From Booklist
This homage to street entrepreneurship focuses on accumulating bling, stock options, marketing, and the amassing of personal fortunes via heady business dealings rather than musical breakthroughs. Perhaps that's how the overculture finally comes to grips with rap's meteoric rise to the top of the charts. Oliver and Leffel more-or-less chronologically recap how the rap business evolved, and they tell the success stories of the likes of he who was once known as Sean Combs and multimillionaire Russell Simmons. Their disquisition on the arc of Percy "Master P" Miller's under-the-radar success story is perhaps particularly enlightening for budding Horatio Algers of urban music. These performers became wealthy marketing their once-underground music and its myriad offshoots and commercial tie-ins, employing business finesse rather than the strong-arm tactics famously applied to managing the talent. Engrossing and vital in a be-all-you-can-be sense, this is a unique take on a huge sector of the pop-music industry.
Mike TribbyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
At the heart of hip-hopthe most vigorous, electric development in the music world since the advent of punk rockare its brilliant entrepreneurs. Some have demonstrated business instinct and marketing savvy that would make many Fortune 500 CEOs envious. Hip-hop and the moguls behind it are a force to be reckoned with. These larger-than-life figures, the elite of hip-hop, have prospered through a combination of old-fashioned business savvy, shrewd marketing, and constant commercial reinvention. Over the past decade, their collective net worth has grown upwards of $1 billion. Hip Hop, Inc. reveals the secrets of success that can be applied to virtually any other business. It illustrates these secrets by telling the never-before-told stories of the most successful of the rap elite and, through extensive interviews, lets the advice flow from the millionaires themselves.