Learning Journal II

What is your unique gift? – Do you believe in it enough to invest everything you have in it?

• I believe my unique gift would be my passion for sharing music with others. I’ve already started down the road of structuring my life around this passion, from teaching others about music, to creating new music for others to enjoy. So I would say I believe in it enough.

What difference are you trying to make in the world? – How passionate are you about doing this?

• I want to change how people think about music. Music already impacts how people feel and I would want to share more music like this. Music that affects how people go about their day and that could change their life.

How do you define success for yourself? – What challenges do you face in order to create success?

• I would define success as being in a position where I have the freedom to pursue my art while also being able to support myself and my family. This of course can be a challenge, as everyone knows music doesn’t pay beans. So the largest challenge is finding a sustainable income through my music.

What is career vision and a mission?

• My career vision is to impact as many people with music as I can. This summer I will be starting as music director at a local church. I think this is a great way to get involved in the community and start meeting musicians and begin to teach new ones. I eventually want to partner with this church and jump-start their songwriting team and recording studio.

Can you innovate and creates value and successfully communicate that value to intended audiences?

• I think that I can lead by example. By pushing myself to be the best musician I can, I will have the opportunity to communicate with audiences.

Do you have a positive attitude?

• Of course! I’ve always set big goals for myself and believed I can achieve them.

Have you set your goals? What is your road map to success? Can you set inspiring and realistic goals?

• I have, see the above about being creative and financially stable. But my road map to success mainly involves being diverse and open to new opportunities, because you never know which ones will be successful

Do you have and/or acquire the necessary expertise to actualize your vision?

• I think I’m entering my field with a good amount of knowledge to accomplish the things I want. Of course, there will always be new things, and i’m always ok with having to learn new systems.

What opportunities are you looking for? What opportunities are you creating or intend to create?

• I’m always looking for opportunities to partner with great people. I believe that all the best things are created with multiple people, so I’m always looking for people that can help do the things that I can’t.

How comfortable are you with uncertainty? What risks are you willing to take?

• I’ve always been pretty comfortable taking risks. I would never gamble everything I have, but I’m always willing to try a new path if it looks promising.

When facing challenges, do you persevere or do you walk away?

• I persevere as long as I still see it as a positive opportunity.

What actions are you taking to realize your vision? Are you consistently taking action?

• My main philosophy is to work for the job you want, not the job you have. I’m always trying to better myself, to learn new things, and to open new doors.

What is your plan to continually grow and evolve? How have you grown or evolved in there past year or three?

• See the above for future growth. But over the last three years I think I have grasped what I can and cannot do, and I think this is important for being able to set realistic goals.

How easy is it for you to reach out to others to ask for support and to offer help?

• I’ve never had an issue asking others for help. One of the most important qualities of a leader is knowing when you aren’t able to do something, and being able to ask for help and advice.

How are you inspiring others to join and/or support your mission in order to create a financially sustainable enterprise that allows you to live your gift and contribute something valuable to society? – If you aren’t currently, how do you intend to?

• Like I said, I’m currently employed as music director. This alone will give me a good financial backbone, and I also intend to diversify. I already give lessons and record sessions at my house, all these come together to allow me to create under a sustainable income.

Jazz week at Jacksonville University

During my time at Jacksonville University, I have been lucky enough to be apart of two years of our jazz festival. While participating in the jazz festival we had multiple performance opportunities, master classes, and many guest artists. This year we had the experience of having Geoffery Keezer and his wonderful trio, which while having them I got to escort and hangout with during the week. I also had the pleasure of meeting Nick Urie, and Joel Griffin. Nick Urie is the assistant professor of contemporary writing and production at Berklee School of Music. Joel Griffin is the assistant professor of jazz studies at Evangel University, both of which are amazing teachers and tremendous performers. While with them during the week I was able to talk to them at length about my career and what I could do better it moving forward. Getting advice from two fantastic musicians is significant to my career. I was told that with the networking skills that I showed them whilst talking to them they were impressed with the questions I asked them.

