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AAPRC Weekly: Yvette Noel-Schure

Yvette Noel-Schure
Senior Vice President, Media/Urban Publicity
Columbia Records
NYC



There is one very important thing to remember when you're dealing with Yvette Noel-Schure. No, it's not that she's the senior vice president for media and urban publicity at Columbia Records. It's not that she has shaped the media image of some of the hottest names in contemporary music. What you need to know is that for Yvette Noel-Schure, nothing takes precedence over her family. Her bosses at Columbia know it because she told them so the first time they brought her in for an interview. The artists she shepherds through the media jungle know it too. "I'll stop anything I'm doing to take my daughters' phone calls," says Noel-Schure of her youngest children Micah, 11, and Milan, 8.

"Beyonce will be sitting here in my office and I will stop to talk to them. My family means everything to me. I believe that if my life at home is the way I want it to be then I will be the best worker you're ever going to have. I'm going to put in the hours. I'm going to work really, really hard because I'm going home to something really, really special."

And Noel-Schure does indeed put in the hours. She is, she says, the type of person who gets up at four A.M. to answer emails and send emails to her staff about the day ahead. At the office, she and her staff of five-–two publicists, an assistant and two interns––tackle one of the biggest rosters in music. In addition to Destiny's Child and the three members' solo acts, Noel-Schure is handling Prince, Jessica Simpson, Bow Wow, Solange Knowles and a slew of new projects. "We have probably the biggest roster of new releases this year. It's mind boggling," says Noel-Schure. "We have everybody from Lauryn Hill to Maxwell to Nas putting out new albums.

Then we have new signings. We have this guy named Lyfe who's just incredible, and this new guy that I'm crazy over––like as crazy over him now as I was eight years ago when I met Destiny's Child. He just makes my heart like––whoa. His name's John Legend."

Altogether, there are some 30 artists under Noel-Schure's purview. What the newcomers will soon learn is that she takes her responsibilities very seriously and that she's more than just their PR person. "I feel I'm a teacher, and I approach this job from a teacher's sensibility," she says. "Just because you are beautiful and you wrote a great song and you've got this excellent marketing plan doesn't mean that you're media savvy. I believe in artist development. It's not in my title but I took it. I say to the young artists: this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to train you to be an artist––or at least a successful person––for life."

That approach extends to Noel-Schure's staff as well. "I don't believe my assistant or my intern needs to be here just to fetch my coffee," she insists. "I think they need to come in and learn and see what I do. They need to learn how to set up a media day. They need to know the difference between the New York Post and the New York Times…They need to know why I'm saying 'no' to the cover of Smooth for Beyonce."

As a young girl growing up on the Caribbean island of Grenada, this life is not what she imagined for herself. A young Noel-Schure wanted to be a journalist. "I was going to burst into ABC and I was going to knock Barbara Walters over and take her job," she laughs. "In the Caribbean, the choices for women's jobs are teaching or nursing...Almost every woman in my family was either a teacher or a nurse. I told my grandmother I wanted to be a journalist and after she asked 'what's that?' she said 'well, does that mean you have to read a lot? Good. Read a lot.' So I started reading in the church, and just reading and collecting everything I saw."

The reading paid off. After finishing New York's City College with a degree in journalism, Noel-Schure joined Gannett Westchester Newspapers in White Plains, New York as a reporter. In 1985 she became editor of Black Beat magazine.

At Black Beat, she met the hottest music stars of the day––New Edition, Bobby Brown, Boyz II Men, Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, Johnny Gill, Tevin Campbell, Public Enemy, Mary J. Blige, TLC, Seal, Terence Trent D'Arby, LL Cool J, Queen Latifah and Janet Jackson. Because the budget and the staff were minimal, Noel-Schure did everything at Black Beat––from interviewing and caption writing to choosing photos. The young Grenadian was in complete control.

Things were markedly different when she joined Columbia in the fall of 1993 as director of media for the label's jazz and R&B roster, which included Nancy Wilson, Peabo Bryson, the late Grover Washington, Jr., Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, and Da Brat. "It was just a whole differen ballgame. I was not in control. I had people telling me what to do," Noel-Schure remembers. "Here, it was a series of meetings. I had never gone to an official meeting at Black Beat other than going into the art director's office and saying that I want this photo a little larger or going into my boss' office and saying, 'yeah, there's a reason why I should put Bobby Brown on every cover.'"

On Noel-Schure's very first day at Columbia she was given the label's biggest act at the time––Mariah Carey. "My relationship with Larry Jenkins who ran the Columbia media department was such that he really trusted me," says Noel-Schure. "He trusted my passion and my dedication more than he knew I had any experience. In fact he knew I didn't have any experience. But he knew I was very much a talker and that I was very passionate and that I could convince the press, particularly the urban press at the time." Noel-Schure's job was to ensure that Mariah Carey had very visible urban press campaign––Which, obviously, she did. "They threw me in the pool and never bothered to ask me if I knew how to swim," she laughs. "I swam like a fish."

She went on to introduce the world to one of the most popular girl groups in music today––Destiny's Child––and created campaigns for Will Smith, Kenny Lattimore, Jagged Edge and Michael Bolton. In 2001, Noel-Schure was named vice president of media and was promoted to her current position in 2003.

The secret to her success? "Honesty. I'm an open book. I tell the truth no matter what," Noel-Schure explains. "I'm very up front with people, which is not really cool at meetings sometimes. If they ask my opinion I'm going to say well, the press is not digging this right now. We have to do something different. If I send out to 20 people and 18 are not interested, we got an issue. Let's just deal with it. I just believe that that's the way to be."

Her off-hours are all about family, and Noel-Schure tries to spend as much time as possible at her Western New Jersey home with her husband, daughters and 20-year-old son. She has a large immediate family, and is one of nine girls and two boys (two brothers died in car accidents).

She visits family in Grenada whenever possible and looks forward to her sister's wedding next year. "All 200 of us are going home for my sister's wedding!"

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AAPRC's Mission
The African-American Public Relations Collective (AAPRC) is an assemblage of professionals who provide communication conduits among clients, journalists, media and our communities. We come together as a collective because we recognize the importance of building those same conduits amongst ourselves.

A great deal of what we do is professional development––updating our skills, keeping pace with technology, refining and streamlining processes, providing a forum to tackle the issues that impact our work environment––but we believe our professional lives benefit most from the forging of effective alliances. Connected to one another, we possess the power of a nationwide body of committed, knowledgeable practitioners with an eye on the future.

As we move into the 21st century at lightning speed, mass media and its potent messages occupy an ever-larger part of our daily lives and our collective psyche. The AAPRC is focused on helping our members gain a deeper understanding of media's force and supporting their growth as powerful participants in the global communications network.

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