Darrale Jones

Darrale Jones, currently Vice President of A&R for Atlantic Records, is a young and tenacious executive, whose career started at Motown Records as an intern. While there, he played an intricate A&R role in all of the company's releases including superstars Boyz II Men. Darrale recalls, "During my tenure at Motown Records, I had the privilege to work around executives like Jheryl Busby (the company's president at the time), who taught me the importance of how to make a record from A-Z: from song structure, production, and budgeting, to the follow-through over and beyond the A&R process".

After Motown, Darrale went to DreamWorks Records where he signed black female rocker Kina, and worked on the award-winning Prince of Egypt and Small Soldier soundtracks. Subsequently, he moved back to the East Coast where he was hired by Columbia Records. There he was A&R executive for the critically acclaimed The Best Man soundtrack, which won a NAACP Image Award for Album of The Year. Former RCA President Bob Jamieson requested that Darrale join his RCA team as VP of A&R, which led to his resignation from Columbia. After the restructuring at BMG, Darrale joined Arista records in 2001 as VP of A&R, where he worked closely with the company's former CEO, Antonio L.A. Reid. At Arista, Darrale signed a three member all-girl group called Tha Rayne, which debuted with the single "Didn't You Know", produced by Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer Rich Harrison (Beyonce, Amerie). Also while at Arista, Darrale worked closely with Usher on the 15x platinum 'Confessions' album.

Darrale joined Atlantic Records in 2004 as VP of A&R, where he currently reports to Atlantic Co-Chairman, Craig Kallman. He's also signed a young rapper out of Chicago by the name of Lupe Fiasco (whose record is expected in late 2005/early 2006, and is being Executive Produced by Jay-Z). Darrale is currently in the studio with Tweet, Missy Elliott and Yolanda Adams on their forthcoming releases.