Business

Rachelle Jean-Louis always knew the power of songwriting. As a preteen growing up in New Jersey, “When I finished my homework, I’d be listening to CDs and trying to unpack the albums,” she recalls. “Seeing who wrote and produced the songs, reading the liner notes and lyrics.” She idolized singer-songwriter Keri Hilson, who in the aughts “was writing really cool R&B songs” with collaborators like Timbaland, Kanye West and Lil Wayne.
“I wanted to be a songwriter just like her,” Jean-Louis adds. “Music was everything to me. There was no plan B.”

Jean-Louis, now 34, didn’t become a songwriter herself — but she is now the force behind one of today’s fastest-­rising songwriting talents, Victoria Monét. When Monét stepped onstage to accept best new artist at the Grammy Awards earlier this year, she brought Jean-Louis, her manager, with her. “There was a binder that I made to take to this really important meeting at a label,” Monét said in her tearful televised speech. “I was an independent artist with no team, and I just thought, ‘Maybe my music would stand for itself.’ But that binder [was] left collecting dust … Rachelle found that binder, and she decided to take a chance, leave that label and be my manager. Thank you so much for seeing me.”

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“Her pulling me up onstage for best new artist … I honestly didn’t think she was going to do that,” Jean-Louis says. “But I’m really proud of her for everything that she’s accomplished against all odds. It’s a testament not just to her but the whole team.” And it’s for her transformative past year with Monét that Billboard honors Jean-Louis as its 2024 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players Executive of the Year.

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The label Monét referenced at the Grammys was former RCA imprint Keep Cool, which Jean-Louis joined in 2017 as an A&R executive — one of several industry gigs (including stints as a music supervisor and a journalist) that helped her channel her fervent music fandom into the skills she would need as a savvy, intuitive artist manager and, eventually, CEO. In 2021, Jean-Louis co-founded management firm Tell Your Friends with business partner Austin Thomas; in addition to Monét, the company’s roster includes rising viral sensation Saint Harison.

Born in New York to Haitian immigrants — her father was a family lawyer, her mother a nurse — Jean-Louis says music was always “at the forefront” of her upbringing; her dad played guitar and piano, and she herself played classical piano as a child. While studying communications at the University of North Carolina, Jean-Louis interned at places including XXL magazine. After graduating, she wrote for the blog Earmilk, landed her first management gig — at the request of then-emerging rapper Doley, whom she had previously covered in XXL — and did a PR stint for an artist at Roc Nation. During a visit to Los Angeles, Jean-Louis followed up on an earlier email she had sent to music supervisor Scott Vener (Entourage) about a show he was working on; though it fell through, he invited Jean-Louis to work with him on HBO’s Ballers, which she did for two seasons.

Then, in 2017, Jean-Louis got the call that changed her career. Her friend Tunji Balogun (now chairman/CEO of Def Jam Recordings) was launching Keep Cool, a joint venture with RCA Records, and he wanted her on his team. Once there, with her music supervisor connections, Jean-Louis placed “Little More Time” — a then-unreleased song by Keep Cool/RCA artist Lucky Daye featuring Monét — on HBO’s Insecure in 2018.

After initially meeting Monét at the song’s video shoot, Jean-Louis later found her aforementioned binder during an office cleaning, and the genesis of Monét’s breakthrough began. With Balogun’s blessing, Jean-Louis exited Keep Cool with Monét and became her manager. In the past six years, with Jean-Louis guiding her, Monét has evolved from go-to songwriter (most famously for Ariana Grande, including her Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s “7 Rings” and “Thank U, Next”) and Platoon-distributed indie artist to full-fledged solo star in her own right on RCA, with her 2023 debut album, Jaguar II (and its hit single “On My Mama”), netting three 2024 Grammy wins.

“It’s been a learning curve for sure,” Jean-Louis says. “Especially when you’ve been used to doing everything yourself, fostering your own internal team and creating a business that’s self-sustaining. But it was all the right steps because Victoria needed to be in the same conversations as some of her peers and be recognized in the same way for her talent.”

Munachi Osegbu

What was it about Victoria’s binder that caught your eye and prompted you to leave Keep Cool?

I still have the binder to this day. (Laughs.) It had “Victoria Monét” across the top and, inside it, her short-term and long-term goals, her team at the time and their contact information, press photos: It just showed somebody that actually cared about every aspect of her artistry and wanted to be better. And for me, it also felt like the answer to the frustration I was having in terms of wanting to wrap my arms around an exciting project. A&R was my dream job and I hadn’t signed anyone yet. And I thought, “Here’s an artist with a clear vision. She has talent as a singer-songwriter, with ’70s-influenced music that’s fresh, not dated, and [she’s] a dancer. You just need to give her the room to do it with the right people that are invested.”

As an artist manager, what’s your personal ratio of gut instinct versus research?

For me, it’s like 70/30. Passion leads, then you look at the numbers and use them as a road map to help guide you. But if you’re only focused on the numbers, you’re losing the soul of it. Music is subjective. Something that’s not reacting right now could react in six months, a year or two years. Where’s the fun if you’re just going to read a chart that everybody has access to, right?

