Entrepreneur and Creative Brennan Williams Builds Multimedia Company to Service Members and Organizations of the Entertainment and Arts Communities
by Christy DeBoe Hicks
Music producer and creative Brennan Williams, founder and CEO of Coloan Brands, is a millennial with a strong affinity for today’s hip-hop and rap, great admiration and affection for old-school R&B, and an appreciation of jazz and world music. As a music programmer, he has a penchant for mixing those elements to create a textured sound that is brand new and defies categorization.
Those spirits of innovation and creative energy flow through his company, which he founded in 2008 and named in honor of his father, Will Colon. Since its inception, Coloan Brands, LLC has evolved into a one-stop shop for music programming, merchandise, and a creative agency through the company’s three divisions: Coloan Records, Merch by Coloan, and the AM Creative Agency, which he named in honor of his mother, Anna Marie Tyler.
Merch by Coloan designs and sells branded clothing such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and jackets. While the online store currently carries Wlliams’ designs and brand, plans are in the works to add creative design services for companies and organizations that want merchandise with their branding.
The AM Creative agency, the latest addition to the parent company, offers experiential event production, sensory branding, cultural programming, graphic design, video production, and sonic identity development for brands in the entertainment and lifestyle sector. The agency is still in development but had a soft launch with a production job for LiveXLive, an online streaming service that covers concerts and festivals. Williams says he is excited about the plan for the agency because it will allow him to develop, showcase and expand his creative and graphic arts skills beyond the music industry.
Coloan Records produces unique music programming for companies, organizations, and events worldwide. His client list includes the Recording Academy, Harvard University, Toyota, McDonald’s, Misty Copeland’s Dance Tribute to Wynton Marsalis, the African American Museum of Philadelphia’s 40th Anniversary Gala honoring media trailblazers Cathy Hughes and Alfred Liggins, and Global Communicator magazine.
Brennan Williams had the great fortune of partnering with Dyana Williams (no relation), a legendary television and radio broadcaster and the founder of Influence Entertainment, on a series that was presented internationally at Black Portraiture(s) conferences.
“Brennan and I met almost eight years ago when he interviewed me, and we discovered our shared interest for Black music and culture,” says Dyana Williams, who is also the co-founder of Black Music Month. “It led us to use our collective creativity to collaborate on several multimedia projects, including programs about Beyoncé, Mongo Santamaría, and Gamble and Huff, which met with critical acclaim.”
“We presented our projects internationally in Florence, Italy; Johannesburg, South Africa; and at Harvard University, New York University, and The Newark Museum Planetarium,” she continues. “I’m a huge admirer of Brennan, and he is a dear friend and remarkable person. He is witty, smart, capable, ambitious, charismatic, top-shelf premium, and multi-talented. Brennan Williams is truly a shining North Star and renaissance man.”
The company also offers a free, downloadable series titled “Café de la Coloan.” Mixed, arranged, and produced by Coloan, each episode features the latest exclusive tracks from the global music scene.
One of Williams’ most recent projects is a remix of Stevie Wonder’s “Black Man,” a tribute to Black excellence from his seminal 1976 album Songs in the Key Of Life. Williams’ version of the song is available on Spotify, Soundcloud YouTube, and will soon be available on vinyl. The single was released last August during a time of protest and calls for racial justice following a series of police-involved deaths of Black men, including George Floyd. This remake is punctuated with Afrobeat and world music elements and accompanied by a video featuring images of more than 130 primarily Black men, celebrating the diversity of achievement among African American men from colonial times to the present day. It opens with words spoken by Stevie Wonder urging support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Given the recent events of civil unrest and the murders of innocent men and women, I felt it was necessary to acknowledge and accurately represent the immense diversity of Black men using the context and framework of Stevie’s song,” Williams says.
The “Black Man” video features historical leaders and lesser-known achievers, including President Barack Obama, Congressman John Lewis, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Colin Kaepernick, Sidney Poitier, Spike Lee, and Chadwick Boseman, among numerous others. The video also includes images of those who have lost their lives due to violence and police brutality and footage of civil unrest and peaceful protests.
