Black History Month Spotlight: Super Producer & Music Executive Quincy Jones | Billboard News

For Black History Month, Billboard is celebrating by highlighting some of the greatest Black executives in music, and today we’re celebrating, Quincy Jones.

Quincy Jones
To get to work with almost every major influencer in America, you know from Louis Armstrong to Billy Eckstine, Ella, Sarah, Ray Charles, Aretha, Paul Simon, everybody.

Tetris Kelly
For Black History Month Billboard is celebrating by highlighting some of the greatest black executives in music, and today we’re celebrating Quincy Jones.

Tetris Kelly
The incomparable Quincy Jones is a staple in the music industry with 25 songs on the Hot R&B, Hip-Hop Songs chart, four of which reached No. 1, he’s won an Emmy, a Tony, a humanitarian Oscar and an insane 28 Grammys, making him one of only 25 people to achieve EGOT status. He has an incredible resume and over 70 years of musical memories to be proud of.

Quincy
Meeting Ray Charles was number one, playing with Billie Holiday at 14 years old at the Eagle auditorium. Played with Billy Eckstine, played with Cam Calloway…

Tetris Kelly 1:08
But it’s not just his own successes on his CV, some of the biggest legends in music have Quincy Jones to thank for their achievements. In 1961, Quincy became the director of A&R for Mercury Records. Three years later, he will become the vice president becoming the first African American to hold a top executive position at an American major record label. Quincy has worked with some of music’s greatest and is to thank for creating the Michael Jackson we know to this day.

Quincy Jones
Michael that was an accident. We did ‘The Wiz.’ And he said, because he helped me find a producers and Michael, you don’t even have the song and the picture yet. Let’s not only think about that, let’s get to the song when he asked me about the producer to see what he could do that hadn’t been done before. I was thinking about the reins of his voice and just that’s the stuff that you do like the architecture of production, you know.

Tetris Kelly
There’s no denying Quincy Jones has changed the entertainment game.

Quincy Jones
I’ve been so blessed to be able to contribute to how that changes is how we are represented and received. We’ve come a long way from the time when you need to see faces of color on TV.

Tetris Kelly
Today we honor the music Titan Quincy Jones