Jay-Z has released more No. 1 albums in his career than any other solo artist– eleven, to be exact. He hasn’t released a new record yet this year, but he’s been very active on the business front. Recent announcements include a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell, a summer tour with Justin Timberlake and the launch of Roc Nation Sports, with Robinson Cano as its first client.
Today, the hit parade continues. Universal Music Group announced a global partnership with Roc Nation, the label Jay-Z founded in 2008 as part of a $150 million deal with concert promoter Live Nation. The world’s largest record company lured the hip-hop mogul away from Sony Music, which had been distributing Roc Nation’s releases previously.
“This agreement presents a unique opportunity for Roc Nation’s artists—being able to continue to operate as an independent label with the strength, power and reach of the best major,” said Jay-Z in a statement. “I look forward to a long and prosperous collaboration with UMG.”
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Jay-Z welcomes a new member into the Roc Nation family. Earlier today it was announced that world champion Robinson Cano, second baseman of the New York Yankees signed to Jay-Z’s latest venture, Roc Nation Sports. Life and Times reports:
“Because of my love of sports, it was a natural progression to form a company where we can help top athletes in various sports the same way we have been helping artists in the music industry for years,” says Shawn “JAY Z” Carter about the new venture.
The Yankee Slugger also told the press he is ready to take control of his career, and this move makes that possible.
“At this point in my career, I am ready to take a more active role in my endeavors both on and off the field,” said Cano. “I am confident that the pairing of Roc Nation Sports and CAA Sports will be essential in helping me accomplish my short- and long-term goals. I am making this important decision now so I can keep my focus on helping the Yankees succeed in 2013, while minimizing any distractions for me and my teammates.”
article by BlogXilla via globalgrind.com
Sean “Diddy” Combs ranks No. 1 on this year’s Forbes Five, the magazine’s list of hip-hop’s wealthiest artists, with an estimated net worth of $580 million.
The bulk of the Bad Boy Records founder’s wealth comes from non-musical ventures, namely his deal with Diageo’s Ciroc. The agreement entitles him to eight-figure annual payouts and a nine-figure windfall if the brand is ever sold—and Ciroc’s value has never been higher.
“It is one of the fastest-growing brands within vodka,” says Jack Russo, an equity analyst at Edward Jones & Co. “Consumers are feeling a little bit better about their situation, and with that, they’re willing to spend more on premium products.”
The No. 2 spot goes to Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, with a net worth of $475 million. He’s still rolling in cash from megadeals like his $204 million Rocawear sale in 2007 and his $150 million pact with Live Nation the following year. He continues to hold stakes in Roc Nation, Carol’s Daughter, the Brooklyn Nets—and, more significantly, the Barclays Center itself—while adding new partnerships with the likes of Duracell, Budweiser and Bacardi’s D’ussé Cognac.
Andre “Dr. Dre” Young ranks third with $350 million, thanks mostly to his Beats by Dr. Dre headphones. A year after selling 51% of the company to handset maker HTC for $300 million in August 2011, Dre and his partners bought back half of the half they sold in 2012—and their investment continues to soar in value due to Beats’ whopping 65% market share of the premium ($99 and up) headphone market.
This Black History Month, NewsOne takes a look back at the top African-American moments from 2000 to 2012. Some will make you happy while others will undoubtedly make you angry and/or sad. Either way, here’s to the last 12 years of our living history. Enjoy!
Moment: Bob Johnson Becomes First African-American Billionaire
Bob Johnson, founder and former chairman and executive chief officer of Black Entertainment Television (BET), is noted as the first African-American billionaire. Johnson built the BET network and brand with ex-wife, Shelia Johnson, and then later took the company public.
After buying back all of the publicly traded stock, Johnson sold BET to Viacom for $3 billion. The move landed Johnson in “Forbes” magazine as the first Black American to be listed as one of the world’s top earners.
Another of Johnson’s many business achievements is becoming the first principal owner of a North American major-league sports franchise. The Charlotte Bobcats and its WNBA counterpart, the Sting, were owned primarily by Johnson’s investment group, which included former NBA superstar Michael Jordan. Johnson continues to make waves in the business world with his RLJ Companies brand and media investments.
article by D.L. Chandler via newsone.com
Wide open spaces: Projects like the one in Nanyuki could let people in the more remote areas connect to the internet
Beatrice Nderango is the headmistress of Gakawa Secondary School, which lies about 10km from Nanyuki, a market town in Kenya’s rift valley, not far from the Mount Kenya national park. The school is situated in a village that has no phone line and no electricity. The people that live here are mostly subsistence farmers.
“We don’t really have a cash crop, but the farmers do a bit of farming,” says Mrs Nderango. “They grow potatoes, a little bit of maize, but we don’t do well in maize because of the wild animals. They invade the farms.”
Although Kenya has fibre optic broadband thanks to the Seacom cable, most of rural Kenya is not connected and until now getting online would mean traveling to town.
But all of this is changing, thanks to technology that uses the unused parts of the wireless spectrum that is set aside for television broadcasters – the white spaces.
The project is part of the 4Afrika Initiative, an investment program being announced by technology giant Microsoft, that also includes a new Windows Phone 8 smartphone for the region and investment in help for small businesses on the continent, and in education and internships.
Every year, The Root embarks on a nationwide search for 25 of the brightest African-American innovators between the ages of 16 and 22 for its annual Young Futurists list. The Root looks for students and recent graduates who are making waves in the fields of business, green innovation, social activism, science and the arts and who use their talents to make the world a better place.
