House Music Pioneer Vince Lawrence on Helping Brands Connect with Music and Reclaiming EDM
Vince Lawrence’s first foray into commercial music was something of an accident. An artist and producer in his own right, the now founder and CEO of Slang Music started his career at the heart of Chicago’s burgeoning house music scene in the ‘80s, pioneering the genre as it would come to be. Vince’s early claims to fame include co-writing the first-ever house song recorded, ‘On and On’; the first house song to enter the Billboard charts, ‘Funk U Up’ (both with Jesse Saunders); and the seminal track, ‘Love Can’t Turn Around’ from Saunders and Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk, which reached #10 in the UK’s singles chart and launched the house movement across the pond.
After being involved with the formation of legendary Chicago house label Trax Records, he founded Slang Music Group - a select group of highly accomplished music producers and business entrepreneurs - and began his evolution from artist and producer to marketer and mogul.
However, Vince first fell into the space between music and advertising via a friend at Capitol Records, Dave Resnick, who he had been keeping up to date with the happenings in Chicago’s growing dance music scene. One night at a studio with Dave, he gave a suggestion to a struggling engineer that would alter his career forever.
“From the back of the room comes: ‘And who the fuck are you?’,” says Vince, explaining how after sharing his Billboard Chart credentials, the questioning ad executive asked him to make ad music that would resonate with the young audience Vince was already playing to at loft parties in the city every week. “I said: ‘Look, I make records… I'm not a jingle guy’. And he said: ‘I'll pay you $30,000 per commercial’. So I said: ‘OK, what kind of proof do you need?’,” Vince laughs.
Vince went on to make his first commercial for a telephone company using a ‘hip house’ track (“a rap song on top of a house beat”) designed to get kids to use public payphones. He even helped cast the ad, bringing the production crew to his 4000 square foot loft at 1am on a Friday night. “They came down into this basement and there were 200 kids dancing. I played the music that we were going to use for the commercial and everybody went crazy - they really liked it. Everybody was dancing and making phone gestures, and I was in the advertising business after that.”
Originally working almost exclusively with Equinox Advertising on brands like KFC and Anheuser Busch, Vince soon discovered the wider world of ad agencies and started working on Coca-Cola brands with Burrell Communications, before finally crossing paths with Leo Burnett. With this legendary Chicagoan ad institution, Vince applied his contemporary music knowledge and expertise to campaigns for Kellogg’s, Nintendo, Pop Tarts and more, all while continuing to make records.
Around 1990, Vince decided to try and “get brands and bands to play nice”, seeing that there had been an antagonistic relationship for a long time. With artists seeing ads as the “ultimate sellout” and brands frustrated with the “exorbitant prices” they had to spend to use a hit, Vince worked to help clients predict trends and connect along cultural lines with the audience and the record business.
To this day, Slang Music Group assists clients to do exactly this, thanks to its talent that is embedded in the fibres of the mainstream music industry, and not just the world of advertising. The team at Slang are working consistently with some of music’s biggest names, from Lil Wayne to Kid Cudi, Sheck Wes, Wiz Khalifa, The Cure, Zayn Malik, Cardi B and more - Slang’s Anthony Kilhoffer is even credited as a composer, co-producer and engineer for Jay-Z and Kanye West’s acclaimed collaborative album ‘Watch the Throne’. These talents form a ‘brand support team’, called Agents of Slang, that helps agencies, brands and individuals make connections through music along relevant cultural touchpoints.
“Because we're working on many records that end up at the very, very top of the charts and end up being the most popular records in America, we can recognise what would be competitive. We often tap the very same creatives that are creating those music tracks that Cardi B, for example, is singing on. And we work directly with them to format their creative so that it can be utilised in this industry.”
Even after 30-plus years in the business, Vince says that his love of music and excitement to create and collaborate is as strong as ever. An innovator at heart who helped originate house music, he’s always looking for the next opportunity to forge new ground. “Having done a few things first, I like that feeling and that opportunity,” he says. “I can almost smell it when we have an opportunity - something that could be really good or that's going to be unique. That's what excites me most.”
Another cause for excitement in the industry is the evolution of immersive sound, through Dolby Atmos, Apple’s spatial sound technology, metaverse projects and beyond. The ability to listen to music dimensionally, says Vince, has opened up “a new palette” for musical creativity where sound can exist in “full range”, rather than being EQ’d around each other to prevent different sounds competing for limited real estate on two speakers.
“It's not to be dismissed as child’s play, because it's going to really matter in web3,” he says. “The future’s here, whether we accept it or not - how long it's going to take advertising to accept it is another conversation. There’s gimmicky stuff going on for sure, but when AR started, it was all these cheesy ideas - and now the practicality of being able to wear an outfit virtually is commonplace, and IKEA can [virtually] put furniture in your living room. Those are the sorts of creative opportunities available in spatial audio.”
Further than that - Vince is also excited by the potential that AI can unlock in the sector. “We're doing really, really exciting stuff with music and AI right now,” he says. “And that's all new and exciting. The future for creativity has never looked brighter - and I thought that it couldn't get any brighter than everybody being able to make music on their phone.”
Above: 'PRIDE Partners of Progress', a campaign for Nissan - music by Slang Music Group
He continues, expressing that he isn’t worried about machine learning threatening the creativity within the music world. “Great artists are great artists. Even when they're imagining themselves, they're going to be able to do that in such a unique way. AI is just an opportunity for us to level up our taste.”
