Bayer Leevince Mack (born August 26, 1972) is an American

record executive A music executive or record executive is a person within a record label who works in senior management and makes executive decisions over the label's artists. Their role varies greatly but in essence, they can oversee one, or many, aspects of a r ...

and filmmaker. He is the publisher of the late-1990s, early-2000s urban entertainment website ''HOT 104.com'', the founder of

Block Starz Music Block Starz Music is an American independent record label owned and operated by Bayer Mack. Its catalog includes independent releases by Machine Gun Kelly (rapper), Machine Gun Kelly, Lega-C, Wiz Khalifa, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Big Sean, Rhymef ...

and the director of '' The Czar of Black Hollywood''.

Early life and education

Mack attended Central Middle School (now Central Magnet School) and Oakland High School. He is an

alumnus Alumni (singular: alumnus (masculine) or alumna (feminine)) are former students of a school, college, or university who have either attended or graduated in some fashion from the institution. The feminine plural alumnae is sometimes used for grou ...

Middle Tennessee State University Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU or MT) is a public university in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Founded in 1911 as a normal school, the university consists of eight undergraduate colleges as well as a college of graduate studies, together off ...

where he majored in

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...

and wrote for the school's editorially independent, student-run newspaper, ''Sidelines''.

Career

Mack relocated to Louisville, Kentucky in the mid-1990s and founded the

dot-com company A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com (alternatively rendered dot.com, dot com, dotcom or .com), is a company that does most of its business on the Internet, usually through a website on the World Wide Web that uses the popular top-level domain ". ...

Infinity-Digital. His website HOT 104.com gained notoriety after a story it published about the shooting death of Tyisha Miller by police officers in Riverside, CA went viral. In 1999, Mack signed an affiliate contract with the AKA.com Hip-Hop Network created by

Loud Records Loud Records, LLC. is a record label founded by Steve Rifkind and Rich Isaacson in 1991. Loud is a hip hop label that released material by acts such as Wu-Tang Clan, Big Pun, Mobb Deep, Krayzie Bone, The Beatnuts, M.O.P., Tha Alkaholiks, Pete R ...

founder

Steve Rifkind Steve Rifkind (born March 2, 1962) is an American music entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of Loud Records and of SRC Records.

. In addition to Hip-Hop reviews, chart analysis, entertainment news, MP3 downloads and African-American swimsuit models, Mack routinely published

editorial An editorial, or leading article (UK) or leader (UK) is an article written by the senior editorial people or publisher of a newspaper, magazine, or any other written document, often unsigned. Australian and major United States newspapers, such ...

s that touched on hot-button issues, like ineffective African-American leadership and

sexual violence Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by violence or coercion, act to traffic a person, or act directed against a person's sexuality, regardless of the relationship to the victim.World Health Organization., World re ...

against women. HOT 104.com also covered several police shootings.

Block Starz Music

Mack became the marketing manager of a German hip-hop website called ''YoRaps.com'' in 2008. Later that year, he and the site's owner, Kai Denninger, formed an online record label called Block Starz Music to promote free mixtapes by the independent and unsigned artists featured in YoRaps' “Next 2 Blow” section, like

Rasheeda Rasheeda Buckner-Frost (often stylized RaSheeda) is an American rapper, television personality, and businesswoman. Music career Music beginnings Rasheeda started her music career as a member of the female hip hop trio Da Kaperz, which made a n ...

. The label's early association with

Wiz Khalifa Cameron Jibril Thomaz (born September 8, 1987), better known by his stage name Wiz Khalifa, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and actor. He released his debut album, '' Show and Prove'', in 2006 and signed to Warner Bros. Records in 20 ...

helped boost the company's profile and attracted other artists.

Documentary films

Mack made his directorial debut in 2014 with the documentary film ''Oscar Micheaux: The Czar of Black Hollywood''. He self-financed the project and released it independently through his production studio, Block Starz Music Television. In an April 2014 interview with ''

The Washington Times ''The Washington Times'' is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout ...

'', Mack said he was inspired to produce a film about Oscar Micheaux's life because it mirrored his own. Mack is also executive producer of the

web series A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single i ...

, '' Profiles of African-American Success''. In 2016, he wrote and directed the

Martin Luther King Sr. Martin Luther King (born Michael King; December 19, 1899November 11, 1984) was an African-American Baptist pastor, missionary, and an early figure in the Civil Rights Movement. He was the father and namesake of the civil rights leader Martin Lut ...

documentary '' In the Hour of Chaos'', which takes a critical view of

liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for co ...

's effect on the black civil rights movement. The film was named runner-up at the ''San Francisco Black Film Festival'' and was featured at San Francisco's

de Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Hono ...

as part of the Bay Area's "MLK Day of Revelations". In 2019, Mack wrote and directed a documentary film on the rise and decline of the black-owned ethnic beauty industry, called '' No Lye: An American Beauty Story''. Mack's film ''Black Seeds: The History of Africans in America'' won the "Best Feature Documentary" award and a $20,000 camera package from

Panavision Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1953 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses durin ...

at the 2021 Denton Black Film Festival.

Filmography

Film

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mack, Bayer 1972 births Living people People from Murfreesboro, Tennessee American music industry executives African-American television producers American documentary filmmakers African-American film directors African-American film producers 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people Television producers from Tennessee