The multi-talented Jay-Z is not only a talented musician but he is also an amazing entrepreneur who leverages himself as a brand and earns a ridiculous amount of money through his business ventures.
Jay-Z was born as Shawn Corey Carter in 1969 in Brooklyn, New York in an under privileged neighborhood plagued with crime and poverty. Growing up in Brooklyn was tough for Jay-Z and he had to learn to get street-wise real quick. Jay-Z went to school to George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School along with rappers The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes however he did not graduate.
In this article you will learn all about Jay-Z and his journey to multi-award winning rapper and multi-millionaire entrepreneur. You will learn all about his success and how you can replicate it into your business and life.
I’m not a Businessman, I’m a Business, man
Jay-z is not just an entrepreneur he himself is a brand. He has a massive following and is in the public eye so a lot of fans. Those fans are very loyal to him and buy many of his products.
Jay-Z has come a very long way since becoming a world famous musician and entrepreneur. Jay-Z has built himself quite a business empire and has transformed himself into an amazing personal brand.
His vast business empire includes clothing lines like Artful Dodger and Rocawear, fragrances like Gold Jay-Z, sports bars, restaurants, hotels and sports teams. When a young Jay-Z was trying to get started in the music business no-one would sign him up. Would anybody say no to Jay-Z? “MGMT turned me down,” Jay-Z says.
It was after Jay-Z’s countless amount of rejections from other record companies that Jay-Z thought of trying another approach. Jay-Z along with two other friends started their own music record company.
They created Roca-A-Fella Records as their own independent label in 1995. Roca-A-Fella Records gave the start to many successful music artists like Kanye West, Rhianna and Rita Ora. Roc-Nation is the centerpiece of a portfolio that includes interests in technology (Powermat, a cell-phone-charging device made with Duracell), software (a video-sharing app called Viddy), real estate (small stakes in Barclays Center and the surrounding real-estate project), movie production (The Great Gatsby, a tale with a certain resonance), theater (Fela!), nightlife (the 40/40 Club, a high-end sports bar with locations in the Flatiron district and at the Nets arena), and apparel (in addition to Rocawear, the label he started and still endorses, he’s part of a joint venture that recently acquired half of Pharrell’s lines). A decade ago, Carter rapped that he wouldn’t rest until he was “the hundred million man.”
Though a conclusive accounting is impossible, it seems certain he’s surpassed that figure, and on Magna Carta … Holy Grail, he sets a new goal: “Fuck it, I want a billion.”
“You learn more in failure than you ever do in success”
That’s not to say he didn’t get into trouble. At 12, he shot his older brother Eric in the shoulder for stealing his ring. Jay-Z has written about the incident in the song You Must Love Me (“Saw the devil in your eyes, high off more than weed, confused, I just closed my young eyes and squeezed, what a sound, opened my eyes just in time to see ya stumbling to the ground”) but he has never publicly talked about it before. How did he get the gun? “I went to someone’s crib, someone’s house, and got it. Guns were everywhere. You didn’t have to go far to get one. Just everywhere.”
After the shooting, what did he think would happen to him? “I thought my life was over. I thought I’d go to jail for ever.” And what did happen? He has become monosyllabic. His discomfort is obvious. Did Eric simply not press charges? “Yes, that’s right – he’s my big brother.” In fact when he visited Eric in hospital, his brother apologised for what crack had turned him into. It’s an astonishing story, I say. “Yes.” Just talking about it gets to you? “Yes. It was terrible. I was a boy, a child. I was terrified.” Eric is clean these days, and the brothers get on. Was that the only time he shot someone? “Yeah. But guns were around every day. There were shoot-outs, but I never shot anyone else. Most people in shoot-outs don’t get shot.”
Music
“Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can’t.”
His music career started professionally way back in 1995 with the opening of his own record label Roca-a-Fella Records along with two of his friends.
He released his debut album in 1996, Reasonable Doubt. The album was well received by critics and fans alike and later went onto achieve platinum status.
In 1998 he released Vol 2… Hard Knock Life. It eventually went on to become Jay-Z’s most commercially successful album and was certified 5x platinum selling over 5 million copies while also going on to win a Grammy award.
Jay-Z was very close friends with to The Notorious BIG and had several tracks with him. He has won a numerous amount of awards as a music artist and is considered as one of the greatest musicians of all time.
Jay-Z has had countless number one albums and songs and has millions of fans all over the world. His gigs and concerts near enough always be sold out.
Business
Aside from his successful music career, Jay-Z is also a very successful and shrewd entrepreneur.
Apart from his drug dealing business during his youth, he ventured into business through his clothing brand Rocawear. He started it along with producer Damion Dash.
Rocawear had annual sales of $700 million. In interviews Jay-Z has said that he himself is a brand. He also stated that “my brands are an extension of me. They’re close to me. It’s not like running GM, where there’s no emotional attachment.”
He also co-owns the sports bar 40/40 Club which also has clubs in New York, Atlantic City and Chicago with plans of going into Tokyo and Singapore. Jay-Z invested in Carol’s daughter, a line of beauty products. He also has a real estate development company called J Hotels which purchase properties.
