What We Can Learn From Jay-Z
5 lessons from the most powerful man in hip-hop…
“I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me,” rapped Jay-Z on his 2002 album, The Blueprint 2. I was eleven, and that’s when I knew Jay-Z, the epitome of self-confidence and success, personified, would be my new role model.
There is a bit of humor in that statement — I am a white girl from a town that has several times been named one of the most affluent in America; unlike the rapper, it’s safe to say Marcy didn’t raise me. I have never seen “the streets,” I have never sold drugs, I have never done anything that built Hova into the man and cultural icon he became. That is the curious thing about Jay; I find songs like “On to the Next One” and “U Don’t Know” to be extraordinarily relatable, but why?
1. He exudes confidence.
In my high school days, I was corrected and told he exuded swag. Either way, there is no denying the man’s music will have you feeling some type of way. Jay-Z preaches self-assuredness like it’s going out of style. He sports a positive self-image, and causes listeners to do the same. On his song “A Dream,” he says, “remind yourself, nobody built like you, you design yourself.” Does that not sound like something your grandmother would tell you, but slightly hipper, so you’ll actually listen.
2. He will encourage you to stop worrying about what people think of you.
With the help of mid-2000’s Jay-Z, I not only tuned out bullies on the bus home from middle school, but realized I shouldn’t care what they had to say anyway. Jay has zero bothers to give about what you think about him, and we should all be so lucky to feel the same way. On the Blueprint 3, he said, “if y’all can’t already see, I ain’t worried about y’all ’cause I’m already me…” I have spent a lot of time concerned with how other people see me, if other people like me, why do other people think I am (insert every adjective in the book), and the odds are good that you have too.
Let’s get over it together, and remember that we are who we are and f*ck anyone who has a problem with that. In the wise words of Hov, “either love me or leave me alone.”
3. He has an entrepreneurial spirit and a business mind.
“I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man,” he said on the Diamonds from Sierra Leone remix, and I say on a weekly basis. Jay-Z has been rapping since he was a child, but went unsigned for a long time. To remedy that, he sold his CD’s out of his car, and at 26, started his own record label — the infamous Roc-A-Fella Records. He has since been involved in several ventures, from becoming an owner of the Nets and bringing them to Barclay Center, to his recent announcement that he is launching a venture capital fund that will assist early entrepreneurs in achieving success.
“All I got is dreams. Nobody else believes. Nobody else can see. Nobody else but me.” If that isn’t the mantra of every entrepreneur, especially those who are budding, what is. The fact of the matter is, the dude went from hustling on the street corner to the corner office, and that is a come up we can all admire.
4. He will get you to believe in yourself.
It is human nature to lose belief in ourselves, at some point. It impacts some of us more than others, but we all have felt it at least once in our lives, and Jay has a knack for appealing to that. In fact, he is so good at it that this whole section could be his lyrics. Jay-Z came from the bottom; he grew up in one of the roughest neighborhood’s in Brooklyn — Bedstuy, sold crack at a young age, and tried his hardest to escape a place that often saw it’s young men killed or locked up. If he could believe in himself, and maintain his positivity, why can’t you? “Everything evens up, you just wait. Even a garbage can gets a steak. You ain’t even a garbage can, you have faith.” Keep going, you’ll get your steak.
5. His salesmanship is top notch.
Maybe I am biased because I’m a saleswoman, but Hova is a sales force to be reckoned with. He sold himself to people who had no idea who he was. He sold his music to fans across different cultures, from the inner-cities of New York to the affluent suburbs of Washington, D.C. And likely the biggest deal he has closed, he sold marriage to Beyoncé.
Who else but a sales genius could rap the words, “put me anywhere on God’s green Earth, I’ll triple my worth” and “I sell ice in the winter. I sell fire in hell. I am a hustler, baby, I sell water to a well” in the same song, and not feel obnoxious. The song stays on repeat because it forces me to work hard enough to be able to say things like that — his closing line, “I will not lose” has been adopted as my life mantra, and I urge all closers to do the same.
The bottom line is…
A man who said, “those who are successful overcome their fears and take action. Those who aren’t submit to their fears and live with regrets” can teach us all a lot, whether you enjoy his music or not. #BeLikeJay