My mother taught me three things, respect, knowledge; the search for knowledge. It's eternal, eternal journey and not to be quiet. If there was something on my mind to speak it and to also listen. She told me this joke, That God gave you two ears to listen and one mouth to speak. And that's where the knowledge comes from, listening. And once you get the knowledge then you speak it."
-Tupac Shakur
I spoke to my brother on the weekend who mentioned the rapper / entrepreneur Chamillionaire was now involved with in the tech venture capital industry. He's actually now an entrepreneur in residence at Los Angeles venture capital firm Upfront Ventures
After reading the blog by Upfront Ventures general partner Mark Suster I found some interesting points about business and entrepreneurship, two of which I'll summarise below.
1. Know when it's better to beg for forgiveness (or not) than to ask for permission. He did this by putting some music online for streaming when he knew the record label would be against the idea. However after it led to more recognition and eventual success.“It would be successful and after it was successful nobody would say anything.”
2. Confidence comes from experience. “All the failures that people get so scared of is what I did. It made me confident about what would work. Confidence doesn’t come from being a ‘know-it-all,’ it’s because I’ve done this 10 times already.”
Later I also watched some youtube interviews and found another interesting point on the importance of auditing your income. During one interview Chamillionaire mentioned fellow artist Nelly was the first person who recommended he get an audit of his royalties. After some investigation he hired the same auditor that Jay-z used and found his record label had missed paying him $700,000! The interview is worth a watch for anyone interested in the future of music industry.
Lastly for those who want to get a taste or miss his biggest hit song Ridin' here is the link below. Enjoy!
Chamillionaire featuring Krazie Bone - Ridin' : https://youtu.be/CtwJvgPJ9xw
