Kawan Prather

Kawan Kawmi "KP" Prather (born March 30, 1973) is an American record executive. He began his career as a DJ for the Atlanta-based hip-hop group Parental Advisory (P.A.) in 1991, which were part of the larger collective Dungeon Family. The group was discovered by Pebbles and L.A. Reid, and were the first act from the collective to sign a major label deal with LaFace Records in the late 1990s, through which Prather launched the imprint label Ghet-O-Vision Entertainment. During this time, he worked in executive or A&R positions on albums for LaFace labelmates including TLC, OutKast, Goodie Mob, Usher, Pink, and Toni Braxton.

Prather is credited with signing Atlanta-based hip-hop acts YoungBloodZ and T.I. to LaFace Records by 1999, as well as Tennessee-based rapper Yelawolf to Interscope Records in 2008. In a joint venture with the aforementioned labels, Prather's Ghet-O-Vision imprint released the debut albums of the former two acts, Against da Grain (1999) and I'm Serious (2001), respectively. He served as Vice President of A&R at Arista Records from 1999 to 2001 and held a similar position at Columbia Records from 2002 to 2005. From 2012 to 2015, he served as Senior Vice President of A&R at Island Def Jam, where he signed 15-year-old R&B singer Khalil. In 2015, he was named Head of Music at Pharrell Williams' creative umbrella I Am Other.

Biography In 2000, LaFace was merged into Arista Records. After working on projects for Usher, Pink, and OutKast, he took a position as Executive Vice President, A&R, Sony Urban, Columbia Records. While at Columbia, Prather worked with Omarion, Killer Mike, Destiny's Child, Beyoncé, and served as A&R for John Legend.

Discography