Faith Newman is a groundbreaker. She was one of the first five people to be hired at Def Jam, aged just 21, in 1987. Four years later, in the second week of her next job at Columbia Records, she signed hip-hop legend Nas when he was a teenager. Jamiroquai was the second act Newman signed at Columbia, and she also worked on the only album from the late Big L.Later, Newman brought her hip-hop nous to imprint Jive, where she worked with the likes of UGK and E-40 and oversaw the recording of one of 2Pac’s posthumous albums. These days, Newman is SVP of A&R and Catalog Development at growing publisher Reservoir in New York – and she’s still trailblazing. Using her experience in the driving seat of hip-hop’s first arrival into mainstream culture, Newman has once again been ahead of the curve of the genre’s new commercial wave. Amongst the writers she’s brought to Reservoir are Offset and Takeoff – two members of super-hot Atlanta trio Migos. She’s also secured the signature of other majorly successful hip-hop acts for Reservoir including 2 Chainz and Joey Bada$$, as well as producers Just Blaze, Statik Selektah and XL. These signings played a crucial role in a recent milestone for Reservoir – when it broke into the Top 10 US publishers by quarterly market share.