"The Tanning of America" - hip-hop's economic dominance

Last night I attended the kick off of Columbia University’s Black Business Student Association (BBSA) Executive Speakers Series with Steve Stoute discussing his new book, The Tanning of America: How Hip Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy.

{An aside - I love Columbia University! Its such a freakin' beautiful campus! Sheesh!}

If you haven’t yet heard of Mr. Stout, check out his stats:

-       He rose from roadie to road manager of Kid n’ Play to managing top artists such as Mary J Blije and Nas

-       Served as president of Urban Music for Sony Music Entertainment

-       Founder of Translation, an advertising company in which he partners with Jay-Z

-       He’s seamlessly married high profile celebrities with Fortune 500 companies (fashion icon, Valentino with technology from Samsung; Beyonce and Tommy Hilfiger; Justin Timberlake and McDonald’s. . . )

-      - Took Carol’s Daughter from a single store operation in Brooklyn to a multi-million dollar empire with distribution across Sephora, Macy’s, Dillards

The list goes on and on. The guy, no doubt, has got an impressive resume. Hearing his story last night at Columbia University was pretty intriguing. It was the perfect atmosphere – a large classroom filled with young professionals, MBA students, aspiring entrepreneurs, and undergrad students with dream filled eyes. Before giving a brief background, Steve gave a summary of his success: “I was a person that just did what I said and the scary part is that that’s a commodity. People don’t do what they say”

He then carried us through his journey from selling loans to managing artists, to dropping it all at the height of his career to start again from the bottom, creating an advertising company.

He shifted on to the concepts of his new book, The Tanning Of America. Tanning requires understanding the culture and is defined as, “the phenomenon beyond demographic where no longer does your ethnicity drive culture. . . Without cultural curiosity, there is no innovation”

In a conversational manner, he answered questions from the audience in a blunt, straight up and to the point approach.

“Culture of hip-hop has done more for racial relations than MLK. If not for hip-hop our president wouldn’t be black! If it wasn’t for hip-hop you think Jay-Z would have his empire? Do you know how many people he employs?”

It was a statement that struck a chord within the audience, giving us all something to ponder as we wrapped up  and headed over to the reception/book signing.

The whole conversation lasted slightly over an hour and I couldn't help noticing that he didn't go deep enough when it came to his story. He made it seem like his success came mainly from being lucky enough to be put in the right place at the right time. . . 

Despite me wishing he delved in more, I was baited enough to buy the book and have him sign it at the reception but I did have to ask:

"What was your initial dream?"

"I wanted to be a football player" he replied, with a slight smile

So there it is, from the dream of becoming the next NFL star, to managing top artists, to becoming a well-respected force in the advertising industry. Life tends to take you through the unexpected

. . .

The Tanning of America, It’s a book Steve Stout wrote for college students and young executives but really, as I have started reading, it’s one for everybody. If you’ve got a dream, an idea you want heard, you can find a little somethin’ something’ through the pages to help you see things through a new light.