Diversify Your Bonds

In yesterday’s post I mentioned how Diddy and Jay-Z have lately relied less on their respective rap trades (in Puff’s case, however, he wasn’t much of a rapper to begin with) and more on their business acumen. In a sense, more musicians should follow their leads, because I don’t think too many of us want to listen or plan on listening to tales about delusional crack kingpins when the words are spat out from the mouth of a 60-year-old rapster.

So why not expand on your budding empire? Most artists in hip hop can only think of simple-minded shit like being the CEO, president and/or chairman of their own doofy named label, but there’s so many more lucrative business opportunities to try to cake up from. Everybody is trying their hand at alcohol, but not too many people are actually successful at it (that’s word to the unopened bottle of Ludacris’ Conjure liquor that’s currently collecting dust in my apartment’s bar). Instead of coming out with sneakers nobody will buy or clothes nobody will wear, why not look into other endeavors? Here are a few such enterprises.

Production: And I’m not talking about stepping behind the boards; the last thing we need are more Chris Webber beats. No, I’m referring to entertainment production. Every television show, commercial, movie, play, billboard and radio advertisement we’re exposed to on a daily basis requires some kind of company to produce it. Why can’t it be from a rapper? If there’s anything to be learned from that crappy Kia x Black Sheep commercial that aired during the game last night, it’s that the entertainment production industry will always be in need of some good old-fashioned hip hop nignorance to bank off of.

Low-End Clothing Line: What do Roc-A-Wear, Sean John and Akoo have in common? Aside from being garish and oversized (can someone tell these guys that a size M shouldn’t fit like a size XL?), they’re also expensive as shit. Why not come out with some affordable articles of clothing... wait, on second thought, scratch this idea. Fat Joe’s done it with those ugly, fake Yeezys, and LL Cool J tried his hand at making Sears-brand Affliction clothing. No thanks.

Dry Cleaners:: We all need clean clothes. That’s one of the most basic elements of survival. Rather than pushing off gear that will eventually line the walls of your closest Burlington Coat Factory, rapsters should invest in opening up businesses that clean those clothes instead.

Parking Lot: This is by far the easiest and perhaps most inexpensive business plan of all time that I don’t think a lot of people are up on. It’s simple to operate, simple to manage and best of all rapsters are sure to have a spare piff pocketer to work the thing.

Sex: Sex is recession-proof; that’s word to the multi-billion dollar pornography industry. Instead of sleeping around with the many groupies that invade their private space (then having to hire some thugs to smack them out of bounds every now and then), why not get these schmags to fuck on camera? Not only could they profit from this, it would also render women like Kat Stacks useless. I’m just saying.