The single has received both critical acclaim and accolades from media outlets such as USA Today and ABC Radio News and fans such as journalists Ed Gordon and April Ryan; producer and director Lee Daniels; and actor and television personality Sherri Shepherd. The video was placed as a finalist for the New York International Film Awards in the Best Music Video category.
“In addition to paying homage to the twenty-five-time Grammy Award winner, I wanted to recognize ancestors, influencers, and history makers, past and present,” says Williams. “Some faces you may not recognize — including my late father, who was a music producer and inspired me to pursue a career in music — but these individuals are conscious, working, influential, and servicing their communities. These are people who deserve to be celebrated.”
Williams says he and his team are continuing to develop various content, including a documentary that expands on the themes presented in the “Black Man” video. He expects this short to be released later in 2021. He is also working on projects with a few new artists. One collaboration is with Idia Gamble, daughter of Kenny Gamble of the famed production duo Gamble & Huff, to create new music for a performer he will only refer to as “a music legend.” The reveal will come later this year, so stay tuned.
Songs in the Key Of Life: Music Was a Family Tradition
Music was a foundational part of family life for Williams, who was born in the New Jersey Shore town of Long Branch and raised in the neighboring town of Red Bank. Songs of all types and tempos were always playing in his home. Growing up, he was exposed to the best of a range of musical genres. His father, referred to as “Willie Colon or Willie C” Green, was a music producer and engineer who preferred listening to music on a reel-to-reel player.
His mother, Anna Marie Tyler was a model whose images could be seen in Ebony and Jet magazine ads. She was also on the other side of the camera as a photographer. A creative and a music lover, she preferred listening to music on vinyl LPs.
Williams grew up learning about the joy of listening to music from his mother and about the intricacies and technical aspects of making music from his father. His two older sisters, Nicole Tyler-Love, and LaKysha Tyler were musically expressive and kept up with the latest tunes by listening to the radio and television music video programs. He learned about all the hottest new hip-hop songs from his them. As the youngest in the family, Williams just took it all in.
Williams’ propensity for recreating music was evident from a young age. “When I was about four, my mother gave me a Fisher-Price tape recorder with a microphone,” he recalls. “I used that mic to record my mother’s vinyl records onto cassette tapes. As I grew older and hip-hop became a force within the entertainment industry, my sisters and I would tape the content of Video Music Box and Yo! MTV Raps. We were making mixtapes on VHS.”
Lessons From His Father
Willie Colon produced primarily R&B/soul music. He was given that name by his friends because of his love for music and his admiration for jazz musician Willie Colon. He did production and engineering work for groups that included The Moments (later known as Ray, Goodman & Brown), and Kool & The Gang. Over the years, he taught his son the technical and engineering aspects of music-making and recording techniques, such as making solid transitions. “He was big on transitions — he strongly believed they were just as important as the music itself,” Williams recalls. “He emphasized the importance of being a strong songwriter and stressed that the music you produce must be relatable to your audience.”
His father also taught him that there was great music in every genre, from Marvin Gaye’s landmark album What’s Going On, to Barry White’s chart-topping album Can’t Get Enough to Pink Floyd’s highly acclaimed album Dark Side of the Moon.
Williams’ father was not a big fan of hip-hop music, but he did like The Notorious B.I.G. However, he demonstrated to his son how rappers sampled songs from older music to create a new sound. These lessons from his father would greatly influence Williams’ future work.
All About The Benjamins
Music meant a lot to Williams, but he had other ambitions as well. He played sports for much of his youth. He played football in the Pop Warner league for one year, but he was more interested in basketball and baseball and played those sports until tenth grade.
He gave up athletics to focus more on his academic pursuits, particularly in engineering. He took advanced placement (AP) courses for engineering, specifically information technology and Cisco networking. He earned a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certificate by his senior year in high school. For three years in high school, he participated in the Program for Acceleration in Careers of Engineering (PACE), which was held every Saturday morning at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, New Jersey. The program, taught by professionals in technical fields, was created to encourage and prepare students of color to seek careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). But, giving up sports also provided Williams the time and opportunity to work after school.