With a career spanning over two decades, 22 Grammys, multiple business investments and accolades, and being responsible for the success of some of the biggest names in entertainment it is only fitting that I conduct my artist case study on the cultural icon that is Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. Personifying the “American Dream”, Jay-Z has build an empire by investing in sports entertainment, clothing, luxury spirits, night life, a global streaming service and creating a record label from the ground up that has reshaped HipHop culture. Before he became one of the genre’s most recognizable figures, he was a poor kid born and raised in Brooklyn, New York’s toughest neighborhood of Marcy projects. Escaping poverty, and rising beyond a past of illegal drug sales, Jay-Z is now a successful rapper and producer, entrepreneur, record executive, and philanthropist who has curated a blueprint for success.

• How do you fund your work?

In 1995, Jay-Z used the money he received from signing deal with Payday Records to start his own label, Roc-A-Fella Records, alongside his former associates, Damon “Dame” Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke.

Roc-A-Fella began in a small office space in a low-rent part of downtown New York City, operating first as an independent label then as an imprint of the Island Def Jam Music Group. Its first release was Jay-Z’s debut album, “Reasonable Doubt,” which dropped in 1996 to critical acclaim and modest commercial success.

The label would go on to release some of the best and most commercially successful rap music of the late 1990s and 2000s, including Kanye West’s first six albums, and every Jay-Z album through 2013’s “Magna Carta Holy Grail.” Jay-Z in turn used his money to fund Roc Nation in 2008, an entertainment company that is home to artist like Rihanna, Jcole, and Shakira.

• Do you have a mission or vision?

Jay-Z’s entrepreneurial vision and wealth have grown exponentially since the rapper’s career took off in the early 1990s.

The rapper-mogul made his first major business move in 1995, when he founded Roc-A-Fella Records.

As his rap career prospered over the ensuing decades, Jay-Z also began an insatiable pursuit of new business opportunities, including the founding of several companies and making a number of other shrewd investments that extended beyond the rap world.

From starting record labels and a clothing company, to making major moves into sports management with Roc Nation Sports, and into the competitive world of streaming with Tidal, Jay-Z’s wide-reaching entrepreneurial efforts continue to embody one of his most famous lyrics: “I’m not a businessman / I’m a business, man.”

Jay-Z is the richest hip hop artist in the world with an estimated net worth of $900 million.

Did you look at someone else’s career to make a path for your own and if so, what was it?

Jay-Z admired and studied the work of people like Warren Buffett and Sean “Diddy” Combs the latter in which he surpassed in net worth in recent years. For his musical inspirations Jay-Z is credited artist like Big Daddy Kane, Jaz-O (his mentor from which he got his name), Queen Latifah, and KRS to name a few. 

• How are you connecting and building audiences and how do you market to them?

Jay Z has collaborated many times with fellow rappers and hip-hop artists who have the same or a very similar target audience. But by occasionally partnering with an artist outside his own genre (Alicia Keys, Fall Out Boy, Linkin Park)  Jay Z doubles his listeners. He is also very personable. Aside from roaming the streets of New York for a casual walk, Jay-Z has done interviews that allowed fans to ask him the questions, engaged in Q&A on Twitter, and more importantly captured audiences by steadily evolving in terms of his subject matter in his music. The mogul has also found new ways to market his music such as dropping surprise albums and securing lucrative deals such as the infamous deal with Samsung where he gave away 1 million copies of his album Magna Carter Holy Grail  to buyers of the brand. That deal certified the rapper’s platinum before its release day. Finally he attracts none listeners through his philanthropy. He supports causes such as education and prison reform. 

Learning journal assignment
Angelika Robison

What is your unique gift? – Do you believe in it enough to invest everything you have in it?
-my unique gift is my ability to market myself as a diverse performer. I command my audience with my stature, and i persuade very well. I sing jazz with a modern musical theatre flare.

