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What's in a Label?<br /> <br /> Corporate independence? Digital-only releases? The record label started by tobyMac, Joey Elwood, and Todd Collins continues with the unconventional decisions that first started Gotee 15 years ago.<br /> By Mark Geil<br /> Originally posted on Christianitytoday.com 04/14/08<br /> <br /> It's the sort of &quot;discovery tale&quot; that happens more in movies than in real life. A young artist from Bermuda dreams of a future in Christian music. She writes songs and even produces an independent project that wins some local awards. Aware that signing with a record label is an important future step, she identifies the one she would like to work with above all others: Gotee Records. She sends Gotee a few demos, knowing they're probably just getting filed (or thrown) away.<br /> <br /> Some time later, while attending school studying songwriting for a music business degree, she and a group of classmates took a look at the songs of tobyMac. The next morning, he happens to call her house. &quot;My mother took the call. When I got home she said, 'Ayiesha, some Toby Mac guy called,' and I was like 'Waaaahhhh!'.&quot; Fast forward three years. Ayiesha Woods is no longer an unknown talent, but a Grammy nominated artist with Gotee preparing to release her second album.<br /> <br /> Woods smiles today as she watches her career unfold. &quot;It's all about timing, and it's all about God really orchestrating things in our lives. I have to laugh because it seems like this thing has been going on for a minute. The years are going by so fast. It's been an amazing journey and God has really been doing some great things.&quot; The Gotee story, and the reasons Woods singled out the label as a top choice, predate her journey by about a decade; it's an equally fascinating tale of God's provision and timing.<br /> <br /> Rewind to 1992. Three guys in Nashville share a love for music. Though they have diverse tastes they sport the same cropped beards and hang out together enough that people start calling them the &quot;goatee brothers&quot;. Todd Collins is a percussionist and hands-on producer with a bent toward hip-hop. Joey Elwood is another producer focused on melody and concept. And the third is a guy by the name of Toby McKeehan, aka tobyMac, who also happens to be one third of the breakout group dc Talk. &quot;At that time, there were very few labels, if any, focusing on music that will affect our generation,&quot; tobyMac told Billboard magazine. &quot;I wanted to do a label that focused on a generation.&quot;<br /> <br /> That's a fairly grandiose idea for a label that started almost unintentionally. Together they form a production team and start working with a young R