Top Black Talent Producer Deborah Byrd Celebrates 25 Years in Entertainment
Deborah Byrd is recognized as the top black music talent producer and consultant for awards shows and music specials from Hollywood to New York. She is the founder and CEO of AK [Alaska] Blackbyrd Productions, located in Los Angeles, California, and is celebrating her twenty-fifth year in the business.
Though most of this year’s music and entertainment award shows have been canceled due to COVID-19, Byrd is fortunate to work during this season of uncertainty. She is currently working on one of her longest-running shows, The BET Awards, which is celebrating its 20th-anniversary. During this historic year, the network will present its first-ever virtual broadcast of the event on June 28, during Black Music Month. Additionally, The BET Network is celebrating its 40th anniversary.
Byrd has been with The BET Awards since the inception of the show in 2000. First hired by John Cossette Productions, the show was taken over by Jesse Collins Entertainment the following year. Byrd has worked closely with Collins for the past 19 years.
Byrd has worked on multiple music productions in various talent capacities throughout her career, including seventeen consecutive years with the Primetime Emmy Award-winning ESPY Awards. She also freelanced with Jesse Collins Entertainment on various BET-branded shows and events including “The BET Honors,” “Black Girls Rock,” “The Soul Train Awards,” “The BET Hip Hop Awards,” “BET Sunday Best,” “BET Rip the Runway,” and the White House music special “BET Presents Love and Happiness: An Obama Celebration.”
Also, in 2000, longtime Hollywood producer Kelly Brock hired Byrd as the talent coordinator for the NAACP Image Awards, where both Suzanne de Passe and Vicangelo “Vic” Bullock were the executive producers. Byrd continued to work on the show under Brock’s tutelage for twelve consecutive years.
With more than 300 television productions on her illustrious list of credits, Byrd has been part of the talent teams for many acclaimed shows, including the “Academy Awards,” the “American Music Awards,” “Apollo Live,” the “BET Experience,” the “Billboard Awards,” the “Black Movie Awards,” the “Grammy Awards,” “In Living Color,” “McDonald’s 365Black Awards,” the “National Museum of African American History and Culture,” the “Stellar Gospel Music Awards,” “Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life: An All-Star Grammy Salute,” “The Radio Music Awards,” “The UNCF: An Evening of Stars,” “TV’s Funniest Sitcoms,” “Vibe TV Show,” and countless others.
“There have been so many people from the Hollywood community who have moved my career forward,” says Byrd. “I, too, am celebrating 25 years in entertainment, and I am honored that they believed in my talent and abilities to get the job.”
After the BET Awards, Byrd plans to resume consulting projects with BET under the leadership of Connie Orlando, Executive Vice President of Specials, Music Programming and Music Strategy.
Growing Up in Alaska
Byrd also looks forward to her annual family vacation in her hometown of Anchorage, Alaska. Though Byrd was born on the Fort Benning military base, 120 miles from Atlanta, Georgia, her family was soon transferred to Fort Richardson Army Base in Anchorage, when she was less than a year old. Once her father, William Byrd, completed his service in the army, her mother, Alice Williams Byrd, decided that she wanted to stay and raise her family in Alaska.
The Byrds moved from the Fort Richardson army base to civilian life in the City of Anchorage when Deborah was two. The fifth of seven children and the youngest sister, she was soon cast as the family’s spoiled brat among two older brothers, two younger brothers, and two older sisters.
Byrd says she loved growing up in Anchorage. Alaska is different from any place she’s ever been. May is the official start of summer, which runs through September. Often, there is snow on the ground in April, and in September there are the first sightings of frost. In the summertime, the days are long. The sun goes down around midnight and then it’s back up at 3 o’clock in the morning.
“During the summers, we were outside all the time,” says Byrd. “We would get up early and go camping and fishing and participate in other outdoor sports and activities.”
During the Alaskan winters, the sun comes up at 11 o’clock in the morning, and goes down around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The temperature can drop to 20 below zero in January and February. From October through December, there’s 10- and 20-degree weather, which Byrd says is perfect for ice skating, skiing, and sledding.
