A young man in a band I used to play with in North Carolina gave it to me. I used to play Fender bass guitars and my friend would tease me, if I didn't play all my parts right, just like Cinderella, I would turn into a pumpkin.

Originally, I only played bass. When we worked with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on our second album, Jimmy wanted me to sing lead vocals on some of the songs. By our third album, I wanted to be more involved with the creative process so I started doing tracks. My best track at the time was "The Men All Pause" which Bernadette wrote the lyrics to. It became our first hit. Today I consider myself our musical director and amateur legal eagle.

Klymaxx gave pride and mental freedom to women. At that time, there were no female musicians who expressed themselves the way we did. We were about self-reliance and an attitude of "It's about me and that's OK". Now a host of female artists do a modern version of promoting the Klymaxx state of mind.

I moved to Atlanta in the late 80's and started a music publishing and production company under the umbrella of Diva One Entertainment. I convinced LA Reid and Babyface to move to Atlanta and start their label there. I signed a writer/producer named Dallas Austin and in the early 90's my company became one of the top 50 music publishing companies and the number one pop production company in the United States according to Billboard magazine. In the late 90's I started working with kids and Diva One Entertainment signed an 11 year old boy named "Sammie" to Capital Records. Sammie was the youngest person to have a number one selling record "I Like" in March of 98. Currently my company signed an 18 year old artist named "Lloyd" whose first single is a duet with "Ashanti" on Murder Inc. Records, which will be released in February of 2004.

To have fun, bring some familiar music to people and to conjure up many pleasant memories.

It was great. I was so hyped it went by in a flash.