Hustling: Youth Unemployment, Legal Hustles, Madison Avenue

Hip hop’s hustler mentality is one of those liabilities that can also be seen as an asset. The drive to succeed by whatever means can be found when resources are few is one that pervades the history of hip hop. But the tendency to live for the moment and rip off what one can exemplifies too much of hip hop for anyone’s good.

Jessica Bennett reports on a panel discussion, Young, Gifted, and Jobless: Hip Hop Culture and Youth Unemploymend, held recently at Oakland City Hall. It seems to have been one of those diversity of opinion events with the viewpoints including the rather optimistic perception of Dereca Blackmon, executive director of Leadership Excellence, Inc., who stated:                           
“A drug dealer has the ability to package and move large quantities, they have great communication skills, work well with large groups of people, many skills employers want in a worker.

A rather different stance was taken by a “young observer” who opined:
“When you go out for a job, you need to know how to speak in a professional way. And a lot of people think that if you talk that way, or try to ‘sound white,’ you’re not keepin’ it real or you’re ‘selling out’.  What we need to do is learn how to code change. You see Diddy and Jay-Z on T.V. talking and dressing the way we do, but you better believe that when they’re in those boardrooms talking to them rich white people, that they know how to put on a suit and speak correctly, and it doesn’t make them any less credible in the streets.”

Terence Bradford, aka Billy Shakes, is both a sales manager for Citi Mortgage and a rapper who claims to have spent $50k recording a demo called Money Back Guaranteed who seems to combine such perspectives on the hustler mentality.

Bradford feels that “it’s all the same hustle. It’s just that mine is legal . . . Selling mortgages is very emotional. Just like in rap, we’re trying to connect with people’s hopes and dreams.”

Quite a different take comes from Hadji Williams in his new book Knock The Hustle: How to Save Your Job and Your Life from Corporate America. As Adrants’ Steve Hall writes:
Williams “takes a look inside corporate America, focusing on the ad industry, and calls the whole thing a scam . . . claiming Madison Avenue a place with no morals; calling the agency/client relationship a pimp and ho relationship; citing focus groups and time sheets useless because of continuous cover your ass antics.”

Hall goes on to say, “While we haven’t read the book, our own experience in the industry, while perhaps not as negative as Williams’ seems to have been, certainly leads us to believe Williams may not be too far off the mark.”

Speaking of hustles, I still haven’t gotten a review copy so I haven’t read it either. Hadji, hook me up!

Official site: Knock The Hustle