Jay
Boone

Jay Boone's career in music began in 1993 as an intern at Atlantic Records, where he was quickly hired to help launch a new promotion division within the company. The division was short lived, shuttered within a year when the executive who backed it left, but Jay was determined to stay in the business. He connected with the Zulu Nation, the world renowned hip hop organization founded by Afrika Bambaataa, working on events with its founding fathers and helping run the organization's twenty fifth anniversary.

That work led Jay into street team and club promotions across New York City. He built and hired a team, expanded across all five boroughs, and began landing contracts from major labels to promote their artists to DJs citywide, which in turn grew into work with radio and club jocks locally and regionally. From there, Jay launched his own independent promotion company, Boone Farm Promotions, a national radio and street promotion company with a full team, running campaigns for major and independent labels for thirteen years and breaking artists through clubs, radio, and street teams, while also extending into major brand marketing for companies including Nike, Hawaiian Tropic, and Ciroc.

Veteran music exec Neil Levine then brought Jay on to help launch Imperial Records, a division of Capitol Records, where they signed Fat Joe. Jay was responsible for breaking "Make It Rain," a record that sold well over a million copies and remains one of Fat Joe's biggest hits to date. From there, Sony brought Jay into Jive Records, where he worked his way up doing national radio promotion for artists including R Kelly and Justin Timberlake. He survived the Jive and RCA merger and continued on as a national promotions executive at RCA, working with Alicia Keys, Chris Brown, Usher, A$AP Ferg, and A$AP Rocky. Jay rose to Vice President, running the urban promotions and artist development division for a Sony label, servicing the label's roster and developing new talent, including Joey Bada$$. Long before the industry caught on, Jay had already spotted where hip hop was headed next.

Throughout his label career, Jay ran his own venture, Rush Hour Entertainment, in parallel, building out a publishing business that included a joint venture with Tim Blacksmith and Danny D of Stellar Songs, whose roster includes Sam Smith and Charli XCX and who also manage the production duo Stargate. Through Rush Hour, he signed producers, writers, and artists, developing their careers alongside song placements in production and publishing. He signed the artist iHeartMemphis to Rush Hour, and their song "Hit the Quan" became a massive success, selling over a million and a half records and reaching the top ten on the Billboard charts. That hit reunited Jay with Barry Weiss, who had run Jive for twenty five years, and who offered Jay both a label deal and a joint venture deal through Sony.

Across his twenty five year career, Jay has had a hand in over 1,000 artists in some capacity, whether through artist development, marketing, radio promotion, street teams, song placements, or collaborations.