Javion Smith is a 21-year-old artist and founder of his own record label, B-ONE. He’s also a senior at Florida A&M majoring in economics with a business minor.
Originally from Edwards, Mississippi, Smith was exposed to creating music at an early age.
After moving to Florida, Smith began teaching himself how to make beats, using YouTube for guidance, during his high school career.
He took a break from music until the end of his freshman year at FAMU.
Smith signed with Tallahassee-based Two-Six management this fall. After joining this company, he created B-ONE (it stands for beware of negative energy), where he is the label’s founder, CEO as well as a recording artist.
B-ONE’s potentential is what attracted other artists and producers to join the team. To reach a bigger audience, these free agents joined B-ONE with a dedicated mindset.
“The best part of joining the label is, I’ve gotten to work with several like-minded artists and producers,” said Devin Bouldin, an artist under B-ONE who’s also known as “Honey Gold.”“With the help of the team, we will be able to reach the goals that we set for ourselves.”
For his label, Smith has decided to launch a website to solve the problem of supporter interaction. Smith understands the importance of owning data.
“If you look at an artist with a strong fan base, they have a central location for everything and go about business like that,” said Alphonso Robinson, B-ONE’s manager.
Robinson mentioned rapper Smino as an example of a musician with a website that holds his music and merchandise.
“Owning data is the name of the game,” said Smith. “Driving traffic to our website instead of social media sites allows us to control the funnel, from top to bottom, and cut out the middleman, while at the same time increasing brand awareness, ” Smith said.
Although social media is an important aspect of having a business, more entrepreneurs are looking to create websites to have a solid platform. Smith wanted more than just a “handle on a social site” to display every side of the art.
“We want to hone in on the ones who are currently listening and then reach people like them,” Smith said. “I never wanted to be just an ‘artist.’ I’m a mogul in the making.”
Smith wants a place for his audience to visit to download music, purchase merchandise, and contact him. The most important part is to own the data he holds, especially in the music industry.
As for the growth of his label, Smith expects more.
“I expect to see exponential growth from all of us as individuals and as a collective,” Smith said.“The pandemic put a hold on doing shows, but I can also see us touring the country, seeing more, doing more, becoming more.”
Smith is creating more than a record label. He is creating an infrastructure that will allow him to maintain his legal entity – leading to a future partnership/joint venture. But for now, Smith is building the steppingstones to solidify B-ONEs music presence and outlet.
For B-ONE’s website, visit https://www.b-onemc.com. Be on the lookout for two album drops from artists on the label, merchandise, and more information.