Kobalt’s Al “Butter” McLean on Powering Hip-Hop’s Top Moguls
Long before it became trendy to support rap and R&B, Al “Butter” McLean was waving the flag at Kobalt, rallying the company around some of the genre’s most iconic creators.
In Butter’s twelve years as Senior Vice President of Creative, he’s signed and worked with Childish Gambino, Noah “40” Shebib, Kirk Franklin, Mike WiLL Made-It, and more. Life was no less star-studded for the industry veteran when he co-managed Alicia Keys and facilitated Jennifer Lopez’s first record deal.
His character begets his track record: An infectious personality and deep commitment to artist-first, flexible admin deals have fostered deep respect among friends and foes. It’s hard to knock the hustle with four Grammys and nine ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Awards in 2017 alone.
Amidst all the glitz and glamor, Butter kept his boots to the ground, opening a Kobalt office in Atlanta to champion, support, and educate creators and entrepreneurs operating at the heart of hip-hop. Now that streaming has validated what McLean long believed — hip-hop’s inevitable rise to global prominence — the sky’s the limit.
Q: There’s been a big push to support Hip-Hop and R&B at Kobalt. You’ve been here for 12 years. What was it like when you first came in as opposed to now?
Kobalt was such a new idea in the music business at the time and had such a fresh angle. We were offering things that just weren’t commonplace in the music business 11 years ago.
We were not offering advances and just doing admin deals and offering transparency, instead of the traditional (most of the time no-way-out, “Trust Tony”) co-publishing deals. At the time, we didn’t have a lot of bands — a lot of people — the old music guard — weren’t cool with what we were doing and they didn’t understand it. After a while, after momentum and some success stories, it became a snowball going down Mt. Everest. Between now and then, it’s just awareness — we’ve awoken everybody.
Q: You’re very passionate about educating the artists themselves in Atlanta about how the music business works. What’s your message to the creators?
It depends on the particular artist. First, I really go out and find out what they want and what’s their concern and what’s their perception of what they want and what we do. I let them air out what they want, their worries, and their concerns and I address them. Then I introduce Kobalt and what we do and how we can help. I think Kobalt is built for this new independent movement. We’re right on time with the growth and we’ve aligned ourselves with some great companies like Reach Records, Empire Distribution, T.I.G. 7, and Slip n’ Slide Records and we’re empowering and doing the administration for them.
Down here [in Atlanta], I’m teaching about the benefits of Kobalt, but I’m also empowering these guys to do their own thing and to build up their own companies and have us be their platform. In the past, other companies have been coming in, giving them a check and leaving them. They had no way of knowing what was going on and it let us be the saviors. These kids now want to be independent; they just need a trustworthy platform and we’ve proven and shown that we are the best.
I teach and believe in the Kobalt Holy Grail: transparency, creativity, client control, and accurate accounting. There are no boundaries at Kobalt and I urge clients to push it. They will be supported creatively and our world creative team is amazing.
Q: As hip-hop is paving its own path forward in pop culture, how does Kobalt fit in?
In their hoods, they have their own little communities and because of our platform, they are nurturing the next ones. We teach them how to do it right and develop streams of revenue to keep them out of the streets and clean them up and keep them as successful as they are now. With Migos successful here and all of these other urban guys like Young Thug, they’re all down here creating their own lane and they just need a spot where they can trust in the data and monetization.
Q: You were based in New York for many years, but you’ve since set up shop in Atlanta, which has really become quite the mecca for music and hip-hop in particular. What was that move like?
I’ve got to think that Willard [Ahdritz], Sas [Metcalfe], Richard [Thompson] and Richard [Sanders] at the time supported the idea. Everybody wants to rush to LA, which is great because there’s a lot of creatives there, but I thought that for us to really take a heavy step in hip-hop, which we were OK in at the time, I recommended that we come here and let me open up the office.
Sending me down to Atlanta was kind of risky but I knew what I could do and I knew the opportunity that it was and they backed me. We cracked ground, got moving, and it’s nothing but going uphill now.
Q: Last question: how did you get your nickname?
It was [Alicia Keys’] idea. I was producing a track and she came in and was like, “oh that’s butter!” I said, “Wow that could be a good nickname!” I went to high school with Puffy and we’re good friends. I said, “If he’s got a nickname, I need a nickname!” She said, “Butter because you always come up with these hot tracks! You make music fat with flavor.”
