PSINT

Here is Nicki Chapman's advice to any aspiring 16-year-old girl, her heart set on entering the music industry. �Get the best possible education for you - and that needn't necessarily mean university. Acquire computer skills, come what may. And as with a job
in any branch of the media, remember that your personality should be as strong as your character. You should be determined and focused,� says Nicki, �but never pushy.� She knows of what she speaks. Indeed - and of this, she might not be quite so aware - she is defining her own curriculum vitae, her own modus operandi. The astonishing successful ITV series, Popstars, in which 3000 performers were painstakingly pared down to just three young women and two young men to form a chart-topping group, has made stars of more than the winners, now launched as Hear'say. Fame, though, is a fickle mistress. Will Kym, Myleene, Suzanne, Noel and Danny still flourish a year from now? We'll see. But what about Nicki Chapman? Will she be all washed up 12 months hence? You might as usefully enquire whether Dolly Parton sleeps on her front. Nicki is here for the duration, an industry veteran at 34, part of a new breed of high-flying music business females. We are taking tea in the boardroom at the South London offices of 19, the group of companies headed by Simon Fuller. He was the man who helped to create the Spice Girls, only to have the protegees sack him 16 months after their first hit. Nicki joined the outfit at the turn of he year, walking away from the opportunity
to manage Hear'say to become it's creative director. Her declared intention is to move into TV production via the company's talent (as it is known), with S Club 7 and Billie Piper, whom she also manages, among them. Nicki is much prettier away from the probing gaze of the TV camera. She is expensively dressed in olive leather jacket and black linen trousers teamed with a white body, the expertly blonded hair framing an open face noticeable for its good complexion and berry brown eyes. There is an openness, too, about her nature. No question is ducked even if, more than once, she instructs herself to reply with precision. �I must say exactly what I mean,� she mutters under her breath and then proceeds to do so. She shakes your hand at the beginning and end of the encounter - no empty air kissing - and manages to communicate with a quiet determination. Have 13 years in the business hardened her? No, she says, they've toughened her. �If women get to a certain level, they're seen as bossy. And why? When did you last hear any man described as bossy? In Dallas, JR was admired for his cut-throat behaviour. In Dynasty, Alexis was seen as a scheming cow. Not that I want to act like a man,� she adds hastily. �I'm proud to be a woman, proud that I've achieved
what I've achieved.� With good reason, Nicki Chapman was born and raised in Herne Bay on the north Kent coast, the younger of two daughters of a photocopier salesman father and a stay-at-home mother. She remembers it as a happy childhood, free days spent on the beach or riding horses. While her sister Shelley went to university and became a teacher, Nicki was academically less gifted. �But as long as I tried my best, there was no pressure from my parents,� she says. �I always got an A for effort, C for
achievement, and Mum and Dad accepted that.� At 19, after completing a business course in Canterbury, she decided to
travel, choosing Australia so that she could live with relatives in Sydney. Not for a moment, though, did she live of the fat of the land. �I'm a worker,� she says, indignity. �I wouldn't dream of bumming around.� She got a job in a market, then another
in Grace Brothers department store (There really is one) before heading home, determined to emigrate to Australia. But life intervened, Shelley went to live for a year in America just as the girls' parents marriage ended. �So I decided to stay at home to lend a bit of support,� says Nicki. She got a job as assistant to the Sales Director of her father's employer, but after a year knew that this wasn't the career for her: �I loved commercial radio, listened to it all the time, so I scoured the papers for a position in the music industry.� She applied for, and was offered, three jobs with record companies, plumping for life as a plugger with MCA. Plugging, it seems, is just another word for persuasive selling: �It was my job to arrange a meeting with, say, the producer of Wogan and convince him that he must book Kim Wilde to sing her new record the following week.� Nicki rarely encountered what she refers to as the casting couch mentality. �It happened twice; each was a high-up television producer. I dealt with it in a charming and a professional way and neither of them ever tried it on again.� She flashes a smile through gritted teeth. Her overwhelming reason for moving to RCA three years later was its female boss, Lisa Anderson, �because I'd always worked for men and I wanted to see the industry from a high-ranking woman's point of view.� Two weeks into the new job, 30 employees were made redundant and Anderson's contract expired. �There was only one way to go and that was up,� says Nicki, RCA had Take That, M People and Annie Lennox on its books and, along with Nick Godwyn, who matched in radio Nicki's TV activity, she set to work. So successful was this partnership that Nick and Nicki eventually set up there own promotions company, Brilliant, handling artists such as the Spice Girls and David Bowie. But Nicki has other than professional reasons to recall fondly the RCA years: it was there she met Dave Shackleton, a former journalist and now director of promotions, and her husband of 18 months. �When I first met him, I had a dual reaction: what a lovely guy. But look at the state of him!� Shackleton, a keen devotee at the time of heavy metal
