Read Online Decoded by Jay-Z - Free Book Online
Authors: Jay-Z
Tags: United States, Biography & Autobiography, music, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Biography, Genres & Styles, Cultural Heritage, Rich & Famous, Composers & Musicians, Rap & Hip Hop, Rap musicians, Rap musicians - United States, Jay-Z
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impossible and losing is catastrophic: You learn how to compete as if your life depended on it. That’s the lesson I brought with me to the so-called “legitimate” world.
A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING, THE NEW IMPROVED RUSSELL
When I was moving off the streets and tried to envision what winning looked like, it was Russell Simmons. Russell was a star, the one who created the model for the hip-hop mogul that so many people—Andre Harrell, Puffy, even Suge Knight—went on to follow.
People in the record business had always made a lot of money. Not the artists, who kept dying broke, but the execs. Still, regular fans had no idea who they were. Russell changed that. His brand as an executive mattered not just within the industry, but among people in the street. And with Def Jam he created one of the most powerful brands in the history of American entertainment.
Russell also made being a CEO seem like a better deal than being an artist. He was living the life like crazy, fucking with models, riding in Bentleys with his sneakers sticking out the windows, and never once rapped a single bar. His gift was curating a whole lifestyle—music, fashion,comedy, film—and then selling it. He didn’t just create the hip-hop business model, he changed the business style of a whole generation of Americans.
The whole vibe of start-up companies in Silicon Valley with twenty-five-year-old CEOs wearing shelltoes is Russell’s Def Jam style filtered through different industries. The business ideal for a whole generation went from growing up and wearing a suit every day to never growing up and wearing sneakers to the boardroom.
Even as a teenager, I understood what Russell was on to. He’d discovered a way to work in the legit world but to live the dream of the hustler: independence, wealth, and success outside of the mainstream’s rules. Coming from the life I was coming from, this was a better story than just being a rapper, especially based on what I now knew about how rappers got jerked.
I first met Russell when Dame, Biggs, and I were negotiating for a label deal for Roc-A-Fella after
Reasonable Doubt
dropped. I remember sitting across the table from him and Lyor Cohen in disbelief that we were negotiating a seven-figure deal with the greatest label in rap history. But I was also feeling a dilemma: I was looking at Russell and thinking,
I want to be this nigga, not his artist.
(In the end, we made a deal with Def Jam that kept us in control of Roc-A-Fella, instead of my just signing up as a solo artist.)
Russell would become a valuable informal mentor for us. He wasn’t a gangster by any stretch, but he’d put in his time hustling, selling fake cocaine to college kids in the Village, that sort of thing. He reminded me of a lot of street dudes I’d known: He had a great memory, kept figures in his head, and was a quick judge of character. He also had tremendous integrity and confidence. He knew that the key to success was believing in the quality of your own product enough to make people do business with you on your terms. He knew that great product was the ultimate advantage in competition, not how big your office building is or how deep your pockets are or who you know. In the end it came down to having a great product and the hustle to move it, which was something I learned working the block. Russell was an evangelist for hip-hop. He knew the culture’s power and was never shy about leveraging it and making sure that it was the people who were creating the culture who got rich off of it.
That idea was at the heart of Rocawear, the clothing company we founded. In the late nineties I was wearing a lot of clothes from Iceberg, the European sportswear designer. After a while, I’d look out into the audience after my concerts and see hundreds of people rocking Iceberg knits. So it became clear to us that we were directly influencing their sales. Dame set up a meeting with Iceberg and we tried to strike an endorsement deal. I
A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING, THE NEW IMPROVED RUSSELL
When I was moving off the streets and tried to envision what winning looked like, it was Russell Simmons. Russell was a star, the one who created the model for the hip-hop mogul that so many people—Andre Harrell, Puffy, even Suge Knight—went on to follow.
People in the record business had always made a lot of money. Not the artists, who kept dying broke, but the execs. Still, regular fans had no idea who they were. Russell changed that. His brand as an executive mattered not just within the industry, but among people in the street. And with Def Jam he created one of the most powerful brands in the history of American entertainment.
Russell also made being a CEO seem like a better deal than being an artist. He was living the life like crazy, fucking with models, riding in Bentleys with his sneakers sticking out the windows, and never once rapped a single bar. His gift was curating a whole lifestyle—music, fashion,comedy, film—and then selling it. He didn’t just create the hip-hop business model, he changed the business style of a whole generation of Americans.
The whole vibe of start-up companies in Silicon Valley with twenty-five-year-old CEOs wearing shelltoes is Russell’s Def Jam style filtered through different industries. The business ideal for a whole generation went from growing up and wearing a suit every day to never growing up and wearing sneakers to the boardroom.
Even as a teenager, I understood what Russell was on to. He’d discovered a way to work in the legit world but to live the dream of the hustler: independence, wealth, and success outside of the mainstream’s rules. Coming from the life I was coming from, this was a better story than just being a rapper, especially based on what I now knew about how rappers got jerked.
I first met Russell when Dame, Biggs, and I were negotiating for a label deal for Roc-A-Fella after
Reasonable Doubt
dropped. I remember sitting across the table from him and Lyor Cohen in disbelief that we were negotiating a seven-figure deal with the greatest label in rap history. But I was also feeling a dilemma: I was looking at Russell and thinking,
I want to be this nigga, not his artist.
(In the end, we made a deal with Def Jam that kept us in control of Roc-A-Fella, instead of my just signing up as a solo artist.)
Russell would become a valuable informal mentor for us. He wasn’t a gangster by any stretch, but he’d put in his time hustling, selling fake cocaine to college kids in the Village, that sort of thing. He reminded me of a lot of street dudes I’d known: He had a great memory, kept figures in his head, and was a quick judge of character. He also had tremendous integrity and confidence. He knew that the key to success was believing in the quality of your own product enough to make people do business with you on your terms. He knew that great product was the ultimate advantage in competition, not how big your office building is or how deep your pockets are or who you know. In the end it came down to having a great product and the hustle to move it, which was something I learned working the block. Russell was an evangelist for hip-hop. He knew the culture’s power and was never shy about leveraging it and making sure that it was the people who were creating the culture who got rich off of it.
That idea was at the heart of Rocawear, the clothing company we founded. In the late nineties I was wearing a lot of clothes from Iceberg, the European sportswear designer. After a while, I’d look out into the audience after my concerts and see hundreds of people rocking Iceberg knits. So it became clear to us that we were directly influencing their sales. Dame set up a meeting with Iceberg and we tried to strike an endorsement deal. I
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