#183: VP of Marketing at Atlantic Records Marsha St. Hubert

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal we welcome our amazing friend and VP of Marketing at Atlantic Records, Marsha St. Hubert, to the Upper West Side! Marsha, whose outstanding work with Cardi B helped her claim a number 1 album on the Billboard charts last week, has a whole lotta wins on the scoreboard thanks to her time with Gucci Mane, Kodak Black, Maino, Lupe Fiasco, TI, Tamar Braxton, DJ Drama and Wiz Khalifa. The daughter of a first generation Haitian immigrant, a latchkey girl living in ungentrified Flatbush, Brooklyn with her tough-love mother who worked two jobs to send her to Catholic school, we talk about spending each summer in Haiti with her father and her mischievous brother, playing high school sports, going to college with the goal to become a lawyer like Claire Huxtable and nixing that plan real quick, landing back home and taking a job with a PR firm, where she didn't last long after moments like asking Dame Dash if she could listen to his iPod. Marsha remembers interning for Lyor Cohen at Def Jam, moving over with him when he took the CEO position at Warner Music Group, establishing herself as a people person and learning the A&R side of the business at Atlantic Records, and moving into marketing for early projects by Maino, DJ Drama and TI's P$C. We discuss how specific Lupe's vision was for Lasers, the hours she spent on the phone with him, how far her relationship with Wiz evolved after he signed to Atlantic and initially ignored everyone in the building, and why she felt it was the right move to leave for a position at Epic Records. Marsha gets into working with Tamar, how hard she and her team worked to get that number one record, having a baby and juggling responsibilities to her family and as a businesswoman. Marsha details her return to Atlantic, the amazing ways they rolled out Gucci's first album while he was on house arrest, working Kodak's first project while he was locked up, the reaction to Cardi's unprecedented run, her feelings on Billboard's recent piece on the dearth of Black executives in music, the different leadership styles of Lyor Cohen, LA Reid and Julie Greenwald, the talented co-workers she's collaborated with through the years, and so very much more in this truly excellent episode!