McKenzie Eddy

McKenzie Eddy is one of those infectiously bouncy girls whose life just seems to bubble up with opportunities. At 25, she’s also a Clive Davis in the making—singing, producing, and cutting deals with ease. If there’s one way to track her peripatetic career path, it’s through her personal style. Hip-hop executive for Damon Dash’s Bluroc label by day, Eddy wears Timberlands with big sweatshirts and leggings, such as those from H&M’s Garden Collection. Soulful songwriter by night, she performs in romantic pastel dresses by Erin Fetherston. And for her other side gig—singer for the electronica group Disco Biscuits? Adidas high-tops and track jackets. “I’m a pretty big tomboy who likes to occasionally throw on very high heels,” Eddy says. “That way, people don’t know what to think of me. I can be singing reggae with a dude from Africa one minute and negotiating contracts with Def Jam the next.”
Two years ago, after graduating from the University of South Caro lina, the Hilton Head Island native was touring the East Coast with her funk-rock band Stealing From Bandits and waitressing between gigs, when she heard that hip-hop mogul Damon Dash was looking for an assistant. Today, she runs Bluroc (working with artists such as the Black Keys, the London Souls, and Curren$y), oversees Dash’s new DD172 multiplatform think tank in NYC’s Tribeca (which, with its mash-up of artists, video directors, and on-site engineers, has already drawn comparisons to Andy Warhol’s Factory), is associate -producing a documentary about Detroit punk band Death with Mos Def, and, oh yeah, regularly sings on her friends’ and Bluroc’s albums. “The machine of the music business is changing, where an artist no longer has to fit into one genre,” says Eddy, who will debut her bluesy solo album on Bluroc later this year. (Sartorially, its sound translates to more H&M florals and floaty dresses—with Air Jordans, of course.) “Now it’s more about the performance and who the artist is as a creative person than the packaged brand.” No problem for this multitalented quadruple threat.