Total Experience Records was a record label founded by Lonnie Simmons. Its two major acts were The Gap Band and Yarbrough & Peoples. It originally began in 1977 as a production company whose artists recorded for Mercury Records before becoming a label in 1981. From its inception in 1981 to late 1983, Total Experience was a subsidiary label of Mercury's parent company, PolyGram. In 1984, the label changed its distribution from PolyGram to RCA Records.