 Harper audio presents sing to me my story of making music finding magic and searching for who's next by L.A. Reed read by Dionne Graham prologue the audition I'd never auditioned a child before my partner Kenny babyface Edmunds and I had written and produced records with a couple of boy groups but working with kids wasn't something I'd envisioned doing when we started our own record company I vaguely figured I would listen to a song or two and tell the kid to come back in a few years but the minute this 14 year old boy walked into my office that afternoon in 1993 I could tell that there was nothing that felt remotely childlike about Usher Raymond the fourth these were high times at LaFace Records the label I had started with babyface in Atlanta four years earlier the company was beginning to make a name for itself we had an album about to be released by an unknown singer named Tony Braxton that would become a multi-platinum smash the label had its first multi-million seller the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy movie boomerang and we had sold millions of records with another previously unknown group called TLC babyface had become a star in his own right after releasing two stellar solo albums and writing dozens of big hit songs with me as his regular producing partner on the heels of all this we had recently relocated the LaFace office from Norcross to a bright beautiful space we built out on the 15th floor of the Capital City Plaza building in Buckhead we built a conference room in the 10,000 square foot office to be shaped like a piano which made a curved wall in the lobby nobody ever mentioned that particular design feature so we probably spent a lot of money for something that went largely unnoticed the staff was growing as our operation expanded behind our two multi-million sellers the sleek modern office lent the label an era of prosperity that I hoped would define us in the years to come but with all the success had come some serious adversity our top-selling group TLC was unhappy about money and that was causing problems between me and my wife pebbles who also happened to be the manager of the group and after scaling the heights of the music business together from late nights at Chitlin circuit dives in the Midwest to the top of the charts my partner babyface and I were inexplicably drifting apart what made the growing distance between me and Kenny even more difficult was that when LaFace started it was a small operation just a handful of close friends who moved out from Los Angeles together in the early days LaFace was a family affair me Kenny our office manager Charlottes my wife pebbles Kenny's brother-in-law Derek lad Kenny's childhood friend Daryl Simmons my childhood friend Kayo my younger brother Bryant moved from Cincinnati where we grew up to Atlanta and came to work for us Brian and I had always had similar tastes in clothes and style we shared music a lot when we were growing up his world revolved around music fashion and sports he was funny and charming and knew what he was about once we signed Tony Braxton we assigned her to him and he became the keeper of all things Tony Brian also scouted talent and it was through him that I first heard the name usher my brother brought several writers and producers to the label he caught usher at a local talent show he'd gone to check out another act on the program and called me from the show to tell me about him I wasn't especially enthusiastic but Brian insisted that the kid was something I needed to see though I hadn't been running a label for long finding talent had become a specialty of mine our hit record so far had come from artists who had never made a record before I auditioned them you never knew what to look for an audition everyone is different special in their own ways you have to remain receptive open but without losing your critical and analytical side it is a tricky combination of balancing intelligence and intuition and being able to tell the difference between having a vision and a hallucination I auditioned talent in my office three or four times a week part of my regular work day there was a corridor that led to the side by side twin offices occupied by Kenny and me my office was a big fluffy all-white space with furniture from Christ and huge speakers powered by my Macintosh amplifier posters of our artists hung on the walls people would come in and out to ask questions to show me artwork to get a moment of my attention I always had an open door policy and people knew they could walk in anytime it was a sample complete ready to continue