Chris Hicks isn't sleeping much these days. Holding down the fort as the Senior Vice-President and head of Urban Music at Warner Chappell, the Senior Vice-President and co-head of Urban A&R at Atlantic Records as well as the CEO/co-owner of Noontime naturally limits snooze time. Shuffling between New York and his Atlanta homebase only makes it more interesting. Hicks, however, welcomes the sleeplessness and is eager to prove that this new way of doing business can work. For a music veteran such as himself, who has been on the independent side of the music industry longer than the major side of the business, Hicks believes the majors are recognizing where the independents have succeeded.

"What [I've done] as an entrepreneur is what the majors are beginning to grasp on to," explains Hicks. "It's never been uncommon for me to be in business with people in several different aspects of their careers . . . I think now what you're going to start seeing from more major companies is them [turning into] music companies that are in business with artists, not just from a recording standpoint, but from a publishing standpoint, from a touring standpoint and from a branding standpoint. As our revenue begins to shrink and record companies are putting in tremendous amounts of money to expose artists in the positive sense and bring them to the marketplace, they want to create as great an opportunity to share in some of the revenues that come from that exposure. So, I think that something I've been doing since my career started is starting to become more of a common business practice among the majors."

The fact that Hicks has ascended to his current positions within Warner Chappell, whose 1929 origins make it among the oldest publishing companies in the music industry, and Atlantic speaks volumes. "I think that the responsibility since I first came into the music group has been on me to show how a guy who has a lot going on can kind of streamline all of his energies and all of his resources into one building," admits the longtime Atlanta resident. "I think the first two and a half years of my career here I spent that time doing that but I think now everybody knows what my intentions are and what my process is."

Knowing his intentions doesn't mean that Hicks has passed all of the tests. Mastering one task only makes room for new challenges. "For instance at Warner-Chappell, I'm learning how to manage the people on my staff, which I never really had to do before," offers Hicks. "At Atlantic, I'm learning their delivery system and how they like to roll out records and what their commitment is to the records that they put out and how they prioritize. It's more of a learning curve for me. I need to understand how these buildings work so I can plug what I do into it efficiently so that, at the end of the day, we're successful."

Being sensitive to everyone's bottom line is a key ingredient to Hicks's success. Because he has the experience of taking an artist—be it a performer, songwriter or producer—through several phases of the industry, he understands what that side of the table is expecting. Likewise, his major label experience also makes him sensitive to what the publishing entity or recording company can and cannot do. Possessing so many different perspectives helps to alleviate the mystery of figuring out what everyone's agenda is. Therefore, Hicks can get down to business.
That business is changing though. A few years ago, few of us even knew what a ringtone was. Now, the ringtone is a standard feature of the business that's obviously a new low-maintenance revenue stream for record labels and, potentially, the artists themselves. While few are certain of exactly how much money ringtones generate for record companies and all the kinks involving the artist and music publishing are still being worked out in the meantime, it's easy to ignore the marketing and other benefits to the artist.

"When someone is buying your ringtone, it's a marketing tool that will allow you to be in that person's conscience and subconscious on a daily basis," says Hicks. "When their phone is ringing or when they're around someone else's phone that's ringing or whether it's a ringback tone, [it] promotes you and [gives] you new opportunities to be in their world from a merchandising standpoint, from a touring standpoint so the artists are clearly, clearly benefiting from it in a multitude of ways. Your profitability isn't solely based on your ability to record an album, so I think it's always going to work for the artist."

Talent is clearly the biggest thing that works for the artist and Hicks certainly believes in surrounding himself with lots of that. Bryan Michael Cox and Jazze Pha are just two of the veteran talents in Hicks' camp who still have tremendous room for growth. But having a stable of veterans hasn't diminished Hicks' hunger for new talent. "I'm really excited about the new people that we give shine here, like a Dave Young and the Justice Leagues who are just starting to have records break or Drumma Boy who just did the new Plies record that is exploding ["Shawty" featuring T. Pain] or Lil Ronnie who did "[I'm A] Flirt" and the "Same Girl" record or The Dream who wrote [J. Holiday's] "Bed' record that's screaming up the charts and he wrote [Rhianna's] "Umbrella" single as well," says Hicks. "I'm really excited about the new guys," he explains, "you get really excited about where they are going because it's something you've worked very closely with hand and hand to make sure it goes the way it's supposed to go."

Despite the many predictions of doom for the music industry and doubts regarding the talent level, Hicks puts it all in perspective. "I think that the industry, certainly urban music itself, has kind of been sandbagged by this music that people stereotype as gimmick and I don't think that's anything new," he expounds. "I think that's always been a part of our culture of music. It's just that it's manifested itself in different ways."

He protects himself from the gimmicks by sticking to his guns. "I like big choruses and I like records that describe scenes and tell stories and I like records that have very intricate production, production that fits the mold of the best way to situate what that artist is trying to do creatively at that particular time in their life," he explains. "So the writers that I really target are the people that I feel have a timeless aspect to what they do. They're very today and very current but have ability to create the same records that you'll be listening to in 15 years as modern classics and then in 30 years as historical classics.

"Black music, like any other music, is always trendsetting. We're always going to have music for the moment but we will always have a strong base to build upon, that the newcomers can say, ‘I've loved and appreciated what they did and I'm going to build my craft around the substance that they've already provided to the game.' Those are the people I want to be in business with," says Hicks firmly. "I'm not worried about the state of creativity at all."