Dan Charnas: The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop

In December 2010, an NPR Staff writer wrote, “How Hip0Hop Became a Cash Machine” for the show, All Things Considered. Thirty years ago, hip-hop was background noise at small house parties in Harlem and the South Bronx. Now, it's a multibillion-dollar empire. A new book, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop, tells the story of the genre's humble beginnings — from one person behind a few turntables and a microphone — and how it morphed into a way of life, with designer clothing lines, political movements and vast wealth. But in the early days of rap, a lot of the money stayed with the label owners, not with the musicians. Charnas notes that some hip-hop dignitaries railed against "how onerous recording contracts were and how tilted the relationship was between artists and record companies."

“Sometime in the middle to the end of the last decade, BusinessWeek estimated that the hip-hop business had grown to, on the music side, about $1 billion a year, and on the fashion side, $2 billion a year.”

- Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop

“For the first time, black artists were really not only embracing but insisting on their own self-worth.”

- Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop

In December 2010, Jim Farber wrote “'The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop' by Dan Charnas follows the money” for the New York Daily News. The story of hip hop has been told from many points of view, but never from those who've had the strongest power over its destiny. That would be the corporate backers and entrepreneurial enablers, those market forces that finessed a street trend from New York's most embattled neighborhoods into a global phenomenon. Dan Charnas has done a real service to pop history by following the money -- a pursuit which ultimately tells a far larger tale: In hip hop, it seems, cash isn't just a matter of bling. It's the currency that gave this once outsider art -- and by extension, a marginalized race -- a louder, clearer and more important voice all over the world.

“I think Sugar Hill saw themselves as riding out a fad. I don't think they had any particular belief that this was a powerful culture that had staying power. We'd just come off of the disco era, which turned out to be very, very short-lived, and I'm sure that a lot of people, including Sylvia and Joe Robinson, thought that the same would happen to this rap stuff. The difference was that Russell Simmons did not like the records that Sugar Hill was turning out because they didn't sound to him like the hip-hop that lived in the streets and the parks and the clubs, which was very raw, very beat-oriented, and didn't sound like disco at all. And so Russell Simmons' key innovation, when he made Run-D.M.C.'s first record, was to basically order his producer-partner Larry Smith to take out all the music. 'I just want to hear a beat,' he said.”

- Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop

Jay-Z: Decoded

Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper and businessperson. He is one of the most financially successful hip-hop artists and entrepreneurs in America having had a net worth of over $450 million in 2010. He has sold approximately 50 million albums worldwide, while receiving ten Grammy Awards for his musical work, and numerous additional nominations. Jay-Z co-owns The 40/40 Club, is part owner of the NBA's New Jersey Nets and is the creator of the clothing line Rocawear. He is the former CEO of Def Jam Recordings, one of the three founders of Roc-A-Fella Records, and the founder of Roc Nation. As an artist, he holds the record for most number one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard 200. Jay-Z also has had four number ones on the Billboard Hot 100, one as lead artist. Along with his financial and musical success, Jay-Z is known for quarreling with other artists in the rap industry, the most famous feud being between him and fellow New York rapper Nas, which was eventually settled in 2005. He married American R&B superstar Beyoncé Knowles on April 4, 2008. On December 11, 2009, Jay-Z was ranked as the 10th most successful artist of the 2000–2009 decade by Billboard Magazine and ranking as the 5th top solo male artist and as the 4th top rapper behind Eminem, Nelly, and 50 Cent. Source: Wikipedia.



Excerpt (Jay-Z on Bono): The writer had asked me about the U2 record that was about to be released and I said something about the kind of pressure a group like that must be under just to meet their own standard. Bono told me that my quote had really gotten to him. In fact, he said it got him a little anxious. He decided to go back to the studio even though the album was already done and keep reworking it till he thought it was as good as it could possibly be.



Excerpt (Jay-Z on assault charges): People kept giving me the same name as the source of the bootlegging. It was someone I knew, someone I never would have suspected. One night I went to Q-Tip's solo album release party and at some point in the night, I ran into the guy everyone's been telling me is behind the bootleg. So I approached him. When I told him what I suspected, to my surprise, he got real loud with me right there in the middle of the club. It was strange. We separated and I went over to the bar. I was sitting there like, 'No the f--- this n---a did not ... " I was talking to people, but I was really talking to myself out loud, just in a state of shock. Before I even realized what I was doing, I headed back over to him, but this time I was blacking out with anger. The next thing I knew, all hell had broken loose in the club. That night the guy went straight to the police and I was charged with assault.

NPR program Fresh Air with Terry Gross featured the author and book on its program in November, 2010. This is what was said on the feature story's webpage:

Long before he sold 50 million records worldwide — and before he appeared alongside Warren Buffett on the cover of Fortune magazine, accumulated 10 Grammy Awards and became the CEO of his own record label — Jay-Z was living with his mom in the Marcy Houses housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, just trying to survive day by day. "It was a very intense and stressful situation," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day. It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike." Now 40, Jay-Z hasn't forgotten his past — or the lyrics he's written over the years about his childhood in the projects. In his new book, Decoded, he unpacks the detailed riffs and lyrics that make up 36 of his songs — while examining both his own life and the growth of hip-hop over the last two decades.

