- Joyce Irby
Joyce Irby is best known as the
bassist and co-lead vocalist of the 1980s all girl bandKlymaxx . She originally signed on with George Clinton's P-Funk crew as "Fenderella". In 1989,she did a solo deal withMotown Records and had 3 charted Billboard singles, most notable "Mr DJ" withDoug E Fresh which peaked at # 2.Irby relocated from Los Angeles to Atlanta in the late 1980s and since 1986 began attempting to engineer the rise of Atlanta as an urban music center by soliciting major record labels to form regional offices in the Atlanta area.
Irby's greater impact may have been the result of her signing a young
Dallas Austin as a songwriter and producer in 1988. Dallas produced the first TLC andBoyz II Men projects while still signed to Irby's company Diva One Entertainment.Ten years later, as an artist developer she signed child star Sammie Bush, and made a deal with Dallas and
Capital Records which launched Sammie's career when he was 12 years old. Irby also signed Lloyd (The Inc) as an 11 year old and developed and guided his career through four major record deals (Warner, Dreamworks, Magic Johnson Music/MCA, The Inc/Universal). She continues to serve as Executive Producer on Lloyd's albums, "Street Love" being the most recent.
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