The Bloom Effect
A beautiful little girl with big blue eyes hailing from London, England dreams of becoming a concert pianist at the age of 5. After years of prodigious finger duets with the ivory keys she was accepted into the highly reputable Royal Academy of Music in London. From there her triple thirds, trills and thundering technique garnered two full prestigious scholarships; one at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and the other at the University of Maryland. She also received a distinguished Steinway Piano award. While pursuing studies of classical music she was soon attracted to the sounds of two turntables and a microphone. Hip-Hop music had bounced into the room and Fiona was all ears. Soon Hip-Hop had this London gal down in Atlanta where she became a wildly popular radio personality and party host on WSTR 94.1 and WRFG 89.3 FM. It was at these two stations where Fiona got her schooling in this vibrant music culture interviewing the likes of George Clinton, Wu-Tang Clan, Chuck D, The Pharcyde and RuPaul to name a few.
During this time, Fiona completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Speech Communications and Broadcast Journalism at Georgia State University while honing her sultry voiceover skills. It was also at this time that she was on the inside track of the burgeoning Atlanta Hip-hop music scene hanging around the likes of Outkast, Goodie Mob, Arrested Development, Dallas Austin, Joi & others, whilst working as a club promoter.
It was 1994 when a call from then-EMI Records head Daniel Glass brought Fiona to the big city as a Director of New Artist Marketing. Here she worked with artists, Gangstarr, Soulsonics, Shara Nelson, Arrested Development and Digable Planets. After a brief stint at EMI, she continued to enrich her musical palette and took a job at an upstart record label called Zero Hour Records where she was the Director of Media Relations. She worked with such artists as Varnaline, Space Needle, Swervedriver, Steve Wynn, John Wesley Harding and Notwist . After achieving critical acclaim for her artists and label, Fiona's savvy entrepreneurial skills convinced her boss to allow her to start her own Hip-Hop label as a subsidiary of Zero Hour called 3-2-1. Here she was recognized for signing the critically acclaimed Hip-Hop group Blackalicious, in addition to other notable underground hip-hop acts such as; Connected, Skeme Team, Rubberoom, Scienz' of Life, Micranots and Big Jus of Company Flow .
If running a fledgling indie Hip-Hop label wasn't enough, Fiona's constant drive led her to pursue independent publicity for such artists as Bahamadia, Mystic, Jigmastas, Jeru tha Damaja, Shabaam Sahdeeq, Spontaneous and others. For everything that has a season, Zero Hour expired and 3-2-1...counted down, but Fiona stayed up and blossomed into co-creating Sub Verse Music. A Hip-Hop troika between her, Big Jus and Wall Street maverick, Peter M. Lupoff. Sub Verse Music quickly became an established and reputable indie Hip-Hop label featuring such acts as Micranots, MF DOOM, KMD, Rubberoom, Big Jus (Company Flow), Hemisphere, Source of Labor, C Rayz Walz, and Scienz' of Life . In addition, Fiona also created Subversive Skool , a critically acclaimed music showcase for emerging new artists on the underground Hip-Hop scene.
Since then, Fiona has been honing her skills and cultivating relationships world-wide in International business making introductions, initiating licensing and distribution deals, booking festivals and European tours as well as giving endless advice/consultation on being savvy and knowledgeable in 'International business' to boutique and independent companies such as Rawkus, Game, GoodVibe, Rhymesayers, Lyricist Lounge, Recon, Bomb Hip Hop, Frank 151, Brash Music, Babygrande, Purpose Records, Burning Heart, AllCity, and others.
In addition, she became a talent buyer for the acclaimed NY venue Joe's Pub/Public Theater from 2004-2005.
She created a platform for International artists to showcase their artistic merits and NY debuts from around the world.
Most recently, Fiona accepted a position heading up the International department at TVT Records in NY where she managed the International affairs for Ying Yang Twins, Pitbull, Teedra Moses, Towers of London, The Blue Van, Ambulance and others. After a year, she has decided to go back out on her own. Created a consulting agency called The Bloom Effect. The Bloom is in Effect. Once an entrepreneur, always one.
Not bad for a classically trained pianist.