The students in my MANAGEMENT class are enthralled by my stories of Sugar Hill Records and Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC’s crossover breakthrough on MTV, the marketing of gangsta rap, and the rise of multi-millionaire rappers like Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs. My stories are all based on The Big Payback with its almost Harvard Business School case-study approach to the business of hip-hop. Charnas covers four decades of the growth of hip-hop from the street corner to the board room. Plenty of double-dealing, violence, and deception surround these stories. If you even have a mild interest in this subject, Dan Charnas’ book is the mother-lode. GRADE: A
I have this book on my TBR list, but I’m wondering if it is in any way similar to a book published to much less fanfare in 2007: OTHER PEOPLE’S PROPERTY: A SHADOW HISTORY OF HIP-HOP IN WHITE AMERICA by Jason Tanz. A side-by-side comparison might be interesting since they both cover some of the same terrain.
I hadn’t heard of OTHER PEOPLE’S PROPERTY, Deb. I’ll track it down and see how it compares with THE BIG PAYBACK.
George, one hopes you’re not the Suge Knight of management professors. Of course, dangling underachieving students out the window might be a useful motivation tool.
Suge Knight gets plenty of ink in THE BIG PAYBACK, Drongo. The whole thug ethos is explored in detail.
Great to be able to find a book they relate to. Half the battle.
The sad thing is that when I suggested to my students that they pick up THE BIG PAYBACK at the BUFFALO-ERIE COUNTY LIBRARY just a few blocks away from my College, Patti, many of the students were totally confused. No one had showed them how to use a Public Library. They didn’t know about library cards. We had a lively discussion about that!
Has the music business – to the publishers and sellers – ever been about anything but money? Nope. I really can’t stand hip-hop, gansta rap or any of it’s ilk, so no thanks, though I’m sure I’d learn something, just not anything I want to know. Guess I have my head in the sand today.
The business principles in THE BIG PAYBACK show how the music business works today, Rick. It’s not pretty.
I bet they know how to use public libraries in China.
We should all be grateful for parents who dragged us down to the local library, got us a card, and then encouraged us to use them.
Many of my students come from broken homes, Drongo. Where Chinese parents make sure their kids are doing their homework, many of my students grew up in a parental vacuum. I do what I can to fill a small fraction of that void.
Fact is, I have absolutely no interest in this horrid excuse for entertainment. Long live rock ‘n’ roll.
I love rock n’ roll, too, Bob. But I work in a hip-hop environment so I need to understand what’s going on.