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| by kenn on 8/27/2005 06:12:00 PM |
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Meet Jay-Z, the new boss
Source:
Jay-Z, the veteran rapper turned president of Def Jam Recordings, sat in his sparsely decorated office in Manhattan one sweltering August afternoon. He was staring intently at Tru Life, an up-and-coming rapper from the Lower East Side. Desperately seeking a record deal, Tru Life, his patter at turns poignant and comical, was doing his best to convince Jay-Z and the coterie of A&R men in the room that he was worthy of being signed.
"Yo, Jay," he said, "this has got to work! I got a bad back! I can't be packing boxes at Home Depot!"
"The dude who gives me the right lane," he continued, "ain't going to lose."
"I've been shot too," he said, "been pronounced dead at Bellevue and all of that, but I don't like to talk about it cause that's 50's thing," referring to the rapper 50 Cent. "Everybody can get a record deal, but you can't buy a star, you can't buy charisma, and I got that." And so it went, an animated Tru Life delivering his sermon for more than 10 minutes. Spent, he finally slumped back in his chair.
Jay-Z leaned forward in his. "Somebody," he declared in delighted exasperation, "get this kid in front of a camera!" The room erupted in laughter. Tru Life was signed to a six-figure deal later that evening.
"It's weird," Jay-Z said the next day over a steak dinner at the 40/40 club, the Chelsea sports bar he owns. "Because I've been there. I was in his shoes before and now I'm the one making the dreams come true."
It has been more than seven months since Jay-Z, 35, born Shawn Carter, accepted an offer from Vivendi Universal, the world's biggest record corporation, to assume the presidency of Def Jam, its seminal rap label. He'd be the first to admit that going from international superstar to swivel-chair-riding executive has been no easy leap.
Though he successfully ran the boutique label Roc-A-Fella Records with his former partners Damon Dash and Kareem (Biggs) Burke, managing a company like Def Jam is an entirely different proposition. He has quickly had to learn that his success in this new venture will depend more on his abilities as a talent scout, marketer and office politician than on his past successes.
Initially, he said, he was reluctant to take the job. "I knew Def Jam was in a transition period," he explained. "The artists that had set the brand on fire had been there for a while. It was time to get new blood in the building and I know that takes a minute, but I also knew that people would expect me to be successful tomorrow. 'You're here. Let's get a hit.' People wouldn't be realistic." In fact, he raps about the problem on the remix of Diamonds Are Forever by Kanye West, one of the company's biggest stars: "I'm not a businessman/ I'm a business, man/ So let me handle my business, damn!"
At this time last year, Jay-Z was in the throes of a major bidding war. Lyor Cohen, the chief executive of Island/Def Jam, had left for Warner Music. Def Jam's president, Kevin Liles, clashed with Antonio Reid, who replaced Cohen as his boss, and quit. That left an opening at the top of Def Jam — and it also left Cohen and Reid, two big corporate rivals, pursuing the same man. Warner offered Jay-Z an equity stake in the company, but Universal prevailed, with a deal that is said to include a three-year contract and ownership of his master recordings starting in approximately 10 years.
In the end, he says, he took the job because he was seeking a challenge. Starting with the classic Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z, in less than a decade, had released 10 albums, which sold more than 33 million copies, rising from the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, where he once dealt drugs, to become one of music's most respected and prolific artists.
"I'd been in my comfort zone for a while" is how he describes it. "I was bored. I didn't want to be doing rap just to do it: Oh, it's November again. Time to put out another record." He said he was eager to prove that there can be life after rap, that artists can do more than star in "Where are they now?" specials. The dearth of African-American executives in the music industry was also a concern, he said, pointing to the Billboard magazine on his desk. Its headline read, "Where Are the Black Execs?" "See what I mean?," he said with a wry chuckle.
It may be too early to determine whether Jay-Z will sink or soar as a big label executive, but many are eager to see him succeed. "If he pulls this off, he's the modern-day bootlegger turned president, dating a movie star, " said the veteran music executive Andre Harrell, a founder of the Nu America marketing company. "He is the American dream."
