Mark Pitts profile

U.S. A&R/Executive Producer

Pitts was born in Brooklyn, NY. He was first introduced to the music industry by his Grandmother who was classically trained piano teacher, she began giving Pitts lessons at the early age of four. Pitts spent 8 years of his childhood at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and later continued learning music at the High School of Music and Performing Arts where he also studied Music and Art. His professional music career started in the early 90's, prior to entering Howard University when he formed a rap group that was called Three Left. Pitts was a founding member of the group. He intended to pitch the rap group to his friend Sean Combs who was working at Uptown Records at the time. After a meeting with Combs, Pitts decided that he wanted to work behind the scenes. In 1993, he started working with his friend Sean Combs at the recording company Bad Boy Entertainment where he managed The Notorious B.I.G, Faith Evans, and Changing Faces.

In 2000, Pitts was Senior Vice President of A&R for Arista Records, where he worked with Usher, TLC, Anthony Hamilton, and Cee Lo Green. In 2004 Pitts joined Zomba Label Group as a A&R executive and rose to become a president where he signed Chris Brown and Miguel. In 2008 Pitts was diagnosed with Bell Palsy which paralyzed left side of his face. In 2011, he became President of Urban Music under RCA Records. The ByStorm Entertainment's current roster includes Kardinal Offishall, J. Cole, Jawan Harris, and Miguel. As president of RCA Records in 2013, Pitts gained major success with Miguel’s Kaleidoscope Dream which grabbed 5 Grammy Award nominations. Same year, he had also shepherded Usher’s Looking 4 Myself and Brown's Future which topped the charts for the year.