I’ve seen and heard some truly ridiculous things while interviewing rappers. There was the time 2 Chainz refused to go anywhere if he wasn’t attached to a segway; and the time Danny Brown walked out of an interview after a falling out about a divisive savoury snack. There was Rick Ross’s stories about an iguana-flinging feud with John McEnroe; and the time Future told me how he could create a song by using nothing more than the hum of an air-conditioning unit.
While these stories were playing out there was almost always someone, usually a well-dress gentleman looking decidedly un-hip-hop in a corner, calling the artist “baby!” and making sure the wheels didn’t come off completely. A manager or a self-styled mogul, someone with gravitas and an understanding of “the bigger picture”, who could code switch effortlessly and remain unflappable in the face of a 30-strong entourage with the munchies. In hip-hop few people have been more adept at filling that role than Lyor Cohen.
The man who co-founded Def Jam with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin, and played a part in the rise or comeback of everyone from the Beastie Boys and Jay Z to Kanye West and (oddly enough) Jon Bon Jovi, was the subject of CNBC’s Follow the Leader show on Wednesday night, which spends 48 hours with a successful business person to try and glean their secrets.
Host Farnoosh Torabi trails our man and breaks down exactly why he’s so effective with handy little bullet points (1. GET HANDS DIRTY. STAY CURRENT 2. BE FEARLESS. BE UNWAVERING 3. EMBRACE CHANGE 4. MAXIMISE ALL YOUR ASSETS). It’s all common sense stuff, and also serves as sound advice for Game of Thrones characters who want to live to see the start of season seven.
Cohen’s latest venture is 300 Entertainment which he’s trying to establish as a respected breeding ground of new hip-hop talent. He’s created something called the “dashboard”, which sounds like a device Skynet might cook up if it was into the oeuvre of Lil B or OJ Da Juiceman. (It’s a piece of software which monitors unsigned hip-hop acts and sees how well their tracks are doing, allowing them to gobble up any promising talent.)
The talent he’s working with most at the moment is the taciturn hit-maker Young Thug. There’s just one problem: Old Thugger doesn’t like doing interviews. He hates them, in fact. He is also incredibly prolific, a trait which got him to where he is, but is also now holding him back, according to Cohen.
“You’ve got to make songs,” he implores. “I know you can make songs!”. We know that as well because Cohen’s just spent about five minutes explaining how he makes too many songs. On the subject of Thug’s reluctance to be interviewed he quotes Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule, which doesn’t seem to quite hit home, so he switches tact and talks about cold, hard cash.
“Right now Kanye’s making $1m per show!” he shouts, probably before Kanye declared he’d got himself into $53m of debt putting on such live events. “How much you making, son?” he quizzes Young Thug, who responds with a shirty “Fifty fucking thousand!”, which isn’t a sum to be sniffed at either. There’s a stony silence in the room but things are calmer when the pair go for a tour of Spotify, YouTube and Sirius XM.
At Spotify we learn how despite the fact the music industry has lost around 60% of its profits in the last decade, Cohen is EMBRACING CHANGE. Young Thug’s top five tracks on Spotify clocked up 58,725,741 streams collectively. At a rate of half a penny per play that means they’re worth a total of $293,628.70 for Cohen and 300 Entertainment.
But Cohen’s true machiavellian powers are revealed when he convinces Young Thug to him let label mate and Aussie crooner Conrad Sewell guest on his track. “I’ll do it for you,” he says, sounding slightly unconvinced while listening to the song in an SUV. It might not be as impressive as travelling exclusively by Segway, but it’s bloody good business.
