Dupri admits that he may have taken his dad’s presence for granted in his younger days. “That’s a value that you don’t really understand until you get older,” he reveals. “It’s like a hidden advantage that I had that other people don’t have. I got the opportunity to see Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis in the studio before I was ever a producer. A lot of the stuff that I saw is like a documentary in the back of my brain. [But] in the beginning, a lot of that stuff I didn’t even think about.”
Mauldin’s successful managerial career led to tenures with Sony and as president of Columbia Records’ black music division. And like any father and son, their relationship has been ever-evolving. Michael and Jermaine’s dynamic has changed as they’ve grown as men. “I think it’s really more of an understanding and a respect for each other,” Mauldin says. “We actually started in that way in the late ’80s, when Jermaine was like 15-16 years old and making beats and getting deals for other acts. But when we got to that point, at the time, I was still ‘Dad’ and there were probably a lot of things that I’d done with the idea that I was still Jermaine’s dad. At the same time, it was his business.”
