Scaling Your Music Business With ICON Studios Co-Founder Stone Stafford

After graduating from high school in 1989, Stone Stafford attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA by way of a music scholarship. While at Morehouse, Stone and four other classmates formed a singing group and were discovered by MC Lyte and signed to First Priority/Atlantic Records. While the recording career of the group was short lived, Stone went on to write with such producers as Tony Rich, Dallas Austin, Shek'spere and former Bad Boy hitmen, Anthony Dent and J-Dub.

In January 2000, Stone was selected to open and co-spearhead Sony/ATV Music Publishing's new Atlanta office which became, relatively, the #1 office in productivity of all the Sony U.S. offices (Santa Monica, Nashville, Miami and NY) with songs on such artists as B2K, Blu Cantrell, Monica, 702, Whitney Houston, Mandy Moore, and others both foreign and domestic, including TV and Film.

In September 2004 Stone was hired as Sr. Creative Director for Jermaine Dupri's So So Def Productions and Dieniahmar/EMI Music Publishing where he was responsible for overseeing Mr. Dupri's roster of writers and producers. While at Dieniahmar, he signed hit songwriter, Cristyle (Mariah Carey's - "Touch My Body", Rihanna's - "Only Girl In The World", Janet Jackson, Beyonce, etc.) In 2008, Stone moved on to explore other ventures including A&R consultant for such labels as Atlantic Records and Justin Timberlake's Tennman/Interscope Records.

Currently, Stone is co-owner of Atlanta's premiere recording studio, ICON Studios, a 10,000 s.f. facility that has quickly become a favorite for several of the entertainment industry's biggest names such as Akon, Justin Bieber, Usher, MTV, Atlantic Records, Universal Records, EMI Music Publishing and many others since 2008. As a music publisher and songwriter, Stone owns copyrights on such artists as Justin Bieber, Keke Palmer, Lyfe Jennings and Tiffany Evans.

He also is the founder and co-host of a weekly podcast called Life on Podcast (Listening & Inspiring Friends Everywhere) with radio personality and friend, JonyVan.

Stone Stafford invests a significant amount of time and energy speaking at various seminars and events, imparting into the lives of aspiring talent. This passion has led him to create the "Next Exec Music Business Program", a high school after-school program currently being offered through the Dept. of Education's Upward Bound program and "The Lock-In, a 12 hour flash music mini-conference.

With a career that has spanned almost every major area in music, Stone has developed a well tuned, well rounded ear/eye for talent and the unique ability to share an empathetic relationship with many aspiring artists, writers and managers. His passion is to foster a spirit of wisdom, integrity, and a degree of altruism in the entertainment industry while somehow preserving, or even raising, the bar of creativity.

www.stonestafford.com