He has also written a book entitled Decoded which discusses his personal story and path to one of raps greatest. Apart from that he also is an avid sports fan and had shares in Brooklyn Nets NBA team, while also being executive producer of the basketball video game NBA 2K13. Jay-Z also launched his own sports agency called Roc Nation Sports.
Jay-Z has started a blog called Life + Times. This blog has a very cool unique tile design to it. In the blog Jay-Z writes about all his interests including music, technology, sports and fashion. The blog allows Jay-Z to keep in touch with his audience and engage with them while also building his personal brand up even more and increasing his online presence.
The Keys to Success
“Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who’ve never done anything because if you haven’t been successful, then you don’t know how it feels to lose it all.”
Jay-Z has learned a lot of things during his journey to success. Over the years he has learnt of many people and has had many mentors in business, music and life.
There are many ways someone can become successful but below we will detail some of the ways that Jay-Z has. Some of the things that Jay-Z has learnt over the years include:
Having Passion
“By the time I got to record my first album, I was 26, I didn’t need pen or paper – my memory had been trained just to listen to a song, think of the words, and lay them to tape.”
Passion is one of the most important things to have. Jay-Z had an immense passion for music. Having a passion for what you do makes you enjoy what you do.
As well as having a passion for music, Jay-Z had passion for many other things. Jay-Z is an avid sports fan and loves basketball and the NBA. In fact he loves the NBA so much that he bought majority shares in NBA team New Jersey Nets. He also has a sports bar called 40/40 club in various locations and America with plans to expand worldwide.
When starting a new business or brand, Jay-Z’s main reason for starting the business is believing in it and having a passion for it.
Personal Brand
“My brands are an extension of me. They’re close to me. It’s not like running GM, where there’s no emotional attachment.”
Jay-Z is a brand in himself. If he endorses or sponsors a product, the popularity of the product rises. For example, in 2003 when Jay-Z designed the S.Carter sneaker for Reebok.
It was so popular that it ran out of stock in just a couple of hours. The same goes for near enough all his business, he likes to put a personal touch into his business such as Rocawear and Roc-Nation Sports Agency.
He has endorsed many brands and products over the years including Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Rhapsody, Bing and Carol’s Daughter among many other brands. He makes sure all his brands are in alignment with the rest.
What you can do to replicate his success is to make yourself into a brand just like Jay-Z. So if you plan on opening a business, make it more personal and add something personal that makes your personality come out.
Focus
“I was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning, so I was forced to be like a businessman because when I was trying to get a record deal, it was so hard to get a record deal on my own that it was either give up or create my own company.”
Focus on your most vital goals and important things. If you never have any focus in life you will not know what to focus on and will never achieve what you want in life. For Jay-Z his focus was business and music.
He started his business career by drug dealing. Jay-Z would focus on his drug-dealing business and eventually turned that focus to music after a friend told him that he should get into music and rapping.
Write up a couple of goals and don’t stop until you actually achieve them. You should have laser sharp focus on your goals. Don’t let anything stop you or falter you from your goals.
Find a Mentor
“They say a midget standing on a giant’s shoulders can see much further than the giant. So I got the whole rap world on my shoulders, they trying to see further than I am.”
Jay-Z had a lot of mentors from The Notorious BIG to Warren Buffett and Donald Trump.
He made sure everyone that he met, he could learn something from them. You can learn something from everyone. Jay-Z would make sure that if he met someone successful, he would pick their brains and take all the knowledge and information they had.
This is something that you should emulate. If you want to do something, find someone that is already good at that particular thing and stalk him/her (not literally). Find out how they did it, ask them questions, ask them for advice and tips. If you ask someone who has already been there and done it, then you will be saving time and be able to achieve your goal quicker as you will be avoiding the same mistakes.
Make Your Own Opportunity
“I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That’s what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that’s from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.”
Jay-Z was getting rejected by all the major and minor record labels.
He was getting rejected left, right and centre. But that didn’t deter him from getting a record deal. He went out and made his own record label with two of his friends called Roc-A-Fella.
Initially he was the only signed artist but then went on to create Roc-Nation and expanded to include artists like J.Cole, Rhianna and many other stars.
If you are not getting the chance then make your own chance. Don’t just wait for the perfect job to come to you. If you can’t get it, then make it yourself.
Create your own business and make your own chance. If you have a passion for something and you want to start a career in it then you should just do it. Start a website on it. Start a business. You will not regret it and it will be best move you have ever made.
Conclusion
“As kids we didn’t complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could. And as soon as we had a little money, we were eager to show it.”
Jay-Z is a very inspirational man and has already achieved a lot so far. He has achieved a numerous amount of awards for his music and continues to do so.
Jay-Z is also an exceptional entrepreneur and has many different businesses and brands that he invests in. If you can take something away from Jay-Z then it should be his hard-work ethic and how he never gives up.
Jay-Z has come a long way since his old neighborhood Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn . He was a very ambitious person and wanted to achieve greatness. Through his many ventures, he has teamed up with many businesses and products and put his name on and endorsed many products.
Jay has proved time and time again that he is a successful entrepreneur and he is always up for any opportunity to make more money and grow his business empire.
He is truly a business mogul.