Mara Shalhoup: BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family

Wikipedia: The Black Mafia Family (BMF), was a drug trafficking organization originally based out of Detroit, Michigan. Started by the Flenory brothers Demetrius and Terry their organization began in the late 1980's; by the year 2000 they had established multi-kilogram cocaine distribution cells in cities throughout the United States. Through their Los Angeles-based drug source, they had direct links to Mexican-based drug cartels.[1] They established two main hubs for their operation; the Atlanta, Georgia hub was operated by older brother Demetrius, while the Los Angeles, California hub was operated by Terry. Around 2000, they began to try to legitimize and enter the Hip-Hop music scene, starting a company called BMF Entertainment. Through BMF Entertainment they helped promote a number of artists, including Young Jeezy, as well as BMF Entertainment's sole artists, Bleu DaVinci. Before their entrance into the music business, they were known to associate with a number of high-profile hip-hop artists, including Jay-Z, Fabolous, and Bun B. In 2005 the Drug Enforcement Administration indicted members of the Black Mafia Family; ultimately securing convictions of running a Continuing Criminal Enterprise against the Flenory brothers. Both would be sentenced to 30 years to life.[2] Subsequent indictments would eventually target over 150 members of the organization. Prosecutors would allege the organization made over $270 million over the course of the conspiracy.

Hip-hop, money and politics are practically inextricable from each other.

In "The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop," author Dan Charnas traces how rap grew from its obscure roots in the ghettos of 1970s New York to its culmination as the world's predominant youth pop culture and a multibillion-dollar industry. The event that epitomized just how far hip-hop had come was the headline-grabbing partnership between the rapper 50 Cent and the upstart beverage company Glaceau, the maker of Vitaminwater. It may well have been the biggest deal in hip-hop history, propelling 50 Cent's personal net worth toward a half-billion dollars. In this excerpt, Charnas outlines how it happened. By the summer of 2003, 50 Cent's debut album, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," had sold more than 5 million copies, and he was easily on his way to becoming a multimillionaire on these sales alone. But the rapper from Queens, who was born Curtis Jackson and had begun his career on the reputation of being shot nine times (a bullet was still lodged in his tongue), wasn't content to remain a recording artist. And his young manager, Chris Lighty, himself a Bronx street kid turned businessman, was well-positioned to exploit 50's stardom by creating multiple income streams. Lighty had come out of the Def Jam fold and managed such stars as Missy Elliott and LL Cool J. With Lighty, 50 Cent created the "G-Unit" brand, including a record company, a clothing company and a sneaker deal with Reebok's RBK line. The G-Unit Clothing Company was a joint-venture deal, with hip-hop-influenced designer Marc Ecko fronting the money, handling the manufacturing and distribution, and splitting the profits fifty-fifty with 50.

Read the full Dan Charnas article out of the Washington Post, here. A Chicago Tribune blog had this to say about the author and book:

Those who lament how money has sucked the creativity out of hip-hop haven’t been paying attention, Charnas argues. He says hip-hop has always been about finding a way to get paid, an art form that was driven by economic aspiration from the get-go, and proud of it (which made it not much different from rock ‘n’ roll). Like blues before it, hip-hop was basically a form of folk music, a community talking to itself through music made with readily available instruments. In the case of hip-hop, those instruments weren’t guitars but turntables and microphones. DJs honed in on key parts of dance records – break beats – and MC’s toasted or rapped over them at parties in parks, clubs and recreation centers. Out of these celebrations in the South Bronx and other destitute areas of New York City an intricate urban culture emerged that also encompassed break-dancing and graffiti art.

Read the Chicago Tribune article, here. Charnas contributed to this list of the biggest deals in hip-hop; see the list here. NPR's All Things Considered recently aired this broadcast on the author, the book, and the topics on the whole. See also: Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--and Why It Matters

"A History Of The 'Big' Business Of Hip-Hop" from NPR Fresh Air

In 1979, producer Sylvia Robinson heard hip-hop music at a birthday party in Harlem and had a hunch that it would be commercially successful. She called her son, Joey Robinson Jr., and asked him to gather a group of musicians who could perform like the rappers she saw in Harlem. She then held makeshift auditions for a rap group outside a pizza parlor in Englewood, N.J. "She put these three guys together who had never met each other before, had the backing track all ready and created a record in a matter of minutes," says Dan Charnas, a former rap industry executive who chronicles the history of hip-hop in a new book, The Big Payback. The group that Robinson put together, Charnas says, would become the Sugarhill Gang, and the track they recorded was "Rapper's Delight," the first hip-hop single to break into the Top 40 charts.

