Scene: the Vic theater, early last Friday evening. A video crew fiddles with its camera crane, a crowd of excited teens teems in front of the stage, and a platinum pop star from Chicago prepares to launch into his latest single. Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins shooting a new clip for Siamese Dream? No, it’s R & B star R. (for Robert) Kelly, and the song is “Bump n’ Grind,” from his new album, 12 Play. The song blasts out of a speaker system, the director yells action, and Kelly and a cohort of leather-clad female dancers put action to lip-synched words.
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Kelly’s merely the most prominent figure in the black pop renaissance that’s emanating from the south side. Off to one side of the theater sits the man as responsible as anyone besides the artists themselves for that movement, 33-year-old Wayne Williams, A and R man for Jive records and chief of the label’s Chicago office and studio. Courtly and reserved but with a manic streak just below the surface, Williams has kept his profile low and concentrated on the business. As one of the original creators of house music, he’s been at least partly responsible for a couple of hundred thousand record sales. He’s worked for Trax Records, for a time a key international dance label, where he signed acts that sold at least a million records, perhaps two. And then there are his Jive signings: Mr. Lee, who’s had regular R&B hit singles, and Kelly, who’s in the process of scoring his second platinum album and just went gold with “Sex Me (Part 1).” Finally, there’s the work done by Jive’s staff producers: Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s “Summertime,” recorded by Jive production team Hula and Fingers, was a worldwide smash and a rare platinum single. “Boom! Shake the Room,” another recent hit, was produced by Mr. Lee and cowritten by Williams. All told Williams has had his hands in the selling of somewhere between five and six million records, with more to come. If you’re looking for a Chicago king of pop, you’ve found him.
Wearying of the music business, Williams quit Trax and enrolled in the police academy. “When we were young, my mother, my sister, and I,” he recalls, “there was a guy in the house, in the basement, banging on the door to get to us. The police came and saved our lives, basically. I’ve always had a great deal of admiration for police, though my feelings have changed with time. I think I was very naive at that point.”