When Williams was a teenager, it was “all about The Benjamins” — though life would soon disabuse him of that notion. At a young age, he determined that money bought you freedom and popularity. He wanted to be able to buy what he wanted, when he wanted, rather than asking his parents for it and risking hearing them say “no.” He also found that having money to buy and share treats made him popular with the girls in high school. “I had a little bit of money to buy curly fries and Little Debbie snacks, and I would say to the girls in my high school, ‘Oh, you want a brownie, here; I’ve got some curly fries for you,’” he recalled.
To build his funds for buying things he wanted and maintain his stash for purchasing treats for his female classmates, Williams began working at age 14 as a full-time summer camp counselor, for which he was paid off the books. He later worked part-time at Harmon Discount and Imaginarium Tech & Toys during the school year. He also served as a DJ for parties and events in the community.
Williams’ heightened concern about money also played a role in his choice of college. His interest in working in music and as a creative had increased as he grew older, but he had decided to pursue engineering instead. He also wanted to get a college education as cost-effectively as possible. “I applied to various colleges, and I was going to go to a computer engineering school in Florida,” he says, “But I decided not to because it was too expensive, and I was looking at it from a financial aspect. I would have to take out loans, and I know a lot of people do that, but I didn’t want to do that.”
He decided to go to Brookdale Community College, where he pursued a major in information technology with a minor in business administration. Along the way, he switched his major from information technology to broadcasting and business administration because it had gotten to a point where he was bored and uninterested in his classes. “The universe wasn’t allowing me to neglect my real passion, which was being a creative and musician,” he says.
He knew he needed to make a change and pursue that full time, but he did not know how to go about it. Two things happened that changed the course of Williams’ life and career. First, he was in a microeconomics class. The professor was going over line graphs and various terms related to economics, and Williams began to ask himself, “Do I want to continue doing something that’s not going to be fulfilling?”
Losing His Father and Finding His Way
While he was grappling with deciding what to do next, Williams’ father died from lung cancer on Christmas Eve, 2004.
“My aunt called me and told me that the doctor said my father had two more weeks to live and I needed to get to Florida as soon as possible,” he recalls. “That hit me because I had been down there a few months before to help out and went back to New Jersey to start school.” Air travel was expensive then, so the only way he could get to Florida was to take the Greyhound bus, a 24-hour trip. When he had been with his father a few months prior, he was living in Fort Lauderdale, but as his health declined further, he had returned to his hometown, Vernon, Florida, a small town in the panhandle about 31 miles from Panama City. He had family there to care for him.
“I will never forget that trip,” he says. “It was the longest bus ride ever, and the entire time I was praying ‘Please, please, please, Lord, I just want one more conversation with him.’” He made it to Vernon and to his father’s bedside two days before he passed.
“The last conversation I had with him eventually resulted in everything I’m doing today,” Williams states. He told his father that he wanted to work in the music industry and to be a producer, but he did not know how to break in because he did not have any connections. His father told him that who you know might help you get in the door, but that longevity in the business, it’s what you know and what you acquire in terms of knowledge and skills that will make you a success. Williams says he took that to heart. “That’s what I apply to everything I do,” he says.
During that conversation, Williams says he told his father that he wanted to assume his nickname, Willie Colon. “However, I told him I would change the spelling from Colon to Coloan,” he says. “Adding the ‘a’ makes me feel like he is loaning me his name. It’s as if we are still working on this music thing together.”
Taking A Bite Out of The Big Apple
Williams came back to New Jersey with a resolve to follow his passion and find his way into the music business. Brookdale did not offer entertainment-related classes at that time, so he decided to search for internships in New York City.
