My philosophy professor feels very strongly about two things: first, it is essential to always be making an argument in any piece of writing that you do; second, one should always be upfront about what they are arguing and how they are trying to argue it – it is better to impress the reader with the quality of your discourse than to save a big surprise for the end.
My philosophy teacher is a very smart man (or at the least, he has read a lot of books), so in his honor, I will write a column in which I clearly argue a point and am 100 percent upfront about the way in which I will argue it.
I have not been doing extremely well on his papers lately, so I will take this column as a chance to practice.
Dr. Mitchell also does not like rambling introductions, so without further ado I will begin arguing that Jay-Z's background as a hustler, rapper and "business, man," will prove incredibly useful to him as an agent in the MLB.
Now I will explain the background for this column.
It works off three very simple premises: 1) I am trying to better understand and identify with 21st century popular culture; 2) Besides perhaps Will Smith, no man more epitomizes 21st century popular culture than Jay-Z; 3) Everything printed in this section must somehow relate to sports.
Now, I will expand briefly on each of these three points.
1) The starting point of my effort to identify with 21st century popular culture began (and ended, unless you count watching NBC sitcoms) with listening to more new music. It was for this reason that I recently bought Jay-Z's most famous album, The Blueprint.
The album has impressed me thus far, and I will be using selected lyrics from it (and other albums, and verses he Jay-Z did for other people) throughout this column to illustrate specific points.
2) If you can name it, Jay-Z has done it. Described by Wikipedia as an "American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur and occasional actor," Jay-Z is American popular culture. Born in the projects as Shawn Carter, he hustled his way out of poverty to a current net worth of $50,000,000.
Married to Beyonce, who is easily the hottest woman in the world, Jay-Z may have "99 problems, but a b-tch ain't one." Money, sex and fame – the big three.
3) I did promise to relate this to sports. Jay-Z is becoming a MLB agent. His company, Roc Nation, has opened a sports division and is partnering with Creative Artist's Agency to get into the agent business. Jay-Z is now the official representation of Robinson Cano.
Now, here is the body of the argument.
According to Yahoo!, which has done much more extensive research than I had time for this weekend, Jay-Z has "mastered the music world, marriage, fatherhood, clothing lines and custom booze." Like the mythical King Midas, everything he touches seems to turn to gold.
But as referenced above, this is not because Jay-Z is an exceptional businessman. Rather, it is because he himself is a business, and the good he has to sell is his cool.
And, once again according to the thorough researchers at Yahoo!, "Jay-Z ... makes people cooler strictly by his association."
But where did this cool come from? He was born in the hood (the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, a hot-bed of gang warfare in Jay-Z's day, now gentrified). The first high school he attended was closed down, and he did not manage to graduate from the second one.
According to Wikipedia's interpretation of his lyrics, he shot his older brother when he was 12 because he stole his jewelry and himself was shot at three times as a kid. But, as he rapped, "I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of not trying."
So try he did. Deciding that he would "rather die enormous than live dormant," he started selling crack cocaine and getting involved in rap battles. And so began his transformation from a man into a legend.
Do not think for a second that this was accomplished through luck, because "Nobody built like you, you design yourself." He knew that "I am not God, but I work god damn hard," and he founded a clothing line, he opened a club and he started investing. And he did them well. I could tell you how good he was, but I would rather let the man tell you himself: "I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell, I am a hustler baby, I'll sell water to a well."
And now Jay-Z is turning his talent, work ethic and swag to being an MLB agent. He knows that "men lie, women lie, numbers don't." He shot his brother when he was 12 and sold 50 million albums by the age of 43. He makes "the Yankees hat more famous than a Yankee can." In short, everything he touches becomes cool. If you cannot tell, he has recently touched me through his music. Here is hoping I become cool. He is about to touch the MLB through his negotiating.
A word of advice to all the GMs out there: this is a guy who shot his brother when he was 12 for stealing his jewelry; do not f-ck with him. A word of advice to all the players out there: sign with him.
– By Bennett Ostdiek
