Sheer inspiration: New Haven record company exec Brenda Culpepper sings praises of perseverance in talks to inner-city youths

By Fran Fried
22 May 1995
New Haven Register; Page 1

New Haven, CT. Is Brenda Culpepper a great American success story?

Well, it depends on what you mean by success and whom you speak to.

On a personal level, Culpepper, 43, is a role model, a woman who went from welfare mom in the South Bronx to high-powered businesswoman.

Culpepper, of Monroe, is president of the PepperCo Music Group, the recording company she and her husband of 13 years, investment banker Irvin Culpepper, founded in 1988.

In February, they moved the business into a second-floor office in New Haven's Science Park.

So far, the label has made some inroads in the world of gospel music. Culpepper --one of two African-American women to own gospel labels--talks cautiously about wanting PepperCo to become the Motown of gospel.

"In terms of longevity, we've been successful," she said. "But my personal thing--where everybody in the industry knows your name-- we don't have the recognition I'd like to have."

Their first recording project, the 1991 album "Live in New York" by the East Coast Regional Mass Choir, reached the top 25 of Billboard's gospel chart. Now, the business threatens to break out in a number of directions.

Under the NuGroov and PepperCo Jazz labels--directed by Brenda's daughter, company Vice President Kimberly Carter--PepperCo is branching into R&B, hip-hop and jazz, starting with the release of Billy Preston's comeback album in June.

PepperCo also plans to develop a merchandising company in a Science Park factory space.

In the meantime, Culpepper leaves her mark in other ways--like teaching women the lessons she learned about empowerment.

In February, she gave a talk to teen-age mothers at Bridgeport's Charles D. Smith Jr. Foundation, an organization started by the New York Knicks basketball star to stress education of inner-city youth. She told them they could overcome their situations--and fears--and change their lives.

"The children are still talking about it," said Executive Director Dorothy Kenyattaia. "She related to the children. Her story is similar to theirs. Being a single mom, it really inspired them.

"When Brenda speaks, she doesn't speak above you. She's an unassuming person. She has a personality you like."

"I've been doing a lot of that," said Culpepper, whose friendly, modest, almost shy way isn't what you'd expect from an executive.

"It's imperative that people see positive imagery, that people see role models--someone who's been where they've been.

"There comes a point where you have to be in control of your own destiny."

Her point came 22 years ago, when she took Kimberly, left her drug-addicted, sometimes abusive first husband and moved in with her grandparents.

Having given up a scholarship to Cornell University when she became pregnant, she resumed her studies, going to night school and getting a bachelor's degree from the New York Institute of Techhology.

Culpepper --who also has a 10-year-old daughter, Shari, and a 19- year-old stepson, Chris--worked with Irvin doing financial consulting for church groups.

They accidentally entered the music business when they did some work for Joel Bryant. Bryant, former music director for the Stylistics and the O'Jays, was in the band of gospel star Tramaine Hawkins.

"We managed a concert by Tramaine Hawkins at Klein Auditorium (in Bridgeport)," Culpepper said. "Tramaine fell in love with us. Five years later, we're fast friends."

Impressed, Bryant then asked the Culpeppers to produce a concert in New York, featuring the East Coast Regional Mass Choir and gospel stars John P. Kee and J.C. White. Hawkins "gave us her band, essentially," and they recorded the show.

"We shopped the master tape and five record companies wanted to buy it," Culpepper recalled. "I said, 'I think we're gonna start a record label.'"

It was at that point, says her daughter--then a Boston University student--that she realized the person her mother was.

"I think when I went to college I saw her as a role model, especially when other people talked about their families," said Carter, now 25.

"They were saying if they could have picked a mother, they would have picked her. I'm really proud of what she came through."

Pepperco Records founder and president Brenda Culpepper: High-powered gospel genre energized by both traditional and transitional.

By Lisa Collins
13 Aug 1994
Billboard; Page 33

This has been a pivotal year in gospel's rapid evolution. New faces, labels and players have transformed the music, energizing sales across the board in 1994. Booming revenues and exposure have inspired widespread examination of once unquestioned tradition, with gospel finding itself between worlds--in a limbo where old rules no longer apply and new ones are not yet in force. The future is arriving before hardliners are ready to bury the past, and the result is an industry on the edge--and on the verge. In short, it's a whole new game.

