TLC

LaFace Records is an American record label, owned and operated by Sony Music Entertainment currently distributed through Epic Records. LaFace was formed in 1989 as a joint venture between the producing duo Antonio "L.A." Reid & Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, and Arista Records. The combined... nicknames of the duo's successful production company inspired the name of the label. LaFace went on to become a successful label throughout the 1990s, responsible for producing popular acts such as TLC, Toni Braxton, OutKast, P!nk, Usher, Goodie Mob, Donell Jones, Pressha and Cee Lo Green. Towards the end of the decade LaFace produced fewer artists and Babyface began to focus more on his own music career. The label was acquired completely by Arista and BMG in 1999. In 2001, L.A. Reid was appointed Chairman/CEO of Arista. As a result of Reid's promotion, LaFace was dissolved as most of its prominent acts moved up to the main Arista label to work under Reid. In 2004, after the corporate restructuring of the BMG labels, LaFace was reactivated as one quarter of the newly reconstructed Zomba Music Group during the Sony BMG joint venture at the time.
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Def Jam Recordings is an American hip-hop record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operates as a part of The Island Def Jam Music Group. In the UK, the label takes on the name Def Jam UK and is operated through Mercury Music Group, while in Japan, it is Def Jam Japan operating through Universal Sigma Music.

Rowdy Records is an independent record label, distributed through Motown Records. Formed in 1992 by producers Dallas Austin and L.A. Reid, Rowdy was initially distributed through Arista Records. At the time, Austin had gained notoriety for writing and producing hits for acts like Monica, Another... Bad Creation, Boyz II Men, Joi, For Real, Da King & I and TLC. Reid, meanwhile, was also running the fledging LaFace Records. In 1993, Reid stepped down to continue focusing his energies on LaFace, leaving Dallas to run the Atlanta-based company on his own. Rowdy shot to success in 1995 with the release of the triple platinum debut album from fourteen year old R&B singer Monica entitled Miss Thang. Other acts on the label included: Illegal, Fishbone, Caron Wheeler. The label also released the soundtrack to the motion-picture Fled. In spite of the labels strong buzz in the industry , by 1997 Rowdy began to flounder, as Monica's debut album had been its biggest release to date—and arguably the company's only success.
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Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B and RnB, is a genre of popular African-American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was... originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, the term rhythm and blues was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "Contemporary R&B". Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine coined the term "rhythm and blues" in 1948 as a musical marketing term in the United States. It replaced the term "race music", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world.
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