Reid, chairman of the Island Def Jam Music Group, says betting on Jay-Z has already paid off. "He is simply the most talented person that I know," Reid gushed. "He understands the music, he understands the culture, he understands artists. When I look at Jay-Z, I see a genius."
And yet when Jay-Z looks at himself, he sees someone who is doing OK. When asked what grade he would give his own efforts, in a rare moment of humility, he settled on a C.
True, he has had modest success with acts like the R&B singer Bobby Valentino and the ingenues Rhianna, whose single Pon de Replay was one of the summer's hits, and Teairra Mari. He is also proud of the gangster rapper Young Jeezy, an Atlanta-based phenom whose debut album, Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101, entered the Billboard chart at No. 2 earlier this month, selling 176,000 copies in its first week.
But Jay-Z largely blames himself for the lackluster sales of new albums by Memphis Bleek and the Young Gunz, both signed to Roc-A-Fella, which Universal purchased when it hired Jay-Z last December.
"Logically, I shouldn't have put them out because the numbers — the video spins and radio spins — didn't indicate that they were ready to go," he said. "But me, relying on the brand, figured they'd do 100,000 anyway, but they didn't. So that was a mistake."
Another one of his big signings, Foxy Brown, a combative female rapper whose career has lately faded, could also prove a mistake. "That's going to be his biggest challenge," said Elliott Wilson, editor of the urban music magazine XXL. "He's going to have to start from scratch introducing her to a new audience."
And then there's the problem of his celebrity overshadowing the very artists he has been hired to guide. "He's made a habit of rapping on his artists' records in the hopes that this will jump-start their careers — and it does draw immediate attention — but that's just a shortcut," said Erik Parker, music editor of Vibe magazine. "He'll need to do real artist development to ensure these guys have actual long-lasting careers."
Jay-Z did not dress the part of the anxious young executive one day this month when he strolled into work — at just before 1 in the afternoon — wearing denim shorts, a striped polo shirt and gleaming white sneakers from his own Reebok shoe line, S. Carter. On his arm was Beyonce Knowles, the pop diva who has been his girlfriend for nearly two years.
Resplendent in designer khaki short shorts, a sheer creme blouse and diamond-encrusted bangles, Knowles passed a portion of the afternoon lounging on a suede sectional couch in her beau's office, languorously flipping through magazines and warmly receiving whoever walked in the room — in short, playing the part of first lady.
Meanwhile Jay-Z watched the video for Teairra Mari's second single, No Daddy, a pseudo-public service announcement about the dangers of daughters growing up without fathers. Not having liked the first version of the video, he had ordered a reshoot. This time around he was pleased.
"I like the energy," he said as he bobbed his head to the beat.
Around 2, Ghostface Killer, a founding member of the defunct Wu-Tang Clan, showed up for a meeting. "What up, family?" Jay-Z said with a strong handshake and a quick man-hug.
"I just want to dump some heat on you," Ghostface replied. "It's meaty already, but I just want you to add your little extra." (Translation: I've got some great new music that I'd like you to hear and I would appreciate your input.) Jay-Z unleashed his signature chuckle, a high-pitched, machine-gun-like "Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh."
"Yeah," he said, smiling. "I'm going to add the cilantro."
For the next hour, Jay-Z listened to nearly 20 songs, on topics that ranged from life in the drug game to a day at a barbershop. When the music ended, Ghostface started in with questions.
Who do you see on that last record? Should a girl or someone like Pharrell sing the hook? And can we release it in September? With that last question, Jay-Z's manner changed. "That's not going to work," he told his charge, who looked crestfallen. "You need the proper setup. You don't just want to throw it out there."
He suggested slashing the number of songs. "In a good deal," he explained, "you get paid on 12 songs. That means that everyone — producers, writers, etc. — all eat from that same pie. If you do 18 songs and you have 18 producers and writers, instead of 12 people splitting that pie — now 18 people are eating into your paper." It's a fact few artists know and even fewer executives share, Jay-Z said, but having been on the other side of the mahogany desk a scant year ago, he feels the need to enlighten those he's overseeing.
"Jeezy came in here with 23 songs and I'm like, what are you doing?" he recalled. "Save half those songs and go make another album."
