Carlos Stephens facts for kids
Carlos Stephens (born January 24, 1972) is an American record producer and mixing engineer from New Orleans, Louisiana. He became well-known as part of No Limit Records' special production team, Beats by the Pound. Carlos was the only producer at No Limit who could also release music for artists outside the label. After leaving No Limit, he started his own record company called Flame Entertainment. Carlos Stephens has helped sell over 75 million records. He has also been credited with nearly 900 million streams online. He has worked on more than sixty-five big music projects. His work includes three songs that reached number one, fourteen gold albums, ten platinum albums, two double platinum albums, one triple platinum album, and one quadruple platinum album.
Early Years
Carlos Stephens was born in New Orleans, but he grew up in the Gretna area. In the early 1990s, he started making music for local groups. This helped him learn and improve his music production skills.
Working with No Limit Records
In 1994, Carlos Stephens produced music for an artist named Ron Gray. This was one of his last projects before he joined the No Limit Records team. He became part of their in-house production group called Beats by the Pound. Over the next few years, he created a lot of music for many No Limit artists. His first major production was on Silkk the Shocker's first album, The Shocker, in 1996.
In 1996, Carlos got special permission from Master P, the head of No Limit Records. This allowed him to be the only in-house producer to release music outside of No Limit. Because of this, he released his first artists, Skull Duggery and The Ghetto Commission, in 1998. Later, he was nominated for "Producer of the Year." He was also voted one of Hip-Hop's "Thirty Most Powerful People" by The Source magazine.
By 1999, other producers from Beats By The Pound left No Limit Records. Carlos Stephens was the only one left. He then oversaw most of the music production for the next five years. During this time, he helped create many gold and platinum albums. This included Master P's platinum-selling album Only God Can Judge Me. He also produced the main song for the movie Light It Up. In 2000, Stephens contributed music to the soundtrack for the HBO TV show Oz.
Stephens and No Limit then introduced the 504 Boyz. Carlos produced their first album, which sold platinum. The main song from that album, "Wobble Wobble," also went platinum. After this, Master P's album Ghetto Postage went gold. It featured the very popular platinum hit song "Bout Dat." In 2001, Carlos had his biggest success with Lil Romeo's first song, "My Baby." This song reached platinum status and stayed at number one on the Billboard charts for 10 weeks. "My Baby" was also named the 2001 Billboard Single of the Year.
Later Career
In 2002, Carlos started working with a company called "Prodikeys." This company, Creative Labs, made music technology products. From 2004 to 2006, Carlos led a business development team. He worked with Gary Murray, who founded Wise Technologies. Their new company was called Mixcast Networks. Mixcast focused on getting and sharing content, especially through Wi-Fi, in places like malls and airports.
By 2008, Carlos tried directing music videos. He directed his first video, "Be Fresh," for C-Murder's album Screamin' 4 Vengeance. Stephens also began working as a consultant through his company, 31Minds LLC. His goal was to help companies with their branding. He also helped them create smart partnerships to make more people aware of their products.