Deborah and her husband, Keith Richardson, have been married for sixteen years. Both want to provide their 13-year old son, Quentin, with a life similar to Deborah’s upbringing. Though she and her family live in Los Angeles, she remembers how her parents made sure that she and her siblings spent every other summer with their grandmother in Macon, Georgia.
“Quentin is like an only child; his next sibling is 21 years old,” Byrd continues. “Quentin loves Alaska and he also likes to camp and fish. We come home at least once a year, either during the summer or the winter. I want to make sure that Quentin is connected to his family. He has sixteen cousins in Alaska, and all of my family is still there except my oldest sister, who moved back to Georgia. I want him to experience some of the things I experienced as a kid. I want him to enjoy that summertime and the picturesque, snowy mountains during Christmas.”
When Byrd moved from Anchorage to Los Angeles, people often asked her whether there are any black people in Alaska. Byrd says she grew up with black and white people as well as the indigenous people of Alaska, Native Americans. In addition, a mix of people from different ethnic groups were often transferred from other places to Anchorage’s two military bases, Elmendorf Air Force Base and the Fort Richardson Army Base, and many of those families stayed in Alaska after completing military service.
“The [Native Americans] were the first people here. Growing up in Alaska, we experienced their culture and its part of our state history,” says Byrd. “We spent time learning about the different tribes, the different variations of people, and what they ate. It was part of the landscape and our life.”
Though there were many black people in Alaska, there were no radio stations that played black music. Byrd grew up listening to radio personality Casey Kasem’s weekly “American Top 40” countdown. She recalls that soul and R&B music was only heard three ways while growing up in Alaska.
The first was through the record collection her parents brought with them to Alaska. During that time, black music could only be purchased at onetime department store giant Montgomery Ward. She heard the music of Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 as a child, and her mother played “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” by Lou Rawls until the vinyl was scratched. The second way to hear black music was on Saturday afternoons on TV’s “Soul Train.” The third way was on the public radio station, KSKA-FM 91.1, which programmed three hours of soul and R&B from midnight to 3 a.m. on Saturday nights.
“Music lovers and fans would stay up and record as much of the broadcast as they could on their sixty- or ninety-minute cassette tapes,” says Byrd. “Then people would play back the broadcast in their cars or stereos that week until the following weekend. It was funny to hear everyone had the same playlist every week.”
From Alaska to California
Byrd always knew she wanted to explore the world and leave Alaska. In high school, like most young black girls across the country, she was inspired and influenced by the movie Mahogany, which starred Diana Ross, who portrayed a fashion designer. So, after high school, Byrd planned to attend college for design and merchandising. One day she saw Spike Lee’s movie School Daze and became fascinated by the wardrobe. She also decided that her mission would be to meet American costume designer Ruth E. Carter.
Byrd left Alaska in 1992 with the intent to become a costume designer for movies and television. She enrolled in Brooks College of Design & Merchandising in Long Beach, California, and earned an Associate of Arts Degree.
After college–and still looking for Ruth E. Carter–Byrd started beating the pavement to find a job in one of the costume houses in Hollywood. She was rejected on numerous occasions and realized that she had to find any kind of paying job immediately. She secured a position with ARS Insurance Company, which specialized in coverage for workman’s compensation. She also signed up with a few casting agencies to do extra work on the television shows in hopes of meeting some of the industry’s movers and shakers behind the scenes.
Byrd eventually secured infrequent work as a wardrobe assistant. One day while working as an extra on the set of the Fox hit television sitcom “Living Single,” she met Anna Kinney, an aspiring actress who mentioned that her then husband was looking for a PA (production assistant) for a television show. Deborah didn’t know what a PA was, but responded, “I can do it.”
Byrd then met with Ted Kinney, who was the production manager for her first award show assignment in 1996. The American Teacher Awards was a national television broadcast on the Disney channel. From that production, she was referred to work as a production assistant on numerous other shows, including The Essence Awards. Byrd says she was “super psyched” about that event because as a young adult she was an avid reader of the black women’s monthly publication. First hired as a PA by the show’s Daniel Konaté, the production manager of The Essence Awards, Byrd was subsequently hired by executive producer Carol Rosenstein and associate producer Michelle LeTarte on the award show for the next three years.
