Entering the music industry is certainly not an easy feat because first, you have to prove that you have a talent, and second, you need to be able to sustain and enhance that skill in order to bring new things on the table.
If you make it big, the business can be a gateway to throngs of profitable opportunities as long as you make the right choices. A prime example of which is Jay-Z, one of the most successful rappers in the scene today, who has a net worth of a staggering $900 million as of last year.
Early Career
Certainly, that fortune didn’t accrue overnight. Jay-Z may be known as Destiny’s Child former member Beyonce Knowles’ husband that makes them a power couple, but he is a beast on his own. Born Shawn Corey Carter in a chaotic area in Brooklyn, he used rap to narrate his rough experiences then under the moniker Jazzy and later on was changed to Jay-Z.
His career started the early ‘90s and by 1995, he and Damon “Dame” and Kareem “Biggs” Burke launched their own record label called Roc-A-Fella Records from the money he got after signing with Payday Records.
Jay-Z rapped to narrate his own story
Successful Releases
Although you would imagine owning a record label would mean you are big time, the group started small – as in a small office in a low-rent area of New York City. Roc-A-Fella started out as an Island Def Jam Music Group imprint.
In 1996, the company released Jay-Z’s first album “Reasonable Doubt,” which, although critically acclaimed, was just fairly triumphant. This was followed by succeeding releases of highly successful raps songs from the late 1990s to 2000, like Kanye West’s six albums and Jay-Z’s till the “Magna Carta Holy Grail” in 2013, the same year the label went inactive.
Rihanna signed with Roc Nation after leaving Def Jam Recordings
Roc-A-Fella was not the only record label he founded. In 2008, Jay-Z decided to leave Def Jam Recordings, where he served CEO and president, to put up Roc Nation with Jay Brown. Rihanna also left Def Jam in 2014 to sign with Roc Nation and the talent pool currently has high-banking names like Shakira, Big Sean, DJ Khaled, and J. Cole. The company gave birth to Arrive two years ago, a capital firm that helps startups.
Clothing Line and Streaming Service
Jay-Z also dipped his toes into fashion, when he and Dash collaborated to bring Rocawear in 1999. By the following years, it enjoyed soaring sales figures, with the New York Times saying it accumulated $700 million in annual sales during its peak.
However, the co-founders had a rift in 2006 which left the “Empire State of Mind” rapper leading the brand. In the next year, he sold his rights for $204 million.
The launch of Tidal was star-studded
In March 2015, Jay-Z bought Aspiro for a whopping $56 million! He knows that there were some works needed to be done and he immediately revived Tidal, a streaming service, through a press-con that involved who’s-who in the biz like Madonna and Kanye, whom he referred to as co-owners of the company. He sold 33 percent of the company to Sprint for $200 million in January 2017.