“That’s the real school,” he told himself. “Nothing can beat working alongside the people that are making it happen every day.” Using the Internet to search for opportunities, he filled out fifteen applications for intern positions across various broadcasting companies, recording studios, and record labels. “One of the companies that got back to me was MTV, and they asked me to come up for an interview,” he says. “My mom came with me, and we rode the bus up to New York City for the interview.” He got the internship, and six months later, he was hired as a full-time staff member.
Williams’ internship was not a paid position. He was in college and living with his mother in Red Bank, a long and expensive commute into the city three days a week for his internship. Williams did what he had learned to do at 14 years old: He hustled. He got a full-time job working as a dishwasher at an assisted living facility in New Jersey while managing to keep up with his full-time class schedule and devote attention and energy to his internship.
“I was earning six dollars an hour, so my checks went toward my tuition and my commute,” he says. He was getting some financial aid from Brookdale, but he used that money to invest in his future as a music producer and a creative, which he had promised himself and his father. “I was using my financial aid money to buy music equipment. My parents always told me to live my life with purpose and intention, so even though it was sometimes hard, I had a goal, and it all worked out, and I still have that equipment to this day,” he says.
At MTV Radio, Williams was responsible for programming and generating urban content for MTV.com and the Daily Buzz industry gossip column. He conducted interviews with prominent industry and film talent and edited broadcast interviews to produce audio clips for the more than 400 local radio stations affiliated with the network. He also managed a group of interns.
Williams began working at MTV just as the company was converting to digital editing tools. “I was right there when they started using Pro Tools [a digital editing program], which was right up my alley because of my computer background, particularly my training as a Cisco networking engineer,” he says. “It all came together at MTV. Even though I did not want to do network engineering at school, that training benefited me.”
Williams developed many contacts and relationships during his time at MTV. A vital connection was with Sway Calloway (also known as Sway), a popular radio personality who has worked in radio and television for more than 20 years and is currently the host of SiriusXM’s Sway in the Morning. At the time, Sway co-hosted The Wake Up Show with King Tech, a popular syndicated radio show, and the MTV Network show TRLAM.
“I had the distinct pleasure of working with Brennan [Will Coloan] at MTV Networks/Viacom, where we spent a lot of time brainstorming new ways to tell authentic stories in a format that made it easily accessible to any person from every walk of life,” says Sway. “We were a major part of groundbreaking programming that built major brand equity for the companies we contracted.” Sway, who remains connected to Williams, believes he will continue to build on his family’s musical legacy. “Brennan comes from a musical background, and it makes sense that he’s also an amazing music producer and DJ. When you have these qualities, it makes every day a joy and engaging to work with them. I’m looking forward to seeing what great work is ahead of him to accomplish.”
Williams says that Sway has been influential in his life since he first arrived at MTV as an intern, and credits the longtime radio host with being the person who first taught him how to do celebrity interviews.
Perhaps the most influential person in Williams’ life as an intern at MTV was his supervisor, Bridget Bland Bogee, who mentored him and prepared him for the next steps in his career. He says she was the kind of professional he had hoped to work with and learn from when applying to internships.
“It’s been a pleasure watching Brennan grow into a seasoned media professional and entertainment jack of all trades,” says Bland Bogee, now marketing executive at Facebook. “He has gone from my intern at MTV to a well-respected editor. Moreover, he continues to grow his expertise in music and now film production. I look forward to seeing Brennan continue to leave his mark in the world of media and entertainment.”
Bland Bogee introduced Williams to Karu F. Daniels, who was then the entertainment editor at AOL Black Voices. He offered Williams an opportunity to come work with him as an assistant programming manager. Over time, Daniels has become a mentor and close friend to Williams. It is a relationship Brennen cherishes.
“I heard how much of a good guy he was at MTV and wanted to give him a shot,” says Daniels, a veteran journalist writer, and content producer. “It was important for me to hire a young Black man because I felt that there were not enough of us mentoring one another in the media landscape. He was charming, bright, well-mannered, and hardworking. He also had a very sly sense of humor during our initial interactions, which made me know he would make a great addition to the team,” he added. “He grew exponentially. Early on, I recognized that he had a strong interest in production and a deep passion for music coupled with a willingness to learn. I encouraged him to learn more about the technical aspects of the digital landscape. Brennan is a quick study and can adapt to any environment.”
