels BMG or predecessor companies acquired over the years. It was founded on November 2001 and formally established on January 1, 2002 as the successor company to the Buddha Records reissue label. In 2005, Sony BMG folded BMG Heritage into Legacy Recordings.
Clive Ian Calder is a South African-born British billionaire record executive and businessman primarily known for co-founding the Zomba Group with Ralph Simon, and its subsidiary Jive Records. As of October 2021, Calder has an estimated net worth of US$5.5 billion.
GospoCentric Records was an Inglewood, California based Gospel music record label, started as an independent label by Vicki Mack Lataillade and Claude Lataillade in 1993. The label rose to prominence in the 1990s, largely on the runaway success of gospel artist Kirk Franklin. The label has grown to become one of the most prominent major gospel labels. GospoCentric later spawned the imprint B-Rite Music, which was used to launch artists like Trin-i-tee 5:7 and God's Property who found considerable mainstream success. GospoCentric was purchased by Zomba Music Group in the mid 2000s, which also owned the major gospel label Verity Records. GospoCentric has since been defunct, and the purchase now led to the record label RCA Inspiration which is owned by Sony Music Entertainment.
Provident Entertainment is a division of Sony Music headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee and focused primarily on Christian music. The group handles its own physical distribution through its Provident-Integrity service.
Barry Weiss is an American music executive and producer who is currently an executive with RECORDS, a label he co-founded. He got his start at Clive Calder's Jive Records before working his way up to the head of the RCA/Jive Label Group. While at Jive, Weiss fostered artists like Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, NSYNC, Chris Brown, Backstreet Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, and many others. He left the organization in 2011 to join the Universal Music Group prior to co-founding RECORDS in 2015.
Battery Records was an American record label that served as the dance sublabel of Jive Records, and was active for a short time during the mid-1990s. The label was mostly known for releasing music by the Swedish Eurodance group Rednex in North America, namely its novelty hit "Cotton Eye Joe", as well as Insane Clown Posse's third studio album, Riddle Box. The Battery Records name was later revived by Sony Music Entertainment in 2008 with a focus on hip hop music.
RCA Music Group was an umbrella group of labels distributed by Sony Music Entertainment that existed between March 2004 and 2009, and for a short period of time between July 2011 and October 2011 as all RCA Music Group labels were merged with RCA Records.
RCA Inspiration is a gospel music group operating under Sony Music.
LaFace Records was an American record label based in Atlanta, Georgia, that operated as a unit of Sony Music Entertainment from 2008 to 2011 and was historically a part of Bertelsmann Music Group from 1989 to 2004. It was most active and achieved its greatest commercial success during the 1990s, dealing largely in the field of urban music. It was originally distributed by its co-creator Arista Records from 1989 through 2001, after which it was shuttered and absorbed into Arista. In 2004, the label was rebooted, and it began operating through Jive Records until both were absorbed into RCA Records in 2011. Today, the label's back catalog and reissues are managed by Legacy Recordings.
