Sparks and Ignition

Via Mellencamp we suddenly had exposure and access to other radio formats, like AAA, Hot AC, AC, Top 40, and Mainstream Rock. John was gracious (or smart) enough to bring India on his radio interviews and that opened up a whole new world for us and the very world I was trying in vain to reach.

With John we did the VH1 Fashion Awards, the Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller Center on NBC, late night TV and a ton of other appearances that would have been completely closed to her as an artist without any palpable fan base outside of what we had. It was a very important turning point for us. She had a great urban fan base, the love of Oprah, stars singing her praises, a highly visible tour, with an artist people were dying to see, who also happened to have a bit older demographic and now a duet with an icon and rebel rocker.

Connecting the dots, time after time and finding new consumers in our police sketch.
We were happening, hitting on all eight cylinders and it was working. India never lost her urban base; on the contrary, she grew it while also developing a fan base outside of urban. This is exactly what happens when the team is working in synergy and all the dots are connecting.

The Sade tour was wonderful, but you’d be surprised on how very little units will move when you are an opening act. It indeed adds to the picture and allows you to maximize being in that town by hitting all media outlets, but it really doesn’t move the needle.

It does on the indie scale, but not on this scale. It’s just another (yet very important) cog in the machine and another well put, repeated impression. At this juncture, India finally agreed to the GAP campaign, so now we added massive television adverting to our arsenal and the “feed” of awareness multiplied thusly. It was still very difficult as India was fighting back against the wave and was having a very hard time adjusting to her new found fame, so much in fact, that I had to bring on security because she wasn’t very comfortable with the daily interaction that could happen out of nowhere.

Around this time we got hit with one of the lawsuits that would come our way. Regardless of who you are, once you have success, you get sued. These are called “deep pocket” suits, because that’s the entire concept; sue someone and hope they realize a settlement is cheaper than the fight. Most times it is.

There happened to be a Latin singer named India or La India or something like that. She had trademarked the name India for anything concerning music, period. Now India.Arie”s real given birth name is India Arie Simpson and here we were actually being sued over it!

Unfortunately we didn’t have wiggle room, can you fucking imagine that? We had no choice but to settle and pay this person for the right to use India’s own name. Ridiculous, but she trademarked, copy written and etched in stone the exclusive use of that name. Deep pockets number one, and a few more to come, like the raging lunatic in Chicago who claimed India must have broken into her apartment years ago and “stole” her ideas from her secret notebook and then wrote songs. OK, lunatic, we didn’t settle that one and told her to bring it on.

Dear Lord the nerve, and it went away. How about the ex-boyfriend who claimed he once uttered a sentence with a phrase in it similar to one of her song titles and now he was claiming co-authorship. Had he even been a songwriter, musician, co-writer or anything that resembled a creative force? No, but he wanted credit for inspiration over a phrase in a sentence. That one was also told; bring it on and I wish that went to court because it would have been priceless.

People are so fucked up.