Download the podcast here. Read the full feature here. In the "'The Big Payback': How hip-hop went from penniless outlaw to penthouse mogul", Greg Kot blogged this, for the Chicago Tribune:

About 40 years ago, hip-hop started as a penniless outcast in some of America’s poorest neighborhoods. "Hip-hop is innovation out of necessity, the necessity of being broke," the rapper/producer El-P once said. Today it is a multibillion-dollar industry that transcends cultures and generations and permeates not just the pop music charts, but television, movies, comedy, fashion and product lines ranging from toys to liquor. It’s a classic American story of cultural innovation intertwined with capitalist opportunity, a tale of music creating a community which in turn attracted maverick investors who then were swallowed by corporations. The transformation bred multi-media stars, moguls and celebrities such as Jay-Z and Eminem. Author Dan Charnas tenaciously follows the money trail in “The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-hop” (New American Librarian), which celebrates hip-hop even as it details the backroom deals and marketing strategies that contributed to its explosive growth.

Read that blog post and article here. See also: Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture, Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside the USA (Music Culture)The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop (Music Culture), Hip Hop Business Advisor, Rap Rich - How to Make Money in Hip Hop Business

Dan Charnas on the History of Hip Hop as a Business from The Takeaway: Early Edition by feedback@thetakeaway.org (Public Radio International and WNYC Radio)

It may seem like just yesterday that you first heard The Sugar Hill Gang or Run DMC, but the hip hop business is pushing forty. For many of the years that hip hop has been around, Dan Charnas has been working in the business - as a scout, a promoter, and a journalist. Dan is the author of a new book called “The Big Payback: the History of the Business of Hip Hop.” Charnas walks us through some pivotal moments in the hip hop business, and how those moments have informed our culture and the entertainment industry. We also speak with Doc Ice, longtime member of of Whodini and U.T.F.O, who weighs in on how the music business has changed over the last decades.

Download the podcast here. See also: Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement

The Fresh Air Interview: Jay-Z 'Decoded' from NPR Podcast Fresh Air

Long before he sold 50 million records worldwide — and before he appeared alongside Warren Buffett on the cover of Fortune magazine, accumulated 10 Grammy Awards and became the CEO of his own record label — Jay-Z was living with his mom in the Marcy Houses housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, just trying to survive day by day. "It was a very intense and stressful situation," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day. It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike."

Download the podcast here. See the full NPR Fresh Air feature here. See also: The Hits Collection, Vol. 1, Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Office

Anthologizing Rap from WNYC's Soundcheck by listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio)

Rap music has given to pop culture some of its most compelling modern lyricists, yet for years the main resource for lyrics has been online. Now a major publisher has anthologized a book of lyrics. Today: rapping about this new textbook. Also: our Smackdown series taps into the competitive nature of hip-hop and pits the rhymes of two MCs -- Kanye West and Pusha T -- against each other. Later: Composer and pianist Anton Batagov finds connections between Eastern and Western cultures. He performs in the studio.

Download the podcast here. Check the full feature story out here. See also: Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, Decoded, One of the Last Great Poets Standing: Could Rap Be Poetry?

Invincible from APM: The Story

The rapper Invincible recently lobbied successfully for MTV-U to air her independent video, Ropes. The song is controversial because it deals with suicide and depression. Invincible once seemed poised to “make it” in the record industry in the Big Apple. She was offered the chance to stand on stage next to Madonna. Instead, she chose to go back to Detroit and rap about tough social issues that matter to her. PERSONAL POLITICS: THE POLLS Political analysts are still tallying up what the changes in this past week's election will mean for all of us. We asked listeners to call in with stories of how participating in the electoral process can make a difference personally. Today, two stories, both from young voters.

Read the full story here. Listen to the podcast here. Download the podcast here. See also: Shapeshifters, Her MySpace Page

Advertising: Find Jay-Z’s Memoir at a Bookstore, or on a Billboard from NYT > Books by By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

PRINT advertising by publishing houses tends to boast about books that are being bold and original, but that can seldom be said of the ads themselves, which generally consist of ho-hum photographs of the book and author, a brief description of the subject matter and laudatory blurbs. Pages of Jay-Z’s memoir will be reproduced in public areas around the country and beyond. But a new campaign for “Decoded,” the memoir by the hip-hop performer Jay-Z, promises to be a real head-turner. Beginning Monday, reproductions of entire pages of the book will appear unannounced in locales referred to in those pages. “If in certain pages Jay-Z is talking about something related to Times Square, then those pages might be on billboards in Times Square,” said David Droga, creative chairman Droga5, the New York agency heading the campaign. Mr. Droga declined to reveal locations beforehand (including the veracity of the Times Square example), but did describe the campaign in oblique terms.

So, we all can't wait for the web marketers, IM'ers, SEO'ers to make their way out to the brick and mortar world this way. Read the full NYT story here.