Chad Richardson

Chad Richardson is a Canadian musician and performer born in St. John's, Newfoundland, who grew up in Conception Bay South. As a teenager, he played with a band called the Park Sharks, and in the late 1980s he attended chef school in Paris. He later enrolled in the music program at Concordia University in Montreal, where he won a nationwide HMV search for Canada's best undiscovered vocalist. That victory led to the recording of his first independent album, 2 People, later reissued on the Aquarius label in 1995.

In 1997, Richardson won the Homegrown contest run by Toronto radio station Q107, which resulted in a record deal with Aquarius/EMI and the release of his second album, The Legends of Brud. The record contains eleven songs Richardson wrote himself. During the same period, he auditioned for the Canadian production of the musical Rent and was cast in the lead role of Mark Cohen. His performance earned him a Dora Award nomination. Following the Canadian run, Richardson transferred to the Broadway production of Rent, where he appeared in 1996. While living in New York, he recorded his third album, no. 1 fan, released in 2001, and appeared as a young David Bowie in the music video for "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell."

Richardson subsequently formed one half of the production and songwriting duo jACK alongside Craig McConnell. The pair won the USA Songwriting Competition for best R&B song in 2002. Working under the jACK name, they contributed releases for Canadian R&B artist Keshia Chante and collaborated with Japanese artists including Crystal Kay and Chemistry, in addition to securing multiple television and film placements.

In 2010, Richardson and Shaista Ahmed co-founded the television production company LATO Productions. The company's first property, The Health Hunters, was optioned by Temple Street Productions and advanced to the development phase. The following year, Richardson joined ole music publishing as Toronto Creative Manager before accepting a promotion to Creative Director of the company's Los Angeles office. During his tenure at ole, he signed artists and industry figures including Steven Tyler, Timbaland, Allison Kaplan, Mynority, and Clare Reynolds. In 2014, he moved to the Canadian performing rights organization SOCAN to serve as General Manager of its Los Angeles operations.

Richardson founded The S.O.N.G. Space, a networking community for artists and songwriters, in 2018. In 2019, he opened his first art photography exhibition, People of The South Bay, documenting residents of the South Bay area of Los Angeles.