Sixteen years ago, she borrowed $6,000 from her dad's retirement savings to launch Gospo Centric Records. She later sold it to the Sony BMG family of labels and started Los Angeles-based Lataillade Entertainment, which includes a record label, publishing company and a couple of TV series and properties.
This summer, Mack-Lataillade's company and her husband's company Ruff Town Entertainment Group bought half ownership of Nashville-based Central South Distribution, the largest independent distributor of faith-based records. Central South's annual revenues have been estimated at $16 million, according to Billboard . As one of the company's seven partners, Mack-Lataillade is one of the few African-American women to hold such a position in her industry.
Tennessean staff writer Wendy Lee interviewed Mack-Lataillade and Greg Davidson, Central South's vice president of finance, on the company's goals and gospel music's future.
What are the major challenges facing the gospel music industry right now?
Mack-Lataillade: I think they are the same challenges facing everybody — Internet sales and a younger consumer, keeping them where they understand you have to purchase and pay money for music. We're not only selling music. In the future, we're getting a lot more into books. We've done an incredible line of sermon tapes. We're small and stealthy enough to be able to get involved in a lot of areas of distribution … if we decide we want to. We feel very capable and ready for the challenges in the future.
Will brick-and-mortar stores have any role to play in the sale of music?
Mack-Lataillade: I think digital is going to be bigger and bigger clearly, but we don't feel brick-and-mortar (stores) are going away. Kids are still hanging out in malls. I think you'll get into a lot more special markets. For example, I was buying some lingerie in Nordstrom in Los Angeles, and my favorite CDs were right there on the counter. You have to be more creative.
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