How to be a better data scientist… by being Jay-Z
I dreamed of being a hip-hop artist for all my adolescent life. It consumed my entire world, from how I dressed, how I articulated words, what I spoke about, and, obviously, what I stored on my one-gigabyte MP3 player (remember those?). You could have called me a “hip-hop head.”
My creativity fueled my passion. In sixth grade, I unveiled “Big E. Phat Productions” — a production company with a graffiti-inspired logo that never saw placement on an album. In twelfth grade, my uncle helped me construct a sound booth that occupied half my room. I recorded only one song.
You can probably guess that I did not make it big — but a couple of my recorded songs are out on SoundCloud if you’re ever curious.
Hip-hop culture continued to influence me, with Jay-Z as one of its most significant artists, as I successfully followed a different dream of becoming a data scientist. Not only did Jay-Z master the art of being an MC, but he also successfully extended his prominence into other business ventures. In a similar way, I would pursue data science in a variety of ways, which would help me to see there are lots of learnings a data scientist like me can derive from Jay-Z’s music (but maybe not every song) and life.