Over the course of the afternoon, Teairra Mari dropped by, as did the rappers Memphis Bleek, Freeway and the Young Gunz. At one point, the room felt less like an office and more like the VIP lounge at 40/40 sans the Cristal Champagne. "He wants the place to feel like a family environment," said Jay Brown, a Def Jam executive.
Despite the convivial vibe, business somehow continued to be conducted. David Miller, director of international marketing, needed Jay-Z to squeeze another bonus track out of Kanye West for the Japanese release of his album Late Registration. "I'll see what I can do," Jay-Z said. A woman in the marketing department asked if he had any interest in a new video series MTV was starting. "They'll take all of your videos and chop 'em up, DVD it, and we'll split the profit," she said. "Do you like the concept?" He declined. Up next, his in-house publicist, Jana Fleishman, wanted to know if he'd appear on the cover of a downtown fashion magazine. Flipping through the book's glossy pages, he said, "I'll ask my artsy friends about it first and get back to you."
By 5 it was time to talk numbers with Tru Life and his lawyer, who were waiting down the hall. "I'm supercomfortable with four" — $400,000 — Jay-Z told his senior vice president of finance, Joe Borrino. "I'm a little less comfortable with five. After that, I don't want to be in that business, especially right now. Only six hip-hop releases have done over 150,000 this year."
"So," Borrino said, "I'm going to say that we can't go more than five."
"No, because if I was hearing you say that, then I would ask for five because that means I can get five," Jay-Z explained. "You tell him that a typical first-time artist deal is between 400 and 450."
"OK," Borrino said, looking unsure.
"Be confident, man," Jay-Z said, noting Borrino's furrowed brow. "If there's a problem, come back to me, OK?"
There was not a problem.
Things tend to move briskly in his office. "When I got there," Tru Life recalled, "they told me that if Jay liked me, I wasn't going to leave the building. I thought it was a joke. I got there at 3 in the afternoon and I left 10 hours later."
When later asked about his aggressive approach, Jay-Z said: "It's a competitive business. When you think someone has it, you've got to jump. I live by my instinct."
His day begins at 8 a.m. with breakfast and a workout. He is usually in the office by 11, he said, and "I'll stay until I'm done or tired." It was 7 p.m., and he was stretched out in a private lounge at 40/40, MTV's prank show Punk'd playing in the background. "I know people think that this is a vanity job or that I'm the guy that just brings in talent and I'm out of the office three months a year and I only come in once in while, you know, like the real president" — Bush swipe noted —"but yes, I'm really there."
Except, of course, when he's out in the world, representing Def Jam at public events around the country. Several weeks ago, in the empty bar under the main floor of Hollywood's Key Club, the label's new artists — Teairra Mari, Rihanna and Ne-Yo — took turns preening for the cameras and Access Hollywood before a concert staged by Teen People magazine. But the way the cameramen scrambled when their boss strode into the bar, shortly before showtime, made clear who the event's main draw really was. And he later acknowledged that he can use his celebrity to promote the new prospects in a way few if any executives can. One moment, he was reassuring Teairra Mari about a minor casting dispute on her new video. The next, people were shoving copies of his own concert DVD, Fade to Black, into his hands for him to autograph.
His charisma plays just as a big role in the office. When he first arrived in January, he recalled: "I sat in on a couple of meetings and it was like a machine. The passion was gone. No one really said anything. There were no ideas." So he set about to improve morale. He organized several retreats and a weeklong team-building exercise inspired by Donald Trump's show The Apprentice, in which several teams competed for a $50,000 prize. Their task? Land a record deal for a fictional artist. He has also held a bowling night and a movie night at the private Manhattan club Soho House. And because there's nothing like Champagne to bring people together, bellinis are served in the office on Friday afternoons.
He said he still finds addressing a staff a bit uncomfortable. "When you're on stage it's like: 'What's up, Cleveland? Wave your hands in the air, say ho.' But to stand in front of people and give a speech and talk about the things you're trying to do, it's not easy."
But with each speech and each passing day, the job seems to get easier. Already Jay-Z has his sights set on the future, which includes settling down with Knowles and starting a family in the next few years. "I feel like that time is getting closer," he said. After that? "Maybe I'll open a casino." A fitting job for a man who doesn't mind a gamble.
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