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Over my break last week I decided to crack the spine on a book that I’ve been meaning to read for some time now- Jay Z’s DECODED. Even though my own history with hip hop ended just before he came on the scene (post ‘93 hip hop lost a lot of appeal to me) I’ve long admired his story which can be summed up in his own lyrics “Marcy to Madison Square”. Growing up in the projects, surviving a stint as a small time hustler and drug dealer to becoming the most successful hip hop mogul of all time.
Jay built his empire primarily on the backs of two assets: Rock-A-Fella records, his record label, and Rocawear, his clothing line. What’s interesting about each of these ventures is that both were born from rejection. Of the record label he says:
When Dame (Jay’s business partner) could catch me, he would set up these meetings with record labels and drag me to them, but none of them were having us. Not Columbia, not Def Jam, not Uptown. Sometimes there was talk of a single deal, but whenever it got to the point where it was supposed to be real, the label would renege.
They ended up launching a label, not because they were visionaries, they did it because no one would give them a break. They knew they’d have to take their careers onto their own hands.
Rocawear, which is now a $700M a year business, was born from a similar rejection:
In the late ninties I was wearing a lof of clothes from Iceberg, the European sportswear designer. After a while, I would look out into the audience after my concerts and see hundreds of people rocking Iceberg knits. So it became clear that we were directly influencing their sales. Dame set up a meeting with Iceberg and we tried to strike an endoresement deal. The executives at Iceberg looked at us like we were speaking a foreign language. They offered us free clothes, but we wanted millions and the use of their private jet; we walked out of their offices realizing we had to do it ourselves.
Of course there was much more that went on between these rejections and the ultimate success of both of these ventures.
But it brings to mind something we’ve said here before; namely, that the doors slammed in your face are just as important than the doors that open to you. And, sometimes, you just have to kick a door down because no one is going to open it for you.
About Nathan Kaiser