During that period, Byrd dabbled in occasional wardrobe assignments but soon realized that it wasn’t what she thought it would be. She saw a brighter future for herself in talent producing and production. (In 2019, Byrd finally met Ruth E. Carter at Disney Dreamers Academy with Steve Harvey, where Carter was booked as a speaker. Pamela Frazier, the Talent Booking Director for Disney Parks Live Entertainment, hired Byrd as a producer, and she had the opportunity to tell Carter her story).
Day-To-Day At AK Blackbyrd
As a talent producer, Byrd’s day-to-day workflow consists of continuous communications via telephone and emails with label representatives, publicists, and managers. She reviews performance and presenter pitches and listens to music from new talent for consideration on the show. Byrd also leads and oversees the logistics for the talent department and make sure the show is heading in the right direction. Byrd and her team are responsible for obtaining all music parts and information for all musical performances.
As head of the talent department, one of Byrd’s other responsibilities is overseeing the production personnel. For every music production she hires four teams, including at least two talent managers, a talent executive, and three talent coordinators. Two weeks before the television taping, Byrd brings in four to five people each for the ground transportation team, the credentials team, and the dressing room team.
“On production, I go from a crew of three to four that work closely with me for four to six weeks to a team of twenty-five to thirty people that help make the show move,” Byrd explains. “Most of my point people are people of color and women. Coming from Alaska, I didn’t know that this division existed. I knew it was my responsibility to make sure that anybody that wants to be in it has a shot at it. I rarely turn people down. I bring people in as production assistant or credential personnel, so they can see how this whole thing is put together behind the scenes.”
Through the years, Byrd has built a stellar reputation for managing talent and oversized egos. It’s one of the reasons she has been consistent and successful during the past two decades.
“I treat everyone the same,” she says. “I’m not only dealing with talent egos but the agent and management egos, as well. I’m also dealing with the producer’s ego. If I cater to one, somebody else is going to suffer. There’s a team of people that makes the show work, and everybody is important. I always find a way to communicate with everybody from the PA to the superstar; that’s the only way I know how to do it.”
Byrd is proud of the work she produces and the people of color she hires and moves along, many of whom are now forging their own paths as talent producers. For Byrd, giving back is the best part of the job because there were many people who gave her a chance and took her under their wings during a time when few faces looked like hers.
Producer Kelly Brock has been instrumental in Byrd’s success over the years. During the ’90s, in the early part of her career, Brock hired her on numerous annual productions, including the Sinbad Soul Festival in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, which is the first time they worked together. Brock brought her along to other productions, including “The Radio Music Awards,” “The Source Awards,” “Kids Choice Awards,” “The Teen Choice Awards,” and the “Home For The Holidays” television special.
“I’ve learned from so many people,” says Byrd. “It’s been a tag team. I credit Kelly Brock because she taught me how to not only be a good talent producer, but she taught me how to handle people. I have to give her all the credit for giving me a chance, because this is something that I knew nothing about and she had the patience to teach me and walk me through it.”
Byrd says one of the most frustrating aspects of talent producing is that there are not enough platforms for all the amazing talent out there, especially new and developing artists. In most cases, the same ten artists are always booked for most of the current music shows and, generally, there’s no space left to consider new talent.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the national quarantine downtime has presented an opportunity for Byrd and her development partners to focus on creating two television series and a lifestyle show under her company, AK Blackbyrd Productions.
“I love my work, but I’m ready to step out of just talent producing to create and produce other shows,” she affirms. “I would like to collaborate with other women and content creators who have amazing ideas and concepts to develop inspirational and empowering programming.”
Gwendolyn Quinn is an award-winning communications strategist and consultant with a career spanning more than 25 years. She is the Chief Content Officer of the Global Communicator. As a contributor, she has penned stories for NBCNews.com, Black Enterprise, Essence.com, Huff Post, and EURWEB.com.
