The Tanning of America Read Free Page A

opportunities to be seized in the cosmos of corporate marketing, but it was also an even bigger eye-opener for the corporate marketers. That said, I don’t think anyone knew what the alignment of the two forces that had officially commenced that July of 1986 was going to do to accelerate the tanning effect and alter the landscape of America—racially, socially, politically, and especially economically. It’s even more doubtful that anyone envisioned the extent to which hip-hop would take root—as a culture and a mind-set—for the younger generations it drew into its fold, becoming a way of life and, moreover, for all intents and purposes a religion.
    As for me, it wasn’t until November 2008—more than two decades after Run-DMC blasted off into pop culture history in their sneakers—that I grasped the personal significance of the momentous concert at Madison Square Garden. The relevance to my life and career finally dawned on me in the midst of a very memorable occasion—on November 18, 2008, to be precise—during a gala luncheon at Cipriani in midtown Manhattan where I was being inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Achievement. As I sat at a table surrounded by some of my most important influences—including my parents—it occurred to me that if not for the wheels set into motion by “My Adidas,” I might not have been sitting there at all.
    At thirty-eight years old, as a relative newcomer to the advertising business, I was more surprised by the honor than just about anyone—that is, maybe, except for my father. After watching me switch in and out of five different colleges (without graduating) and try my hand at a series of occupations, he had every reason to think that I was never going to settle into a career.
    Nothing had really changed his mind during the 1990s. Those were the years of my twenties, when I was working my way up in the music business. After starting out as a roadie-turned-road-manager for the rap duo Kid ’n Play, I launched my own company as an artists’ manager and producer, overseeing the careers of artists like Nas and Mary J. Blige, before going on to head up a record division at Sony Records and ultimately being made president of urban music at Interscope/Geffen/A&M Records. The universe of hip-hop was expanding exponentially in those days and for me it was like being at the forefront of the action when the wild, wild west was won—while being in the mix with everyone from Jay-Z to Sean “Puffy” Combs, from Mariah Carey and Will Smith to Dr. Dre and Eminem, to name a few.
    For the Queens teenager in me who grew up taping rap music on pirate radio at two in the morning, to have risen to the heights of the music industry as an executive, not even thirty years old, with a Grammy and an American Music Award as icing on the cake, I was living a dream come true. Not that it was all glory. From without and within, obstacles abounded.
    Even in these big boom years for hip-hop, most of the major record labels had no idea how to market the music, much less understand the culture. Many powerbrokers—like the head of the record label at Sony, Don Ienner, who was known to have dropped both Alicia Keys and 50 Cent from their first label—seemed to uphold the status quo that continued to view black music, in general, as appealing mainly to African-American audiences ; rap continued to be seen by the industry as viable only with a subgroup of that niche demographic. As a result, for much of the nineties, getting radio play and music videos on TV had been a daily battle royale.
    But against the odds and sometimes in spite of itself, rap and hip-hop culture couldn’t and wouldn’t be stopped. Incredibly, by the end of 1999 it was determined that rap music had outsold country music for the year. Crazy! The craziest part wasn’t just the sales figures but where they were being generated: in