After many years of creative crafting of records and artists' careers, Todd Collins is the creative visionary behind Beatmart. After four years of business in the urban Christian music market, Todd is directing Beatmart to expand into other multi-media facets of entertainment. Yes, the company was built on spreading the gospel through urban music, but Todd is now steering it into other forms of entertainment genres in order to complement the music and further spread the word of Christ through hip hop culture to youth and the young at heart.
After graduating college with a BA in Telecommunications from Barry University in Miami, Florida, Todd moved to Nashville in August of 1989 to pursue a career in Christian music. Shortly thereafter, he met Toby McKeehan of dc Talk and began a long standing friendship and musical partnership that still exists to this day. In October of '89, Toby and Todd began working on dc Talk's second album titled Nu Thang. This was the beginning of a working relationship that would span for more than a decade and into Toby's highly successful solo career.
In 1991after the completion of dc Talk's third album titled Free At Last - Toby, Todd, and Toby's cousin Joey Elwood started a production company called Gotee Productions. This would later be known as Gotee Records which officially launched in 1994. Toby, Joey, and Todd set out on a quest to deliver Christian music to the masses that they themselves enjoyed. They felt that there was a huge void of relevant music that spoke Christ to the youth culture. They also felt that if they made and released music that they themselves enjoyed, then others would gravitate toward and consume this music and message as well.
That's exactly what they did.
Toby was obviously consumed with the responsibilities that dc Talk would bring, and Joey took on the role of president and administrator of day to day responsibilities within Gotee. That left the creative aspect in which Todd headed up. He took on the role of Head of Creative and A&R for Gotee. With many records sold, many production and executive production credits, 3 gold records (Jennifer Knapp, SONICFLOOd, and Relient K), and multiple Dove Awards, Gotee enjoyed a thriving and successful run under the leadership of the "Gotee Brothers" - Toby, Joey, and Todd.
In 2001, Gotee Records was purchased in part by EMI/CMG. With a new corporate equity partner now in the mix, Todd felt led to cash out as a partner in Gotee and pursue other opportunities. He took 2 years off and independently produced projects that he was particularly drawn to rather than having to do. After this period, Todd felt that God was stirring his heart to start another label. This time an urban based label - something near and dear to Todd's creative heart. So in 2003, Todd, along with his brother and partner Troy, opened the doors of Beatmart Recordings, an urban Christian entertainment company geared to target the youth that are drawn to hip hop culture.
Now armed with 9 artists, 18 releases, countless videos and media content, and 4 staff members, Beatmart is standing at the cross roads of taking the next step forward into multimedia entertainment that will include movies, film shorts, television programming development, behind the scenes webcasts, exclusive live concert webcasts, and so on. This is all targeted toward presenting the gospel of Christ in a cool and relevant way to the youth of today. Todd feels that done the right way and in the right persona, Beatmart can be a strong alternative to the negative messages that our future leaders are being saturated with in today's society. Hip hop and its culture therein, is a very powerful world-wide language to the youth culture in which Todd and Beatmart want to help to bring a healthy, positive, and Godly alternative with high quality standards to our young people of today. What better way to reach them than through positive and healthy entertainment with a message?!
Todd has been producing records for 18 years within the Christian market and has worked with such artists as dc Talk, tobyMac, Anointed, Out of Eden, GRITS, KJ-52, Audio Adrenaline, SONICFLOOd, Jennifer Knapp, John Reuben, Tammy Trent, Carman, and many others. He has 2 platinum records (dc Talk), 5 gold records (dc Talk, Audio Adrenaline, Jennifer Knapp, SONICFLOOd), and 4 Dove Awards (E.R.A.C.E., Out of Eden, KJ-52).
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