Birth name Mark Pitts Name Mark Pitts Also known as Mark "Gucci" Pitts Role Producer | Movies Notorious Years active 1993–present | |
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Profiles | ||
Occupation(s) Producer, A&R Manager | ||
Mark Pitts is an American record producer, manager, and President of Urban Music at RCA Records. He has managed and produced musical tracks for a number of artists and performers including Notorious B.I.G, Faith Evans, Miguel, J. Cole, Jawan Harris, Kardinal Offishall, Ciara, Chris Brown, Usher, TLC, Anthony Hamilton, Cee Lo Green and Ro James. Pitts co-produced Notorious (2009), Blue (2009) and I Got a Story to Tell: The Lyrics of Biggie Smalls. He is currently the CEO of ByStorm Entertainment and President at RCA Records.
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Early life and career
Pitts was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was first introduced to the music industry by his grandmother, a classically trained piano teacher who began giving Pitts lessons at the age of four. Pitts spent eight years of his childhood at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and later continued learning music at the High School of Music and Performing Arts, where he also studied art.
His professional music career started in the early 90s, prior to entering Howard University, when he formed a rap group called Three Left. He intended to pitch the rap group to his friend Sean Combs who was working at Uptown Records at the time. After a meeting with Combs, Pitts decided that he wanted to work behind the scenes. In 1993, he started working with his friend Combs at the recording company Bad Boy Entertainment, where he managed the Notorious B.I.G, Faith Evans, and Changing Faces.
In 2000, Pitts was Senior Vice President of A&R for Arista Records, where he worked with Usher, TLC, Anthony Hamilton, and Cee Lo Green. In 2004 Pitts joined Zomba Label Group as a A&R executive and rose to become a president; he signed Chris Brown and Miguel.
In 2008 Pitts was diagnosed with Bell palsy, which paralyzed the left side of his face.
In 2011, he became President of Urban Music under RCA Records. The ByStorm Entertainment's current roster includes Kardinal Offishall, J. Cole, Jawan Harris, Miguel and Ro James. As president of RCA Records in 2013, Pitts gained major success with Miguel’s Kaleidoscope Dream which grabbed 5 Grammy Award nominations. Same year, he had also shepherded Usher’s Looking 4 Myself and Brown's Future which topped the charts for the year.
Recognition and honors
Pitts was featured in Crain Magazine's "40 under 40" after his diagnosis.
Based on worldwide chart data in 2005, he was named "world's No.8 A&R of 2005" by the music industry A&R site HitQuarters for that year after success in breaking new artists Ciara and Chris Brown.