June 4, 2021 (Memphis, TN) – Made in Memphis Entertainment (MIME) is proud to announce that three of its executives — David Porter (CEO, MIME), Tony D. Alexander (President & Managing Director, MIME) and Jessica Vaughn (VP, Sync & Creative, Heavy Hitters Music) — have been named to the latest prestigious Billboard Power lists. Porter and Alexander were both named to the Indie Power Players list, while Vaughn was recognized on the Billboard Pride list.
MIME, co-founded in 2015 by Porter and Alexander, is a Black-owned full-service entertainment company with global reach, but with its heart in the hometown of modern American music. Its mission is to establish a network of hyper-local music industry hubs that enable artists to reach the entire world without leaving their home city. Starting in Memphis, Porter and Alexander have since expanded this approach to Atlanta, opening a new state-of-the-art 4U Recording studio and office space in the Hip-Hop capital of the world. The Atlanta studio has already welcomed local legends CeeLo Green and Zaytoven, among many others, during its soft launch, with a full Grand Opening expected by the end of the year.
MIME’s family of companies also includes Heavy Hitters Music, a sync licensing business headed by Vaughn. Heavy Hitters recently handled music placements in NFL and NBA broadcasts; TV shows such as Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, Charmed, Cruel Summer, Love, Death & Robots, Mare of Easttown, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, and Younger; upcoming feature film Queenpins; and video games such as Madden NFL 2022. Vaughn is also a songwriter and performer whose track “The End,” released under the name JPOLND, went viral after being featured in Netflix’s hit show Bridgerton.
MIME’s independent music distribution company, Beatroot Music, also had a huge 2020, racking up over 100 million total plays for its roster across all major services, with 14 of its artists each topping 1 million plays, including BIG30 (46 million), Lyrica Anderson (15 million), and Big Homiie G (12.6 million). In addition, independent music publisher MIME Publishing holds a stake in over half of the tracks on Moneybagg Yo’s A Gangsta’s Pain album, which reached #1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart on two non-consecutive weeks. MIME Publishing songwriters and producers YC and RealRed worked on 13 of the album’s 22 tracks, with both making the Top 6 of five different Billboard songwriter/producer charts. YC also topped both the R&B/Hip-Hop Producers and Rap Producers charts.
“Independent record labels, publishers, and distributors are more important today than ever before in discovering and developing young artists,” said songwriter/producer Porter, an inductee to the Songwriters Hall of Fame. “That’s why we created MIME — so artists can get global exposure no matter where they are, in addition to New York, Los Angeles, or Nashville. My thanks go out to Billboard for recognizing those efforts.”
“I’m proud to be recognized as an Indie Power Player and thank Billboard for the honor,” said Alexander. “While 2020 was an incredibly trying year, it also highlighted the need to connect music scenes around the world so the local becomes international. The key is putting the right tools and resources in the hands of independent creatives so that they can shine brighter and garner an appropriate level of awareness. That’s what we’ve been working toward since 2015, and we’ve made real strides in that mission this year.”
“Thank you so much Billboard; what a way to kick off Pride Month!” said Vaughn. “I’m honored to be counted among so many incredible LGBTQIA+ executives on the Billboard Pride list and look forward to working with them and my colleagues at MIME to continue bringing diverse perspectives to the music industry, so that we can cultivate change.”
For more information on the MIME and its family of companies, visit www.mimecorp.com.
About Made in Memphis Entertainment (MIME)
Made in Memphis Entertainment (MIME) is a Black-owned full-service entertainment company with global reach, but with its heart in the hometown of modern American music. Founded in 2015 by original Stax Records songwriter/producer and Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee David Porter (CEO) and 20+ year business and legal veteran Tony D. Alexander (President and Managing Director), MIME is dedicated to re-establishing Memphis as a key music industry hub while expanding its influence around the world, all while developing and promoting diverse talent on both the creative and business sides of the industry.
MIME’s family of companies includes MIME Publishing, an independent music publishing company that handles Porter’s legendary post-Stax songwriting catalog and other copyrights of some of the most sought-after young producers in Hip-Hop and R&B; Heavy Hitters Music, a film, TV, and ad sync company with an all-female creative team and Emmy-winning music catalog; Beatroot Music, the only Black-owned music distributor in the U.S., as well as its subsidiary Beatroot Africa; and 4U Recording, a state-of-the-art recording studio in Memphis with more branches opening soon.
For more information, visit www.mimecorp.com.