The Best Way to Predict the Future...
New York is to urban culture what Silicon Valley is to technology. As the birthplace of Hip-Hop music, it has traditionally served as the epicenter for innovation and inspiration within urban culture. New York’s pace and competitive street dynamics also foster creativity, ingenuity, and a hustler’s ambition among the urban culture “software developers” to come up with the “killer app” for the culture.
That can be a new artist, a new dance, a new drink, or a new brand. Later I’ll discuss the role these urban culture “software developers” play in overall marketing schemes. Much like the Internet start-ups that were born out of and led by a new generation of avant garde, “techpreneurs” who were products of the Silicon Valley culture and not classically trained business schools, the “Hip-Hopreneurs” who profited most from the urban marketing boom were the Generation X urban culture “software developers” such as Jay-Z, Sean “Puffy” Combs, Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, Jermaine Dupri, and Master P who married their passion for Hip-Hop music and lifestyle with street-level business instincts.
These artists leveraged their understanding of what drove the culture as former users and consumers. They designed the very “programs and applications” corporate America was profiting from to start their own companies and command more equitable partnerships with the “hardware manufacturers” representing the record companies, fashion brands, television networks, and Hollywood studios.
Thus, instead of adopting an apparel brand, wearing it in their videos and generating huge profits for someone else, they launched “insider” brands like Rocawear and Sean John that provided products that reflected the desired fi t and look for the urban consumer. Then they licensed it to retailers for distribution to the masses. The marketing and advertising of these brands was also more reflective of the cultural and lifestyle nuances that corporate America could never replicate.
Of course, Hip-Hop music was the prevailing software in the culture. The urban marketing boom of the late 1990s and early 2000’s saw a steady stream of independent record labels launched by these Hip-Hopreneurs who signed lucrative distribution deals with the music industry mainframe to reach a broader, mass market audience such as Bad Boy Records (P. Diddy), Roc-A-Fella (Jay-Z) No Limit Records (Master P), So So Def (Jermaine Dupri), and Death Row Records. Death Row Records founder Suge Knight took the Bill Gates approach by owning all of his label’s masters and commanding even greater licensing and publishing fees.
These innovators were, in large part, building off a blueprint established by the godfather of Hip-Hop, Russell Simmons. He pioneered the way from the streets to the boardrooms by turning Def Jam records into a brand portfolio encompassing music, fashion, technology, and TV. Like Russell, these Hip-Hopreneurs eventually mastered the art of designing their software and content to run across multiple platforms. Their clothing brands showed up in the music videos they began directing and even the movies they wrote, produced, directed and appeared in and they licensed their brands to mobile phones.
Hip-Hop Quotable
Far from a Harvard student,
Just had the balls to do it.
- Jay-Z, “What More Can I Say”
As a demonstration of the bona fide, measurable impact Hip-Hop culture and these entrepreneurs were making on the economy, in 2003, a BusinessWeek cover story examined Hip-Hop’s influence on corporate America and dubbing Russell the CEO of Hip-Hop. In that same article I sounded the alarm for marketers that the urban market had formed a critical mass and was the new mainstream general market. The floodgates were opened on Madison Avenue as everything Hip-Hop touched was beginning to turn gold. Not only was the Big Apple ripe with opportunity, but also it provided a laboratory for clinical observation of urban consumer behavior that supported my philosophy of applying consumer insights in real-time and helping brands generate products and marketing born out of an authentic consumer experience.
Data from the 2000 Census revealed shifting demographic patterns that were presenting a new set of challenges for marketers who could no longer ignore the growth of multicultural populations in theUnited States. Our vision for Edelman’s Diversity Marketing practice to establish a boutique specialty across a general market agency’s U.S. office network was right on time. In addition to work for Fortune 500 clients such as Absolut, Home Depot, Pfi zer, and Nissan, my sports marketing experience led to us managing Wrigley’s Doublemint on its partnership with Venus and Serena Williams.