What difference are you trying to make in the world? – How passionate are you about doing this?
-I want to shine a light on female jazz vocalists in a small combo setting and bring attention to jazz clarinet, vocals, and dance. I am very passionate about what I do, I am willing to fail until i make my mark on at least one person.

How do you define success for yourself? – What challenges do you face in order to create success
I define success as bringing my music to others and having my audience react with some emotion. Rejection and people not understanding the point of what I want to do.
-I want to create a small combo including upright bass, clarinet, piano, drums, vocals and trumpet.

What is career vision and a mission?
-my mission is to treat every performance like it is my last, to put my everything into everything that I showcase. I want to network efficiently and obtain a great reputation with top level musicians.

Can you innovate and creates value and successfully communicate that value to intended audiences?
-yes i know how it work the crowd, and I know what an audience wants to see and hear. I love to see and hear reactions to what I am doing on stage, when I get the reaction that I wanted I am satisfies.

Do you have a positive attitude?
-I do, I know things may not always go the way I had originally anticipated, and I know that sometimes i may struggle with coping with that, but at the end of the day I am truly blessed to have the opportunities that I have been given.

Have you set your goals? What is your road map to success? Can you set inspiring and realistic goals?
-Yes, I feel that I have set realistic goals for what I want to achieve. My day to day life, my monthly success, and my long term aspirations and goals have been mapped out to ensure my potential is met. It is hard to say though exactly what will happen since everyday is very much up to chance, but I know what I want to achieve. Some of my goals include creating and managing a jazz combo including myself as the vocalist. Another goal I have is to market/ network myself as a hard working individual. I feel my goals are very achievable.

Do you have and/or acquire the necessary expertise to actualize your vision?
What are your priorities? Can you set priorities?
My priorities are to have a healthy lifestyle, to have a healthy relationship (friends and family) and to creat memorable experiences to better my craft and my understand of our art. Yes, but I am always learning from the people around me, colleagues, teachers, friends, and family. I see it as a tool belt just getting bigger with knowledge to hone in on my craft and further better myself.

What opportunities are you looking for? What opportunities are you creating or intend to create?
I hope for my networking skills to land me a job at a theatre company and I also would like to start performing jazz with a combo.

How comfortable are you with uncertainty? What risks are you willing to take?
When facing challenges, do you persevere or do you walk away?
-I am not keen on uncertainty, but I am willing to take risks if that could mean new opportunities and success. I am very willing to move to another state or country to pursue my career and where ever it takes me.

What experience have you learned the most from?
-Heartbreak and disappointment have helped me understand that its not always rainbows and butterflies. Things go wrong and life is unpredictable so its hard to know when to move on.

What actions are you taking to realize your vision? Are you consistently taking action?
-I am making relationships with the Jazz faculty at Jacksonville University, and I am making strong connections with the jazz students.

How well do you put things in context? Are you able to easily respond to changes in your environment? What’s your best example?
-I am very quick on my feet. An example of adapting to my surroundings would be during a recent performance my microphone wasn’t working properly and it turned off, instead of worrying about it, I let my previous training kick in. I didn’t worry abut it, I chose to project out into the audience to make sure i was heard and continued to perform.

What is your plan to continually grow and evolve? How have you grown or evolved in there past year or three?
-I plan to keep learning my craft and continue growing as a performer and artists. I’ve gotten leadership opportunities, opportunities to choreograph and assistant direct shows.

How easy is it for you to reach out to others to ask for support and to offer help?

• It is very easy for me to ask others for help. I know when I’m wrong and when I need help, I also know my strengths and weaknesses. I inspire to create music with other passionate musicians.

How are you inspiring others to join and/or support your mission in order to create a financially sustainable enterprise that allows you to live your gift and contribute something valuable to society? – If you aren’t currently, how do you intend to?
-I inspire others to push themselves harder by being straight forward and confident in their own decisions. I inspire also by showing my and confident in their own decisions. I inspire also by showing my passion in performing and having a successful outcome. Yes, I am. always trying to soak up new material and meet new people who can help me along the way.