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17 reviews for:
Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner to Corner Office
Zack O'Malley Greenburg
3.25 AVERAGE
17 reviews for:
Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner to Corner Office
Zack O'Malley Greenburg
3.25 AVERAGE
2.5 stars. Interesting enough. Jayz is clearly talented and intelligent. The fact that it's unauthorized adds an interesting element to the book.
Very intriguing look into Jay Z’s business aspects. It is beyond seeing him as a rapper or entertainer but that he is always moving forward. He takes risks, and he is successful on a different level than just getting out the projects. He uses his gifts and talents to the utmost and never settles. Definitely a must read for people curious to see how a man started selling drugs to becoming worth 1B dollars.
The second the author said Jay-Z didn't endorse this book, I stopped reading. I mean come on.... how you gone tell someone else story and they don't approve? I mean the actual person is still living and they like “Naw, you can’t get no comment”. So then I have to question who is your source for the autobiography? The answer is heresay and third parties. The credentials of being a Forbes writer is impressive but not enough for me. You will never know the true story. Closing the book on this one. No thanks.
He is a great person, but it was simply a biography without much insight about Jay Z
3.5 stars
This is a fairly decent biography of hip hop mogul, Jay Z. Born Shaun Carter and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Carter showed remarkable intellect and sharp entrepreneurial gifts from an early age.
Sadly (or maybe not so much), his abilities took him to the streets where he scored success selling drugs. At the same time, he developed a bit of a name in his high school as a talented freestyle rapper.
His musical talent was too conspicuous to ignore and he was soon invited to do features on the songs of several New York based rappers. It was only at 26 (late for the rap game) and after much deliberation about whether or not to quit selling drugs, that Jay recorded and released his first solo rap album. The rest is history, to borrow that awful phrase.
The rest of the book tells of how Jay Z has exploited his musical and business abilities to build an empire that is now estimated at a billion dollars, at the time I'm writing this.
It's certainly an intriguing and inspiring story but the book suffers from 2 main flaws in my opinion. Firstly, there was no input from the man himself - who, understandably, is probably difficult to tie down to doing a project like this. As a result though, it sounds like most of the information is secondary data.
Second, and not unrelated, the book doesn't really offer any insight that isn't already in the public domain. You could just as well read a long form article and get all this.
Nonetheless, this was an enjoyable read - except that one chapter about Carter's investments in champagne that sounded more like very bad investigative journalism than biographical writing - and well worth the time.
This is a fairly decent biography of hip hop mogul, Jay Z. Born Shaun Carter and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Carter showed remarkable intellect and sharp entrepreneurial gifts from an early age.
Sadly (or maybe not so much), his abilities took him to the streets where he scored success selling drugs. At the same time, he developed a bit of a name in his high school as a talented freestyle rapper.
His musical talent was too conspicuous to ignore and he was soon invited to do features on the songs of several New York based rappers. It was only at 26 (late for the rap game) and after much deliberation about whether or not to quit selling drugs, that Jay recorded and released his first solo rap album. The rest is history, to borrow that awful phrase.
The rest of the book tells of how Jay Z has exploited his musical and business abilities to build an empire that is now estimated at a billion dollars, at the time I'm writing this.
It's certainly an intriguing and inspiring story but the book suffers from 2 main flaws in my opinion. Firstly, there was no input from the man himself - who, understandably, is probably difficult to tie down to doing a project like this. As a result though, it sounds like most of the information is secondary data.
Second, and not unrelated, the book doesn't really offer any insight that isn't already in the public domain. You could just as well read a long form article and get all this.
Nonetheless, this was an enjoyable read - except that one chapter about Carter's investments in champagne that sounded more like very bad investigative journalism than biographical writing - and well worth the time.