Daniels offers a colorful description of Williams, “He’s like a shapeshifter. I believe that he can do anything he sets his mind to. I have witnessed him do it. He is one in a million and a real mensch.”
Williams was promoted to programming manager during his tenure at AOL, from 2008 to 2011, when the digital giant merged with the Huffington Post. He was offered an expanded role at the Huffington Post Black Voices and became senior pop culture editor and content manager for the online news site. Williams was responsible for editing stories, managing freelance writers, video editing, and more.
“At the time, there was a need to create more video content across the company,” he said. “AOL offered employees a video editing class. I took the class and that’s when I decided I wanted to get into video editing and producing,” he says.
An essential part of Williams’ work at MTV, AOL Black Voices, and Huffington Post Black Voices was interviewing celebrities, including legends in the industry, for both on-air segments and online print articles. His most memorable interviews include Aretha Franklin, Nas, Nile Rodgers, Chaka Khan, Paul Mooney, TD Jakes, Clive Davis, Rakim, and Mobb Deep. But Williams’ most cherished interview was the one he did with soul and jazz legend Gil Scott-Heron. “He was the only person I was ever starstruck by,” says Williams. “Gil was a genius. I got to see him perform live in New York three times before he died [in 2011] — twice at SOB’s [Sounds of Brazil] and once at the legendary Blue Note Jazz Club. I took my sister to that performance because she was a huge Gil Scott-Heron fan as well.”
Williams also penned important stories for the Huffington Post about the entertainment industry and entertainers’ efforts to address problems around the world. Those articles include: How To Make It As A Black Sitcom: Be Careful How You Talk About Race, If You Want To See Diversity Onscreen, Watch Netflix, Why This Former Black Panther Wrote A Film About The Power Of Redemption, Sidney Poitier’s Daughter On The Groundbreaking Life Lessons Of ‘Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner’, What Curtis Mayfield’s 1960’s Music Can Teach Us About Resistance Today, John Ridley’s New Film Revisits The LA Riots At An ‘Exceptionally Important’ Time, David Oyelowo Demands The Horrors Of Human Trafficking In Africa ‘Must Change’ and Akon On His Mission To Provide Electricity To 600 Million In Africa.
Williams says his life has been incredibly enhanced by his relationships with Dyana Williams, Bridget Bland Bogee, Karu F. Daniels, Sway Calloway, and Marcia Cole, a highly regarded leader in the entertainment and lifestyle media industry. He also gets a lot of support from Marshall Almeida, his barber (or “professional groomer,” as he calls himself). “Prior to the pandemic, I had a standing appointment with him every Wednesday after work, at the Matter of Instinct Barbershop in Manhattan, New York,” says Williams. “Marshall serves as my therapist, too,” quips Williams.
Williams continues to work to improve his knowledge and skills. He has started working more on the songwriting skills his father said were necessary to be a success in the business. He also is completing the Music Essentials certificate program at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He expects to complete the program this month.
Connections with family, friends, coworkers, and others are vital to Williams, and he is inspired by the people who form his inner and outer circles. “Not to sound clichéd or anything, but I am inspired by life,” he says. “My parents inspired me. My sisters still inspire me. My friends, my nephews, my niece — everything and everyone inspires me. My colleagues inspire me because I have a connection with them. Every relationship that I have in my life, is personal. I hope I inspire everyone else as well.”
He also wants to use his talent to help make life better for more people. “I want to be an advocate for change overall,” he concludes. “I want to help people try to figure things out because it’s hard for all of us. But we can’t get anywhere if we’re trying to do it by ourselves.”
Christy DeBoe Hicks is a communications consultant, writer, and editor with more than 30 years of experience working with policy, nonprofit, education, and community organizations, as well as in the music, theater, and publishing fields. After a hiatus, she has returned as a regular contributor to Global Communicator.
