By Dylan Deprey
“A Place to Call Home” EP by duet Nickel & Rose will be the first album released on VoodooHoney Records on Dec. 10. (Photo by Cheston VanHuss)
Whether it is the sound of smooth staccatos or the crashes of crooning crescendos, musician and Black American arts curator Jay Anderson and his saxophone have resonated across the city. He has cemented himself into the ranks of established local musicians.
After playing shows and learning the music business firsthand, he has extended his arm to local artists like himself attempting to make a splash in the ocean of talented musicians coming up in the ever-growing Milwaukee music scene.
“Milwaukee is getting ready, it’s going to be in line with Austin and Mississippi,” Anderson said. “The only way Milwaukee is going to make that transition smoothly is if there are people willing to work with each other.”
Just as sweet as the music business can be, there will always will be the shadiness that has encapsulated the industry with the power of the almighty dollar. Just as the name implies VoodooHoney Records was formed as a creative hub for local artists to flourish in an occasionally obscure industry.
It may seem that building a record label would be the next step in Anderson’s career, but it never really crossed his mind until about three months ago. Having taken the reins on some projects or promotional events and networking through his career, he started to work the music biz.
“People noticed when I was handling the details, people were getting paid more,” Anderson said. “I was in a positon where people around the city were coming to me getting advice about their situation.”
As a local musician, he wanted to form a non-profit group to aide local artists struggling with the business side of music. But, also as a local musician, he played in four bands and had six to seven projects worth of music waiting to be released.
Finding a record deal was never the hard part, finding one that paid him fairly was the challenge.
“All the record labels that offered me deals, their deals were bullshit,” Anderson said. “It was literally every single one of them, no matter how prestigious the name. I was like ‘I can do this myself.’”
Along with Jay Anderson and his bands Stomata, Black and Mad, Foreign Goods and the newly formed funk quartet The Truth, VoodooHoney has recruited: Klassik, B-Free, Lorde Fred33, Nickel and Rose, SistaStrings and spoken word poets Kavon Cortez-Jones and Brit Nicole.
The singing and stringing sisters of soul, Chauntee Ross and Monique Ross first met Anderson around a year ago during a jam session at his house.
“One of our musician friends was like ‘yeah just come on over and bring your instruments,” said Chauntee Ross.
Although they rarely session with Anderson, she said whenever there were questions regarding contracts and other business related inquiries he was like an “older brother” and helped Sistastrings along the way.
“The hardest part about being a working musician is the logistical stuff. If it was up to me I’d just be playing music all the time,” Ross said.
So, when Anderson asked Sistastrings to join the VoodooHoney family it was a no-brainer.
“When he asked us to be part of his label, I was like ‘Duh!’ because it’d be like we were doing the same stuff for us anyway,” Ross said.
Like Sistastrings, every single person on the VoodooHoney roster has worked with Anderson on numerous occasions.
“I know what they’re like on a good day and what they are like on a bad day,” Anderson said. “There is nobody on the staff list who I found and hired just for this, they are all people I’ve been working with. It was more about naming something that already existed.”
The label officially debuts on Saturday Dec. 10, 2016 for the Voodoo- Honey unveiling party at Company Brewing.