Willie Sims Jr. is for sale, and he wants you to buy now.
You may have been a fan of his MTTV show “Cookin’ Wit Big Fella”?the result of mixing down-home recipes such as “sticky-icky chicken” and “hood pockets” with guerrilla filmmaking. You’ve probably heard his debut single “Chicken & a 40 oz.,” but if Big Fella has his way, that will just be the beginning.
“My career is different because I’m a Renaissance man and I do everything,” says the Detroit native. “I don’t get trapped into doing any one particular thing. My goal is to be the Martha Stewart or the Oprah Winfrey for the hip-hop generation.”

This time around Big Fella isn’t trying to sell you an album or a recipe. Well, actually he is, and somewhere in Los Angeles there is a room full of wealthy people with pie charts and diagrams who would really appreciate it if you bought his album and a few cookbooks and DVDs while you’re at it. Jimmy Iovine is one of those people. He is the owner and co-founder of Interscope Records, home of Dr. Dre, Eminem and 50 Cent. If you’ve ever cursed out loud due to catching yourself singing “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas, he’s the one to thank. When Iovine is not enjoying the spoils of his latest bullet-riddled cash cow, he’s taking risks?such as signing unconventionally successful acts like the Black Eyed Peas, or investing in a virtually unknown college dropout plucked from Murfreesboro.
“I didn’t come in off of my music, I came in off the strength of my brand,” says Big Fella. “I’ve got a deal where I pretty much split everything 50/50 with Interscope.”
At a time when record sales are dropping quicker than a Valujet, Big Fella’s deal is an experimental model for the entire industry.
“I am a guinea pig,” he flatly states. “The business is moving away from artist-label relationships and more into brands and brand managers. It’s more about profit sharing than small royalty splits.”
So how does one manage to parlay a regionally successful cooking show and independent album into an unprecedented partnership with arguably the country’s biggest record label?
“After putting out the Broke But Still Livin’ album and the cooking show, I met a talent agent named Frank Wing at a conference in Nashville and gave him some copies,” says Big Fella. “He told me he loved the show but the production quality was horrible.” After taking a few years to polish the show, Sims met Wing again?this time armed with a stack of DVDs from his revamped cooking show. When Wing returned he had a high-powered friend in tow: Ross Schilling, a manager at one of the country’s largest management companies. As the highly successful duo prepared to pitch a recording artist, chef and actor, Vector Management chairman Ken Levitan walked in on the two watching the “Cookin’ Wit Big Fella” DVD. Levitan was interested and set up a meeting with Big Fella.
“He told me about all of the people they work with, like Hank Williams Jr., Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bon Jovi, Queen Latifah, and how they believed in creating box sets for their artists,” says Sims. “I told him whoever created the idea to directly market Latifah’s jazz album and allow her to grow with her fans was a genius because that’s how I envision my career.”
When Levitan relayed how he created the marketing plan for the album, the decision was made and all that was left was to decide what their next move would be.
That next move was made on their behalf when Interscope and Jimmy Iovine called and plans were made to travel to the West Coast.
“In the meeting with Iovine, he’s selling me the Jimmy Iovine dream [and] telling me about all of the stuff he could do,” says Big Fella. “In the process of us meeting he got to respect my mind. We talked about branding and how I realized that I’m trying to be Coca-Cola. I’m trying to capitalize on an untapped market and own it. Once I told him that he said, ?I want to be in the Big Fella business.’”
There was a lengthy negotiation process due to the nature of the contract, but ironically the same thing that caught the attention of big executives would be what sealed the deal?the food!
“I’m sitting at home and I get a random phone call from Jimmy asking me for a favor,” says Sims. “He was like, ‘Big Fella, I need you to come out here and cook with me either on Thursday or Sunday.’ He’s telling me this on that same Tuesday.”
Iovine flew Big Fella and his entourage to Beverly Hills and they prepared for the dinner with a shopping adventure at a posh Beverly Hills supermarket.
“After they picked us up from the airport Jimmy gave me his credit card,” says Big Fella. “Man, we bought like five bottles of Moet. We bought Hennessy XO and Remy Martin XO for the 7up and Hennessy pound cake, and we basically fulfilled any grocery store fantasy you could imagine. We spent $3,000 in the grocery store and went back to Jimmy’s crib.”
What followed was a hybrid of what Big Fella describes as “random stuff that I’d cook everyday” and top-tier food. The menu even included Kool-Aid made with imported Mauritian sugar in crystal champagne flutes. The crowning moment was a meeting with multi-platinum producer Dr. Dre, over “stick-icky wings” and a ninety-nine cent loaf of bread.
“I don’t eat my chicken with nothing less than a nice, soft piece of white bread,” says Big Fella. “The butler was all scared to bring it out! He had it on a silver platter with white gloves and everything. They loved it because we took all of them back to when life was simple, back to when they were broke. Dre came in the kitchen with me and I had Reginald Hudlin [president of BET] and Ron Fair [president of Interscope and A&M records] frying chicken in the kitchen with Huggy Bear.”
Sims’ story doesn’t have a Hollywood ending.
“My daughter was born as soon as I signed the deal, so now we can properly support her,” says Sims. “My girl retired at age 25, she called her job and said she wasn’t coming back. I didn’t do anything dumb with my money, I just bought a car and paid my bills, no 24-inch rims, it’s all stock.”
Perhaps the reason Sims has no shame in keeping his car plain is because the only “stock” he’s concerned about is the Big Fella brand.
“Hell yeah I want them to buy the DVD’s, CD’s and the cookbooks,” says Big Fella. “That’s investing in my brand, and any smart investor is taught to buy low and sell high.”
If this talk of lifestyle branding and stocks sounds expensive, don’t worry.
Just keep reading The Murfreesboro Pulse, because the next issue marks the beginning of the “Big Living” section?an experimental partnership between Big Fella and The Pulse. After all, Big Fella might be for sale, but like any good sale, this one is for a limited time only.