“It doesn’t matter what you know if you can’t teach it.”—Mike Holmgren
SHAWN “JAY Z” CARTER
Shawn Carter, popularly known as Jay Z, burst into the limelight with his 1996 debut album Reasonable Doubt. Since then, he has released twenty-three studio albums, including collaborative albums with other artists such as Kanye West, Beyoncé, and more. What’s even more impressive is that Jay Z built an empire of his brands spread across several industries. He founded Rocawear, a fashion retailer, Tidal, a music streaming service, Roc Nation, an entertainment agency, and Monogram, a line of cannabis products, to name a few. In 2019, Jay Z’s business acumen solidified him in music history as the first hip-hop billionaire.
A critical part of his success, in his own words, was mentorship. Jay Z’s first mentor was Jaz-O, also known as The Originator. He showed him the inner workings of the music industry and gave him his first big break. At each major milestone of his meteoric rise to power, Jay Z lea…