And with the advent of women executives and a growing gospel hip-hop community, the complexion of some of its players is reflective of the outside world that gospel once shut out. The ascension of new labels like Gospo-Centric, CGI and Intersound, and executives like Vicki Mack-Lataillade, who offer a progressive take on gospel's marketing and packaging, point squarely to its solid advances.

But make no mistake; gospel is not trying to keep up. Its pace is instead reflective of the longing to retain control of an industry that has caught the eye of the mainstream marketplace, and it prefers to direct itself in the path of its country-music cousins. It's outgrown its church-choir persona and freely aspires to a higher level of professionalism.

"Gospel has a new face because the artists and the artistry is changing," reports Pepperco Records founder and president Brenda Culpepper. "The public is demanding a more qualitative sound. We used to have a blueprint. You could take product, throw it out there and accurately predict the response. As Kirk Franklin has shown, that's no longer true."

Young, savvy and committed, Franklin is a prime example of today's gospel artist. His highly charged, high-tech and stylized "new traditional" debut just one year ago scored him upwards of 200,000 units in sales, the No. 1 slot on Billboard's gospel music charts, two Dove Awards, two Stellar awards and a guest spot on the "Arsenio Hall Show."

Culpepper credits gospel's new guard for the biggest changes in the genre. "Where the old guard was primarily made up of artists like a James Cleveland or a Shirley Caesar--many of whom are still in some positions of power--the new guard is made up mostly of industry movers and shakers," she says.

But while gospel has opened up in sales, it's shored up its borders on almost every other level. "It's a great deal more political," says Doug Williams, co-founder of Blackberry Records. "More or less, it's who you know--or who you can get to say a few words for you. The competition is so tough. You hate to say the word 'competitive,' but so many things are being done behind the scenes and under the table to make things happen."

"The thing that's most exciting is that we're seeing growth in alternative market venues," says CGI Records CEO Steve Devick. "They range anywhere from outlets like The House Of Blues to gospel's TV visibility. We're launching a local gospel program here in Chicago as part of our efforts to do all we can to extend our audience base. Thus far, we have seen a tremendous receptiveness from audiences across the board."

Some, like Chuck Myricks, who heads Word's gospel division, are most excited by a "growing focus on the CBA marketplace, which will mean additional units along with more opportunities for them to see our artists, encouraging the growth of the idiom."

Another key area of growth being targeted by Myricks and others is the sub-30 group. "It's nowhere near the majority of our sales," Myricks concedes, "but the kids expressing interest represent a different type of groove for us and are becoming increasingly influential."

Blackberry's Williams agrees. "When we first started, our average gospel buyer was what we term 'settle-age' (25 to 60)," he says. "But with the more contemporary tunes, we're picking up the 15-to-25 crowd. The numbers are moderate, but it's quite a bit as far as sales are concerned."

But gospel's biggest strides are in the areas of standardization and professionalism. "And that's top to bottom," Williams says. "Take the gospel stations. More and more are actually programming and putting songs in rotation. That didn't happen before. Today, a premium is placed on the total product--from the imaging of an artist to the packaging of the product--and on the business side."

James Bullard, who directs the gospel division at Atlanta-based Intersound Records, still recalls a time when the packaging was so sub-standard that buyers were ashamed to hold it up as they walked to the cash register. "We still have a ways to go," he admits, "but, on average, gospel manufacturers have stopped up to bat in the packaging of their artists."

Alan Freeman, president of Atlanta International Record Company (AIR), says it's an issue of money. "There was a time when we operated more at distributing houses," he notes. "Now that gospel is being taken much more seriously, we have become more sophisticated. A natural evolution of that is a bigger financial investment from the labels. And the more money you pour into a product, the higher your expectation on all levels-from radio to retail to imaging."

"Imaging is now a 10 on the scale for me," says Bullard. "For that reason, we're banking on Vicki Winans. In understanding how important marketing and imaging is, she has positioned herself to have corporate sponsorship. I believe she'll be the next superstar in gospel."

Winans is one of the old guard savvy enough to make the transition. Fact is, according to those like KHVN music director Drew Dawson, the urban flair has become passe and viewed almost solely as an attempt at crossover revenues. "Some of those artists need to decide what side of the fence they're on," says Dawson. "I can tell you now that if the music doesn't have enough of the gospel flavor, it's not going to get played here."

"While crossover can be wonderful," concludes Biggham, "the mainstay of the gospel community will always be the church."

Culpepper Ancestry. Brenda is married to investment banker, Irvin Culpepper, but the ancestry of Irvin is not currently known by Culpepper Connections! If you know who his parents are, please let us know.