The fine print of the dream

Aug. 4, 2014

"She's on the 11th date of her North American tour, with 90 or so shows to go, a number she doesn't like hearing out loud. She's both star and caller of nearly every shot, from wardrobe to the tiniest shift in backup harmonies. And being the boss, it emerges, is hard.

'I have a lot on my plate,' she says...'Things can get monotonous. Sometimes it gets overwhelming. A lot of people want things from you. But it's fine! It's called trade-offs.

You have this dream, and then the dream becomes reality, and what comes along with it is you run a company. It's the fine print of the dream that you didn't know was there.'"

-- a quip that's applicable to a lot of grownup life in general, from the more-interesting-than-you'd-think profile of Katy Perry in the latest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine 

"You just gotta mine it"

April 12, 2014
 
 

Interviewer: "Do you get inspired by artists now? ...A lot of new music to me, I know it makes me sound like an old head, but it just don't sound the same. It just don't feel the same."

Jay Z: "Nah, there's good music. You just gotta mine for it. I mean, before, I felt there was an abundance of it. But that's what happens with anything successful. 

 
[In the beginning] people were rapping because they loved to rap. And then it became this huge business, this multi-billion dollar business, so people that didn't even care to rap were like, 'I'm gonna figure out how to get some money in this.' So you had people who could rap a little bit, and saw it as a hustle. 
 
Then you had guys, CEO [types], rapping. And this is no disrespect to anyone... but like, B.I.G. told Puff, 'Yo, you should rap.' Puff wasn't a rapper. And he sold 7 million records. It might be more now, you know, with the catalog. But he sold 7 million records with No Way Out. He had never rapped before. When people see that, they emulate that. And now you have all kinds of CEOs rapping... it's flooded with guys who aren't rappers. 
 
So you just gotta mine it. You'll find good music still, it's just more difficult to find."
 
I've been catching up on 105.1 Breakfast Club interviews (Charlamagne and company.) 
I especially liked t
he latest sit-down they had this past fall with Jay Z. 
 
S
tarting at around 5:20 in the video embedded above, he says some good things
 about hip-hop, which could also apply in some ways to what's happened in tech in recent years, as the concept of startup "success" has gotten mainstream attention. 
 
Update: The video of the interview I had embedded has sadly been removed from YouTube. Let me know if you find a replacement. It was a great interview.
 

Lauren Santo Domingo on doing your own thing

April 1, 2014


"I strongly believe that that the biggest mistake one can make in life is to listen too much to other people."

-- Lauren Santo Domingo, in a good Q&A with blogger Mark D. Sikes. 

LSD is someone with whom I intrinsically have very little in common (she was born wealthy in New England and has the Bergdorf blonde hair and style and savvy and je ne sais quoi that goes along with all of that, in addition to being a founder of a successful company.) I just dig that she is so unabashedly who she is. 

Let's hope that no matter how big her business gets, no image consultant ever makes her shut down her Instagram or Twitter accounts -- they give a wonderfully voyeuristic look into a rarefied lifestyle.

Priorities in hiring

Feb. 25, 2014
"I love having talented people around me to help me... I'm not scared of talent. I'm scared of bitches, but I'm not scared of talent."

Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz had an Interview Magazine-style conversation with Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the March issue of Harper's Bazaar. I especially liked this part, where Elbaz talks about who he surrounds himself with at work.

I've blogged about Elbaz before -- the clothes he designs are pretty, and he always says interesting things.
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