Word: jay
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Enterprises, a diversified hip-hop marketing company, she designs CD covers, creates ads for the Rocawear clothing line and writes marketing plans for the firm's latest films. "They're the brain trust," says CEO Damon Dash, who launched his billion-dollar music, fashion and movie empire with rapper Jay-Z eight years ago (see MUSIC). Chief strategist David Gensler plans to hire four new people over the next few weeks, and the company may soon add spots in London. "I'd really like to find some aggressive M.B.A.s," he says...
...when hip-hop cliche holds that most rappers are irrelevant, bankrupt or dead, Jay-Z is idolized, loaded and routinely spotted within kissing distance of Beyonce Knowles (which is its own special way of being alive). JayZ is also profoundly bored. "I've had it with the rap game," he says. "Time to focus on other things. That's why I'm retiring...
...They want giant fighting robots. They want talking French fries. They want, that is, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim (Sunday to Thursday, 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. E.T.), a block of bizarre animated comedy and action shows that regularly draw more men under 35 than do David Letterman and Jay Leno--despite airing on a basic-cable channel best known for Powerpuff Girls...
...Jay-Z has announced his retirement before, but the bulk of his fans still don't believe he's serious. Some think Jay-Z is trying to pull off an elaborate marketing ploy; others can't understand why he would retire from the hip-hop fantasy life. The truth is, it's his fantasy to pull off marketing coups. To coincide with his retirement, Jay-Z is taking a commercial victory lap that includes a final record, The Black Album; a Reebok shoe; a concert tour; and an autobiography to be published by MTV Books (which just might help...
...that's exactly how he likes it. In many ways, Jay-Z is a pioneer: the first rapper to acknowledge that he cares as much about making money as he does about making records, and the first to use acquisitiveness as the major theme of his music. He has written a few great songs about other subjects--D'Evils, an allegory about the dangers of rap life, is his personal favorite--but he says, "I've talked about wanting to have enough to get out since my first album. I was always more interested in the business side of things...