Now more than ever, many companies are very focused on numbers, numbers, numbers. However, there’s still something to be said about having a feeling, a gut instinct. And maybe it’s naive, but I like to believe that if you start with that, the data catches up. There are a lot of people that would have looked at Victoria and said, “Ah, her numbers,” and they would have missed out. A lot of people would have looked at Chappell Roan two years ago and said, “The data doesn’t suggest…,” but how wrong would they be? These are really talented artists that make great music. Don’t let data rule every decision that you make.

Whether signed to a major or an independent, why do artists still need managers?

It’s definitely important. That person is your advocate. They are supposed to be with you in every conversation, making sure to represent your interests and also protect you from anything that may not be aligned with your vision and goals. With everything that has changed in today’s climate, with artist development not really being a priority at labels, that honestly really does fall on the artist manager. And not a lot of people do it. Different managers have different strengths, but I think the common denominator is that they’re passionate about who they work with. It’s a partnership, and they also make sure that they’re aligned. They fix anything: If it’s not going to work with a label or a publisher, if that artist doesn’t feel like he or she is being heard or seen, it’s [the manager’s] job to say, “Let me go fix this, let me figure out how to make this better.”

How challenging has it been to receive equal respect as a woman in management and the industry overall?

There is a fine line being a woman, let alone a Black woman. If you challenge somebody, you could be called aggressive or deemed threatening, depending on your approach. On the other side, if you feel too strongly about something, then you’re being emotional. It’s isolating, too, because you really wish that you could call somebody else and say, “Hey, how’s your experience been?” When you look at the executives of major companies, the majority of them are men, right? And while I’ve heard of other female managers — and recently met Lainey Wilson’s manager [Mandelyn Monchick], who’s great — there are definitely a ton of male managers. So this does come with its own struggles of trying to navigate, trying to earn the same respect that may immediately be given to a male.

Despite all of that, I think this year, more than ever, there’s been more respect because of the success [with Monét] that people really can’t take away from us. We’ve earned it, we’ve worked, we’ve gone the long road. So now anytime somebody comes at me with any of that, it’s “Well, I earned my spot here. I didn’t just end up here. I didn’t inherit this spot.”

We have a lot of women on [Monét’s] team. They’re all empathic, very detail-oriented. There’s a strength to it. That’s why I really do wish there were more of us; there’s a huge area for growth in management.

Munachi Osegbu

Did you have any mentors guiding you through your industry journey?

I didn’t have a mentor, unfortunately. In all honesty, a lot of the mentorship that I got was just truly about watching. I would watch documentaries about and interviews with people like David Geffen and Scooter Braun, trying to understand their thinking so I could emulate that. I watched Beyoncé documentaries because I wanted to understand how this woman, who is running her own business, is still having issues with being heard. Those things made me feel seen. I always yearned for a person I could call about what’s going on, knowing that they’ve been there before.

I do have an amazing support system, for sure, in terms of friends and colleagues that I can call. And others have also extended their hands to me more recently, saying, “Hey, if there’s anything you need or any questions that you have, [reach out].”

Right now, what do you see as the biggest issue facing R&B and hip-hop?

The lack of resources that are allotted to R&B and hip-hop, based on the resources that are given to pop, are very different. I would also say the obsession with data. R&B is a slow-growing but also long-lasting genre. R&B fans are die-hard fans. So when they’re with you, they’re with you for life. It’s not always the same across other genres.

There’s a disconnect when it comes to recognizing R&B as a popular genre. However, R&B is pop. It’s so interesting to me when you think about the music that we grew up on, like Motown — that was pop music. The big ballads of Whitney Houston — that wasn’t R&B music? Somewhere along the way, we’ve become so obsessed with immediacy, like, “What’s the big TikTok song right now?” But what about the long road of these artists in building legacy? That’s the disconnect. R&B is a legacy genre with songs about everything that will stand the test of time. It’s both influential and timeless.

What advice do you have for others aspiring to music industry careers?

I’ve never told this story before, but I needed to figure out how to self-sustain and pay for things like internships in New York and other opportunities that my parents didn’t feel would lead to a real job. So for four years through college, beginning the first summer out of high school, I started working for Cutco. I became one of the top three reps in our district at the knife company; they actually made me a manager. (Laughs.) That was also my first time getting comfortable with the word “no.” Whenever people ask me for advice, I tell them you can’t be afraid of that word. You just have to find a different route to get to what you really want to do. You just need to put up enough shots, and hopefully one of them will go in. So I wasn’t afraid of cold-­calling, cold-­emailing. It was just what I had to do. Even now when choosing a rollout strategy, songs or any of that, if I really believe in something, I want to fight for it. And the same thing goes for artists.

After the tremendous success you have achieved thus far, how do you define power?

Having unwavering, unapologetic faith in your gut and your vision — and then moving on that.

This story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.