“I was in the process of having some discussions with Jeep … They were trying to skew a little bit younger, they were getting ready to launch the Jeep Commander, the first seven-passenger Jeep to hit their portfolio. “The skinny,” he says, “is this.” He lowers himself into a seat across the table from me. “Is he expecting you?” “Well, no.” Five minutes later, a stocky man in his late thirties ambles in and introduces himself as Marques McCammon. “I’m here to see Marques McCammon,” I tell the receptionist brightly.
And so, on a sunny spring day, I found myself at the front desk of a nondescript office building in San Diego, paying a surprise visit to my last hope for clarity on the Jay-Z Jeep. But after three months of pestering industry sources and trying to reach Marcus McCammon, I wasn’t getting anywhere. I got deals lined up like you don’t understand.” The Jay-Z Jeep seemed to be the car in question. “Cars, laptops, lots of different things.
Jay z empire state of mind ringtone license#
“I’m known for platinum.” “Jay-Z Blue is a license for corporations to get Jay-Z in the building,” Stoute told Rolling Stone in 2005. “Gave it a little bit of my personality,” Jay-Z reportedly joked.
Van Anz, creator of the vodka-cooled computer and jewel-encrusted iPod, happily obliged by creating a reflective, silvery medium-blue color with a dash of platinum dust. A decade ago, they approached industrial designer Adrian Van Anz with the idea of creating a shade to trademark as Jay-Z’s own. Finding out what happened to the Jay-Z Jeep starts with Jay-Z Blue, a color dreamed up by Jay-Z and marketing guru Steve Stoute. Over the past few years, Jay-Z has shilled for Reebok, Hewlett-Packard, and Budweiser in the wake of my chat with Serch, it was clear that Jeep was slated to join that list until something went wrong. In 2012, the year after Empire State of Mind went to press, he pulled in $38 million -less than one quarter of which came from album sales. “I haven’t spoken to Marques in a long time.” *** Jay-Z’s ability to make money by attaching his name to products is one of his greatest strengths as a businessman, and it’s especially important given the ever-declining numbers in the record industry. “That’s really a Marques McCammon question,” he says.
” Then he starts to say something else, but stops short. When I press him for more details about the vehicle, he tells me that it was going to be a “ Jay-Z Jeep ” painted “ Jay-Z Blue. “I came to Jay-Z with the automobile industry in my back pocket to do a Shawn Carter edition vehicle that he approved, only to have the automobile industry basically shoot it down for fear that he was a bigger star than the car.” Just as he’s about to explain what happened, Serch is interrupted by the blare of a cell phone ( the ringtone, fittingly, is Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” ). “ That deal was the most fucked-up deal that I’ve ever seen or heard of,” says Michael Berrin, better known as MC Serch of 3rd Bass, with an intensity that makes me think he’s about leap out of my phone and into my office. Copyright (c) Zack O'Malley Greenburg, 2012. Adapted from a chapter in the Jay-Z biography EMPIRE STATE OF MIND: HOW JAY-Z WENT FROM STREET CORNER TO CORNER OFFICE.
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