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= Evan Forster =

Evan Forster is an American entrepreneur, music producer, film producer and talent manager. He started his career at A&M Records in 1989 as head of street marketing creating ‘Street Teams” for A&M parent company Polygram promoting artists such as Janet Jackson, Ce Ce Peniston, Mint Condition, and Lo Key as well as Gospel crossover act The Sounds of Blackness. In 1991, Forster founded Tuffbreak Records, a joint venture with A&M Records establishing the first Hip Hop label under Polygram Music Group. The label launched the careers of music acts Tragedy the Intelligent Hoodlum, Dred Scott, Tasc4orce, Str8G, Gripsta and Fourtie.

In 1995, Forster left A&M to head up Immortal Records as general manager of the label overseeing the gold selling soundtrack Rhyme & Reason and the The Next Chapter a collaboration of up in coming hip hop artists including BEP, Defari, Styles of Beyond and various acts.

In 1996, Forster joined upstart label Universal Music Group as head of the crossover department, overseeing promotion and marketing. In its first year, Universal Music Group spawned hits from newcomers Erykah Badu 5X platinum and Grammy winner for Best R&B album and single, Crucial Conflict -gold, Heavy D -gold and the Lost Boys.

Forster left Universal Music to head up labels GlassNote and Hispanic label HOLA Recordings as general manager releasing gold selling Latin boy bands NBK and Voices of Theory.

In 2000, Forster and his brothers founded Forster Brothers Entertainment managing and producing artists such as Yoli (WB), AB (WB),NAAM Brigade (Artist Direct), and Kamilah (Artist Direct), and Kryptonite Marketing and FBE, a state of the art recording studio and facility located in Hollywood, California. The Forster brothers are credited for pioneering the music supervision model for the video gaming business overseeing soundtracks for EA Sports, Playstation, Activision, 3DO, Konami and THQ.

Forster Management has managed and promoted artists such as Lauryn Hill, Andra Day, Res, Darius Campbell, Matt Goss and Erykah Badu.

In 2014, Forster founded Huddle Campus, a 20,000 sq ft. state of the art entrepreneurial campus in his hometown of Westlake Village a joint venture with CLU to incubate and accelerate startup ventures for aspiring entrepreneurs and founded the Dream School Academy an entrepreneur program for children 7 and up.

In 2016, Forster left Huddle Campus to manage directors in the commercial adverting industry. As creative director Forster signed and managed directors Eif Rivera, Jesse Terrero, Phil Atwell, Steve Carr, and Mike Figgis and has produced commercials for Budweiser among others.

In 2018, Forster founded Hoodlum Agency and Fourstar Films under his Hudel Inc. to manage and cultivate artists and brands and create visual content. Forster has since managed NFL star Marquette King, and artists Queen Vic, Millie Holliday and Sonni Blak and is currently creating a tech startup called Superfanz.

Career
A&M and Tuffbreak (1989- 1991)

Evan Forster attended the University of Southern California. Early in his career, Forster was a club promoter with clubs and bars throughout Los Angeles heading up marketing and promotion for the legendary Hollywood Palladium, where he was recruited by A&M chairman and president Al Cafaro to head up what Forster dubbed, “Street Teams”, guerrilla marketing strategies coupled with tactics from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Forster used these practices to promote and break acts for A&M and Polygram Records. By the early 1990s Forster had over 60 street team members throughout the world. These strategies of “4 walling” the market Were keys to the success of Janet Jackson “Black Cat” and CeCe Peniston “Finally” touted as one of the greatest club records of all time. With the success of the street team, Cafaro offered Forster his own imprint Tuffbreak Records where he signed Tragedy the Intelligent Hoodlum, “Grand Groove” which topped the billboard chart at number 1. Forster went on to sign Tasc4orce, Str8G and Dred Scott.

Early soundtracks and albums (1991 -1995)
One of Forsters’ early successes as a music executive was the 1991 release of Cece Peniston, “Finally” which sold over 3,000,000 albums worldwide and the single, Finally winning best dance single where he served as head of strategic marketing and promotion and Tragedy, Saga of a hoodlum, which peaked the Billboard chart at 25 and the single, Grand Groove topping the Billboard Hot rap singles chart.

In 1993, Forster collaborated with filmmaker Mario Van Peeples’ the Posse producing the title track for the feature film. Also in 1993, Tuffbreak released albums from Tragedy, Str8G and Dred Scott establishing A&M as a home for aspiring hip hop artists. Tragedy Saga of a Hoodlum featured a bonus track called Bullet, a song inspired by the savage brutality of the Rodney King beatings and the civil unrest and strife between law enforcement and young black youth in America. The controversial lyrics brought outrage by the likes of C. Delores Tucker calling for a banning of the record. Forster defended his artist and his freedom of speech drawing the attention of Congresswoman Maxine Waters who requested Forster to speak out on censoring artists at the congressional black caucus in Washington DC.

Label Executive ( 1995-2000 )
In 1995, Forster served as GM of Immortal Records overseeing a staff of ten reporting directly to the chairman of the label Happy Walters. In 1996 Forster was recruited by Universal president Daniel Glass to head up west coast as head of crossover promotion and marketing. In 1998 Forster left the label to join Daniel Glass’ Glassnote Recordings as GM of operations. In late 1999 Forster was recruited as GM of Hola Recordings, a latin record label based in New York City.

Forster Brothers Entertainment (2000 - 2014)
Forster Brothers Entertainment was founded in 2000 as an independent record label and music supervision company focusing on developing talent and the video gaming industry. Forster along with brothers Jonnie and Darren spearheaded the model of launching developing talent via video games. This marketing play was revolutionary because the brothers could guarantee exposure to millions of gamers daily, no other platform - music or film could ensure visibility thus pioneering a new way to break acts. The Forster Brothers supervised some of the biggest games in history including FIFA, NBA LIVE, Gran Turismo, Need for Speed, Hot Shots Golf among others. In 2005, FBE worked on soundtracks for Rize, a documentary on the south central LA dance movement known as Krump dancing. The documentary directed by David Lachapelle was the hit of the MTV awards launching a dance movement inspired by inner city kids choosing dance battle over gang violence. Also in 2005, FBE worked on the soundtrack for horror franchise SAW II and later that year supervised the debut album by comedian Ron White Can’t Fix Stupid which debuted at #1 on the Billboard chart.

Forster launched FB Studios in Hollywood producing and signing acts Yoli, NAAM Brigade, AB and Kamilah as well as management of producers Jose Quintana, Narada Michael Walden, David Kershenbaum and Paul Mckenna.

Huddle Campus and The Dream School Academy (2014 - 2015)
Forster founded Huddle Campus, a 20,000 sq ft, state of the art incubator for startups in his hometown of Westlake Village, California. The facility empowered young entrepreneurs with the tools and access to innovators in all types of industries from product design and apps to funding opportunities. Huddle partnered with CLU to form the Dream School an entrepreneur program for children 7 & up.

HUDEL INC and recent developments (2015 - present)
In mid 2015, Forster left Huddle to join CFM as creative director and partner focusing on managing directors in the commercial production industry. By 2016 CFM had over 15 directors and produced commercials for Budweiser and Intel to name a few. Forster currently manages and produces artists and has launched Hoodlum Agency and Fourstar Films to focus on creating content and managing talent in music and film. Current clients include NFL punter Marquette King, singer Queen Vic, singer songwriter Millie Holliday, rap artist / actor Sonni Blak, music producer Domingo Padilla, R&B recording artist/ producer Lonny Bereal and Brandon Howard.

Personal life
Forster as of 2020 was based in Los Angeles, California