J.Poww Interview: Past, Present, and Future of UNV

Now one thing I saw on your guys MySpace page was that you toured with Madonna in front of 100,000 size crowds. What was it like being on such a major tour?

Aw man that was probably one of the most memorable times of my career with UNV. Because we were used to doing some big shows, but nothing to the magnitude of coming out in a stadium that's sold out of 100,000 people, where you think they're all there to see Madonna and then when they announce that you're coming up, you got a 100,000 people screaming UNV. That's like an amazing, amazing feeling. It's just indescribable to be able to perform to such different ethnic backgrounds. Not just African Americans. White. Black. Hispanic. Everything. And to be so well accepted, it's a wonderful feeling.

Madonna portrays herself as pretty raunchy with all of her entertainment stuff. When you interact with her in person is she just as wild or is she more down to earth?

You'd be surprised. She was extremely down to earth. She was like a big sister to us. Well, at least to the three of us. She kinda liked my brother a little more than the rest of us I'd say. But she was real cool. You gotta think, this is a lady who's making a million dollars a night, not including merchandising. You know we're getting a little 20,000 dollars a night to perform with her on the tour, she's making a million, but she's about her business. She was really cool, she would always come in and give us a little pep talk before the show. I mean you hear the stories but man, you gotta have some kinda persona that the media can talk about. And hers in the beginning was this raunchy type of attitude and she's milked it to the T, what can you say.

How did you get involved with her label?

Well like I was saying. We released the record independently first in Detroit. We had the #3 most requested song on one of the biggest P1 stations here in the state of Michigan, WJLB. And we started getting labels coming to us. We had several different labels bidding for us. Madonna's manager, praise the man, who was the president of Maverick, heard about the record through an independent source that was here in Michigan.

And he flew here out of the blue, and he came to our studio where we were recording, and I'll never forget this. It was this big black limo that pulls up. Two big security guards get out, one comes to the door and says "Uhh is this the studio UNV, is there a house studio, you know nothing fancy?" And we go "yea" and he goes "uh okay we'll be right back." And the guy comes back, the president comes in, he looks like the Godfather. He says, I heard you guys were selling records here up the wazoo. You know, we're all excited trying to figure out what the hell is going on and he' like "look, let me hear you sing." So we sang a song called "For the Love of Money," an O'Jay's original but we sang it a capella like we used to do at a lot of shows. When we finished, he was like "I love it, I wanna sign you guys." Two days later we were in L.A. signing a contract and we were officially Maverick recording artists. It was like something out of a movie or something, it was crazy. And then six months later we had the #1 record in the country.

The president comes in, he looks like the Godfather...

Now moving from the great times there to the more down times, for at least the listeners. After the second album you guys went quiet and there were no more releases. What really happened after that second album?

Well after the second album, we were very disappointed with how the record was handled, as far as what singles were chosen, even the overall direction of the record. Had it been my choice there would have been a few more up-tempo, mid-tempo things and there would have been some other things that would have transpired as far as what would have been the first single. We left Maverick in 96 because of that. We weren't dropped. It wasn't a sales thing, I mean the second album still went gold even with the limited promotion. But that was the time when Alanis Morissette had just got signed to Maverick and she was selling 100,000 units a week when she sold 21 million. We weren't a priority at Maverick, we knew that. So we knew it was time to try and go get another label deal, or do something else. It just so happened that I was very into the business part, and the group was more caught up in being artists. So when we left, I was the only one really pursuing something else, while everyone else was kind of kicking back, waiting for me to set it in motion.

Well at the time, what clicked first was my independent label with a company that was distributed through Indie when Indie was Indie, the third largest distribution company in the country. So they made a deal based on my rap project, so I began to just do the independent thing and the group, they weren't necessarily pursuing the label thing. So it was working for me doing what I was doing and the group kinda just faded out and I was the only one doing music heavily. My brother was still doing some things but he wasn't abreast of a lot of the business so there weren't a lot of outlets that he was able to tap because he just didn't know how to go about with the resources.

So I was the only one still doing music. I've been putting out independent records since 96 and you know, I haven't gone gold or platinum, but as an independent, I don't need to. I can consistently sell 40-50,000 records. This is when my deal with Indie, I was getting 9.99 a record. So you do the math. 40,000 units at 9.99 a record, I'm doing okay. So I'm feeling like I don't need a major. I don't need to go back and go try and sign with a major. As long as I have distribution to put my product where it needs to be, and I've always been able to get different investors to come in so I can market it and do what I need to do. It wasn't important for me to have to go out and put a major in my situation.

So the group kinda went silent until maybe a year ago and the guys came to me and said "look man, we wanna get back into doing some things. We think it'd be a great time and opportunity to do a best sold album cuz we'd never done one before." I own all the masters and when I was able to financially make some moves from selling my records, I went back to Maverick and bought the licensing. So I own the name, I own the masters, and since I wrote everything, I had all the publishing. So I could do a best sold album so it just worked out.

We took some new photos, did some new things and fortunately for us, everybody kinda still looked the same. You know nobody was real fat or anything crazy. So from there, we said oh let's do it. And then booking agents started calling and people still wanting to book us to do shows, so we said hey, let's release this record and keep it moving.

U.N.V. recently reunited and released a new album, Timeless, available from their MySpace.

You're talking about the Timeless album there right?

Exactly

So the album is a mix of some of the group's older tracks, as well as some new songs. What can we expect from some of those new tracks?

Ah man the new stuff, like I said. This is the Timeless album. It's just like you mentioned earlier. It is a complete ballad album. It is seventeen ballads and of course, you know, it's all the classics people remember and love. But the new stuff, we stepped it up to date. We're still true to our sound and true to our rich harmonies and things that we do, but we had to make it current. These are things that we wanted to do. These are songs that we normally would have done on our album, instead of having a major tell us what to do. And basically the reception has been overwhelming. They love the record. And now it's just reexposing that to the world on a national level. Or of course, when doing it only, you can reach the universal. I mean I got people buying the record from Tokyo, from Germany. That's what we do.

For people who want to buy the Timeless album, should they just do it from the MySpace page, is that how you recommend picking it up?

Well I would say right now, the MySpace is the best place to get it and to buy it directly. I'm running a promotion right now that says if you buy my album, you get the Timeless album for just five dollars. So MySpace right now is the best place to buy it. I will be fully functional with the iTunes and CDBabys within the next three weeks so they'll be able to get it completely online from as many different sites as they need.

So if they buy the two albums, is it hard copies or is it just the digital download or both or what?

If they buy it from my site, it's actually mailed to them.

So that's all I've got for you for the regular questions. One I like to do as part of R&B Haven tradition is, what were YOUR favorite songs during 90s R&B?

I was a big fan of a lot of the groups that came out around our era. The Intros, the Shais, the Silks, the Boyz II Mens, the Jodecis. You know, all those groups that had a lot of classics on those albums that you still hear today. Those groups were very instrumental for helping set the mode for doing what we do. My production company is called 90s Writers Inc and it's just a tribute to that type of writing that has always been real R&B. So those groups all had songs that I like and enjoy so, too many to name.

Thanks a lot J. Poww. A reminder to all those listeners out there: J.Poww's album, The Headliner is coming out Valentine's Day. Get it for your girlfriend, yourself, anybody. J.Poww, thanks for stopping by, I wish you the best of luck.

Absolutely man, I appreciate it. I appreciate all your R&B Haven viewers and listeners, so just look out for J.Poww The Headliner and UNV in 2009. We're back with a vengeance and here to provide great R&B music.

To check out J.Poww's solo work or to buy U.N.V.'s Timeless album, check out J.Poww's MySpace Page.