Jive Records

Jive Records (later stylized as JIVE Records) was a British-American independent record label founded by Clive Calder in 1981 as a subsidiary of the Zomba Group. In the US, the label had offices in New York City and Chicago. Jive was best known for its successes with hip hop, R&B, and dance acts in the 1980s and 1990s, along with teen pop and boy bands during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Jive was acquired by Bertelsmann Music Group in 2002. In 2008, BMG itself was bought out by Sony Music Entertainment. Jive Records thereupon remained a unit wholly owned by Sony up until the label’s dissolution in 2011, when Jive was absorbed into RCA Records.

In 1971, South African businessmen Clive Calder and Ralph Simon began a publishing and management company. It was named Zomba Records and relocated to London, England, four years later; their first client was a young Robert "Mutt" Lange. Zomba originally wanted to avoid record labels to instead focus on their songwriters and producers while allowing other established labels to release the material. Later that decade, the company opened offices in the US, where Calder began a business relationship with Clive Davis, whose Arista Records began releasing material by Zomba artists.

In 1981, Zomba formed Jive Records, whose operations began with the release of British dance and pop music from groups such as Q-Feel, A Flock of Seagulls, and Tight Fit. Its name was inspired by township Jive, a type of music that originated in South Africa. Clive Davis had hoped that Zomba's connection with Mutt Lange would help alleviate the difficulties Arista was having with launching rock acts to success.

By 1982, Calder was introduced to Barry Weiss, a young college graduate who took Calder out to hip-hop clubs in New York City for his job interview with Zomba. Weiss and Calder began grooming musicians for what would eventually become the hip hop group Whodini. After two days, the group created and recorded its hit single "Magic's Wand." While the group would eventually leave Jive, the early success allowed the label to focus on hip-hop artists throughout the 1980s.

In 1987, Jive cut distribution ties with Arista, effectively separating them from Davis, who eschewed hip hop music at his label. As the 1980s drew to a close, the label entered a distribution deal with Arista's sister label RCA Records, and it continued to sign hip hop acts including DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Boogie Down Productions, Too $hort, Schoolly D, and Kid Rock.

In 1990, Calder bought Simon’s stake in Zomba and became the sole owner of Jive Records. Jive's distribution deal with RCA expired in 1991. At this time, Bertelsmann Music Group acquired a minority share of the label and began to distribute its records directly. Weiss became chief executive of Jive Records that year. Jive opened branches in Chicago and had also become a premier label in the genres of hip hop and R&B with the success of acts like D-Nice, E-40, UGK, A Tribe Called Quest, Hi-Five, KRS-One/Boogie Down Productions, R. Kelly and Aaliyah.

In 1996, BMG deepened its relationship with the label by purchasing a 20-percent stake of Jive. By the late 1990s, Jive began signing pop acts Backstreet Boys, NSYNC and Britney Spears. All three acts achieved massive success as the 2000s dawned, becoming the three best-selling acts in the label's history.