Risin' to the top: these professionals are among the cream of the crop of new talent in the entertainment industry

Black Enterprise, Dec, 1995 by Cassandra Hayes, Fonda Marie Lloyd, Marcus Reeves, Matthew S. Scott, Debbie-Ann McGann

Thompson's road to success has snaked from private practice to director of business and legal affairs at Motown Records in 1994 and back to his own practice. After forming his own production company, Blow-N-Up Productions, in June, Thompson signed his first artist with EMI Records.

Thompson honed his business sense while a student at the University of Michigan. One summer, he launched Aldo's Ice-Cream. He earned $125 a week working from a pushcart, despite being "locked out" of public parks because of permits and exclusive licenses. "It taught me a valuable lesson about doing your market research, understanding where you should go and what markets to go into," he says.

Ultimately, Thompson hopes to build an international entertainment conglomerate that produces music, television, film and multimedia projects with broad-based appeal. He says, "I want to put out good quality things, not something that I would be ashamed to let my mother hear."