Evaluating AI’s potential impact on music, he compares the new technology to the creation of affordable synthesisers and drum machines, the invention of the four-track cassette deck and then the “really serious” arrival of digital audio workstations (DAWs) like Avid’s ‘Pro Tools’ - all of which he credits with democratising the music production process. Throughout history, these have all removed financially prohibitive measures like the need for a studio or expensive equipment - and even the need for music theory that can so often be a blockade in people’s musical pursuits.
But what should be exciting brands and their agency partners in the world of music right now? And where should they be looking to connect with the public sonically?
Vince highlights Beyoncé’s recent tour and album successes, as well as the continued rise of artists like THE BLSSM, to show how female artists are making waves at the intersection of electronic, pop and rock music. Meanwhile, he also points out that other genres, like industrial and dubstep, are making a return - not to mention his beloved house genre which he believes is somewhat being reclaimed as “Black music”. He says, “Black art drives culture, whether that be Basquiat in the ‘80s or Jay-Z last year. If you want two tips? Watch the Black kids and watch the girls. Those are the people innovating right now.”
Concerned that house music - forged by Black artists in Chicago - had become “this thing made by frat boys” in recent years, Vince adds that the genre, and DJing more widely, is coming back to prominence and returning to its roots with more inventive sets and tracks from artists like Marshall Jefferson, DJ Honey Love and others.
“There’s so much motion away from ‘sameness’,” he says. “EDM, as we know it, has been commoditised to the Nth degree - they've thrown every manner of cake… But now it's time to get down to: ‘OK, can you fucking DJ?’ or ‘Are you making grooves that are not rehashes?’ or ‘What's going to be different?’ - and that's exciting.”
He also shares that he’s currently working with American filmmaker Elegance Bratton on a project that will “help people have a conversation about house music in 10 years”, and understand Black people’s role in its creation and popularisation - a point that he believes was on the road to being forgotten. He adds, “We’re facing the forefront of this new cultural revolution where some artists are getting their just-due.”
This conversation around equity and ownership of media also extends into the advertising world, which Vince says is currently witnessing “a great reckoning” as brands and agencies realise the disconnect between their marketing and the “real world”. He says advertisers are now more willing to show a representative depiction of society and are opening up to using not just Black and other minority talent on screen, but also to shaping their messaging through a ‘Black, Hispanic, Asian or Queer lens’ from behind the camera too.
While hearing lots of conversation around diversity and seeing the DE&I departments pop up in most agencies, Vince reminds us that it will inevitably boil down to who puts their money where their mouth is. “Brands can’t be afraid of backlash from either side - the status quo pushing back or real consumers viewing their attempts as inauthentic,” he says. “They’re part of the conversation so they have to move things forward.”
As a Black-owned company that operates at the core of the culture and works with prominent artists of the moment, Vince explains how advertisers should be looking to collaborate with authentic companies like Slang so that their communication connects genuinely. When this isn’t adhered to, he says that the marketing comes across as “patronising or denigrating”, sharing how this industry-wide interest in DE&I and working with authentic partners from the culture itself creates opportunities for brands to bridge cultural lines and avoid those potentially disastrous mistakes, a la Pepsi and Kendall Jenner.
“These lines of communication are officially open,” he adds, “It just depends on whether agencies and their brands want to pick up the phone.”
At Slang Music Group, the phones have clearly been ringing non-stop, as their composers are busier than ever, says Vince. Following a slew of hits last year and a revived interest in dance music as the world emerged from the pandemic with their dancing shoes on, he says they’ve continued to work with agencies like FCB, Burrell Communications and OKRP to try and “bring our song and dance about authentic music and authentic culture to agencies and brands around the world.”
Slang has also recently been involved in creating music films and documentary series that explore the influential history of Chicago and its Black artists on the music business - one being 312Soul.com - which have earned them Webby and Telly awards, as well as an ANA Multicultural Excellence Award. And although the awards are a nice bonus to have, Vince adds that the true purpose of Slang’s work is to help brands make music that connects with people on an ‘authentic, visceral, in-your-gut’ level.
“You know what it feels like when a song’s got you,” he says. “And when that happens in a commercial these days, you’re almost caught by surprise… We want to make that less of a surprise and more of a theme.”
However, making music that grabs you is easier said than done. Vince subscribes to the Malcolm Gladwell theory that cultural epidemics spread like viral epidemics, and so the first thing he says is needed to kick off a trend is a “particularly nasty pathogen” that’s got to be ‘sticky, shiny, bright, tactile and something people want to get involved in’. Recently, these trends have played out on social platforms like TikTok, which Vince believes is influencing artists more than ever. Noting how songs are also getting shorter to satisfy radio programmers looking to fill commercial-free hours, he also reveals that he’s seen artists create elements of an album specifically to be clipped for the app.
“What's happening with commercials and what's happening with TikTok are very similar,” he says. “There's cultural messaging happening in the real world, and brands have an opportunity - just given the short attention span of the ‘TikTok generation’ - to be a real meaningful participant in that… or they can fuck it up entirely.”
So whether it be the trends they see on TikTok, classic cultural icons receiving their just due in the recent house music revival, or the young Black and female artists pushing the boundaries of modern music, Vince shows that advertisers have more entry points to the culture than ever - it’s just up to them to engage with authentic music partners who live and breathe it, to create marketing that truly connects.
“In 1990 or ‘91, I did an interview with a magazine and I said: ‘Bands and brands need to play nice’... Here we are in 2023, and that's a reality.”