bands such as Metalicca, favoured long hair, leather jackets and cowboy boots. �As soon as he saw me, he knew I was the one. I was going out with somebody else at the time: not that I thought of Shacky in that way (she always calls him Shacky) in that way.�
Two years down the track, Shackleton was posted to New York for five months and Nicki went to visit him. �We fell in love in secret. We didn't tell anybody for ages.� She stops short. �Look at me with my silly smile. It's just that I always smile when I talk about Shacky.� He's equally besotted, it seems. The music industry paper, The Tip Sheet, includes names of people to watch out for, according to those in know. Just recently, Shackleton told readers to look out for Nicki, �he thought I was amazing in Popstars. He shows his emotions, my husband.� Are children part of the couple's game plan? �Yes, God willing. I had a great childhood and fantastic parents who still get on even though each of them has remarried. I'm with someone I love and totally respect and who, more than anything, would make a great dad.� In the meantime, though, it is her career that occupies much of Nicki's time. She continues to manage Billie's career, a challenge she took on (with Nick Godwyn) while still running Brilliant. The 18-year-old's life has not been without hiccups on her way up to the top. There was the drama of her collapse in a London club; the recent court case in which a young woman with an imagined grievance left a series of alarming messages on the answerphone at her record company; and then there's her romance with Chris Evans, the DJ and entrepreneur almost twice her age. �I only look after Billie's professional life,� says Nicki. �She's a very strong minded girl with a clear idea of what she wants and where she's going.� And
her relationship with Evans? �She's extremely happy. That's all I can say.� Artists like Billie appreciate having a woman around them,� says Nicki. �There are so many men in the business. And I'm not showbiz. I don't go to all the right parties for the simple reason that I'm not interested in any of that.� Although Nicki's personal profile is not in danger of overshadowing her clients, there's little doubt that Popstars has made her a household face, if not quite name. �I enjoyed the whole experience much more than I thought I would,� she says. �And it was very well edited. I can honestly say they caught the essence of Nicki Chapman.� But criss-crossing the country in the search of young inevitably included encountering some questionable talent. Nigel Lythgoe from LWT and Paul Adam from Polydor - Nicki's fellow judges - became adept at making her laugh. �Boys would inevitably sing their songs to me, which was fine if they were any good, but rather harder if they weren't.� Nigel and Paul developed a strategy of turning their gaze on Nicki and watching her as she struggled to keep the giggles at bay. �Sometimes, I'd look down and half hide behind behind my hair. Usually, I'd dig my nails into the palms of my hands. You couldn't laugh in front of someone, however dreadful they were.� Nigel's nifty one liners didn't help, either. �All the right notes� he would say, when faced with a toe-curling rendition of Livin' La Vida Loca. �Shame they're in the wrong order.� And when some hapless hopeful attempted a Michael Ball hit, Nigel wondered whether it hadn't been Bobby Ball the contestant had in mind. �There were moments of high emotion, too. Turning down talented particularly taxing when those rejected behaved with dignity. �There was a boy called Raymond who had a great voice, but he's better suited to R'n'B, not pop. I was explaining this to him and suddenly caught sight of a solitary tear sliding down his cheek. That was it. I'd gone.� She never doubted her opinions though. �This was not a talent show. It was all about putting a band together. That's why Darius - someone who seemed to divide the nation - wouldn't have worked in a group. But he'll have a solo career if he wants one. He rings me almost everyday for advice.� Nor does she apologise for
telling it like it is. �If anyone's dreams were shattered by being told they hadn't made it into the band and that put them off the business, then they probably weren't strong enough in the first place.� So will Hear'say be more than a flash-in-the-pan success? �I certainly
hope so. They've got talent. In the end, it'll be down to the music and the general public. it's going to be tough for them, though. Everyone's been so supportive up until this point. Now it's going to start getting rocky. But then that's the music industry for you.�
It's an industry Nicki patently loves. And ten years from now? �I've never had a game plan. I'm driven, but not particularly ambitious. I've been lucky. I've been in the right place at the right time, and I've represented some great talent. The trick isn't so much waiting for opportunities to come along; it's recognising them and then grabbing them with enthusiasm.� And remember; determined, focused, but never pushy.