“We’re helping to shape a change in culture about what young people can and cannot do,” explains Charles Orgbon, a 16-year-old futurist from Dacula, Ga., who founded the environmental organization Greening Forward. “With the right support, young people can do anything.”
The young men and women who make up the 2013 class represent the true promise of our country’s future. There’s Michael Tubbs, a 22-year-old Stanford University graduate who ran for his hometown of Stockton, Calif.’s City Council — and won — after seeing his cousin fall victim to youth violence. And Trinity Russell, a high schooler from Long Island, N.Y., who discovered key behavioral differences between laboratory-raised and wild fruit flies; her findings have major implications for researchers who use the insects in their experiments. Or Thekia Cheeseborough, a Spelman College student from Jacksonville, Fla., who, inspired by the struggles of her own young parents, created a program that connects teen moms to academic and career resources.
Every day in February, we will highlight a different futurist. Check The Root’s home page daily to learn more, and click here to see the full list of 2013 Young Futurists.
article via theroot.com
Advertising and marketing trade publication Advertising Age announced its 2013 Agency A-List honors this week, highlighting a black advertising CEO as its Executive of the Year. Steve Stoute, CEO of Translation, is a partner with Jay-Z for the agency, which launched first as a multicultural firm but now serves as a general market agency.
Stoute came from the entertainment world, if you couldn’t tell based on his ad agency partner, working with Sony Music Entertainment and Interscope Geffen A&M Records. His connections in the entertainment industry are appealing to his clients, which include State Farm, A-B InBev, McDonald’s, and Coca-Cola. Transitions was also behind the marketing campaign to introduce the Brooklyn Nets basketball team.
Entertainment is a hot industry, but Stoute told Ad Age that there’s more to it than that. “…I think our strategy department is the best in the industry,” he said. “The thinking in our agency never gets the credit it deserves because we have a celebrity. We are first and foremost a strategic and creative shop. And second, we have a Rolodex in entertainment and sports that’s unique in the industry.”
Elsewhere on AdAge’s list, LatinWorks, a Hispanic-focused shop, was honored as multicultural agency of the year, and the number three advertising agency, Grey, has Michael Houston serving as managing director and CMO.
Read more at http://madamenoire.com/259579/ad-age-honors-black-ceo-as-exec-of-the-year/#a2gHhHY3ohZxcBVd.99
Last Tuesday afternoon, Oprah Winfrey called the co-presidents of her cable channel OWN with some jump-on-the-couch-with-joy news. “Lance wants to talk,” she said, referring to Lance Armstrong, whom she had been courting for a confessional interview about his long-denied use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Ms. Winfrey conferred with the co-presidents, Erik Logan and Sheri Salata, about booking a trip to Mr. Armstrong’s hometown, Austin, Tex., reserving airtime for Thursday night and announcing the “get” to the press.
What no one said on the call was that this interview — maybe Ms. Winfrey’s biggest since her 1993 sit-down with Michael Jackson — could be a turning point for OWN, which has been low-rated since its birth two years ago.
Another turning point — perhaps even bigger — came this month when OWN started to pocket substantial per-subscriber fees from some of the biggest cable and satellite operators in the country.
Some of these deals were made before OWN even had its premiere. The operators agreed to pay just a penny or two per subscriber a month until January 2013, and then start paying nearly 20 cents a month on average, according to people with direct knowledge of the deals who asked for anonymity because the details were confidential. The fees increase over a span of several years.
Multiply those dimes and quarters across most of the 83 million homes in which OWN is available (but not all — at least one deal is still pending) and the value for Ms. Winfrey and Discovery Communications is plain. Discovery, OWN’s other owner, has said that the channel will turn a profit for the first time in the second half of 2013. Discovery has invested more than $400 million to date.
As a 12-year-old girl emigrating to America from Ghana, Sandra Appiah’s (pictured) background was certainly vulnerable to xenophobia.
And when she began high school, such attacks did come her way. But not from whom one might expect. “A lot of the comments I was receiving were from African Americans or a lot of the discrimination [came] from African Americans,” the 23-year-old noted about her teenage years in the Bronx.
“Every time we did something wrong, it was, ‘Oh, go back to Africa,’ or, ‘Oh, go back to the jungle.’ ‘You’re an African booty scratcher,’ or, ‘You stink,’ or, ‘You live in trees,’ or things like that. I had no idea where these ideas were coming from, because I remember in Africa I was a very happy child growing up.”
Eventually, Appiah discovered the reason for all the animosity from people she shared skin colors with. “CNN, PBS, all these documentaries, this is how they portray Africa,” Appiah continues. “So in their [African-Americans’] mind-set, this is the only way they know Africa to be.”
Rather than just accept this, though, Appiah knew she had to take action, co-founding a company called “Face 2 Face Africa” in March 2011.
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HONOLULU (AP) — President Barack Obama has signed a bill that boosts taxes on the wealthiest Americans, while preserving tax cuts for most American households.
The bill, which averts a looming fiscal cliff that had threatened to plunge the nation back into recession, also extends expiring jobless benefits, prevents cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors and delays for two months billions of dollars in across-the-board spending cuts in defense and domestic programs.
The Republican-run House approved the measure by a 257-167 vote late Tuesday, nearly 24 hours after the Democratic-led Senate passed it 89-8. Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii, signed the bill using an autopen, a mechanical device that copies his signature.
article by The Associated Press via thegrio.com