Zack O'Malley Greenburg's Blog, page 6

Hip-Hop’s Top 50 Moguls Of All Time

With hip-hop’s 50th birthday upon us, fans have renewed the debate over who’s the best emcee, the best producer, and the best DJ. But to yours truly—and my pal Dan Runcie, the founder of Trapital—one question rises above them all: Who’s the greatest mogul in hip-hop history?

We decided to develop a definitive list. To do so, Dan and I reached out to 50 hip-hop luminaries, receiving responses from more than half. Our expert panel of judges includes Master P, Charlamagne Tha God, Binta Brown, Ralph...

Is Jay-Z Working On A New Album?

The other day, my literary agent texted me a photo of the Brooklyn Public Library. Its front entrance was adorned in unusual garb: Jay-Z’s lyrics.

“I believe we may be at a surprise Jay-Z show,” my agent mused.

That’s exactly what it was—and will continue to be through the fall—although perhaps not a “show” in the sense most observers might have expected. The “Book of Hov” is a 40,000 square-foot exhibit featuring six zones representing the eras of Jay-Z’s career, each packed with artifacts rangin...

Superstar Musicians Are Superhero Franchises Now

Something strange is happening in the music business. In May, Bloomberg suggested Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour singlehandedly spiked inflation numbers in Sweden. More recently, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve credited Taylor Swift’s Eras tour for raising hotel revenues to pre-pandemic levels.

Music’s superstars are getting bigger and bigger, to the point that that individual acts can put a dent in the broader economy. To be sure, this phenomenon can be at least partly attributed to years of pent-u...

The Jay-Z Index: How To Invest Like Hov

Jay-Z may well go down in history as the greatest rapper of all time, but his bona fides are pretty strong as a personal finance guru, too. Whether it’s his recommendation to avoid leases and instead “buy the whole car” on his debut Reasonable Doubt or his exhortations to build credit on his more recent 4:44—an album in which he says he’s offering “$1 million worth of game for $9.99”—his three-decade oeuvre is peppered front-to-back with excellent monetary advice.

With a net worth well north of $...

The Summer of Zogblog

Summer always seems to have a theme: Of Love, Of Sam, Hot Girl. For the purposes of this newsletter, however, the Summer of Zogblog is approaching.

Right after July 4th, I’ll be ramping up my writing pace now that I’ve completed both my fellowship at Columbia and my first year of fatherhood (appropriately, my incandescently wonderful daughter received her first pair of Jordan 1s for her birthday).

Anyway, my next big piece will introduce what I’m calling the “Jay-Z Index”—my list of publicly-trade...

An Elegant Solution To Music's A.I. Conundrum

You’ve probably heard about the kerfuffle surrounding “Heart On My Sleeve,” the song written by someone known as Ghostwriter977 and performed by the A.I.-generated voices of Drake and the Weeknd.

Fueled by a mix of consumer curiosity and technological panic, the uncanny track began to rocket in the direction of the Billboard charts in mid-April. At this point, Universal Music Group—home to both artists—somewhat predictably issued a takedown notice and a rather dramatic statement.

“The training of ...

A New Climate For Indie Rockers

Last fall, on an unseasonably warm day in Morningside Heights, I noticed a few dozen onlookers gathered around a makeshift stage in the middle of Amsterdam Avenue, bobbing their heads to a band fronted by a woman in a lantern fly costume.

She sounded sort of like a cross between Courtney Love and Raffi, singing clever children’s songs with a twinge of grunge—and an environmental message. My wife and baby, then four months old, were immediately hooked by the songs, from the sustainability anthem “...

Claude The Cat, 2004-2023

I don’t think I’ve ever met a human who cared more about baseball than I do. So it’s only fitting that I’ve never met a cat who cared more about baseball than Claude did. And he was around for half of my 38 years so far on Earth.

From March to November every year, he’d join me on the couch for my evening wind-down, hooking a paw around my elbow like an old friend throwing an arm around your shoulder. Sure, Claude got a feline thrill watching the scores scoot across the bottom of the screen. But I...

Is Scooter Braun A Billionaire?

Scooter Braun’s first crack at becoming a billionaire came nearly two decades ago. Working as a twentysomething party promoter in Atlanta, he happened upon a promising social network and emailed the founder about investing.

Mark Zuckerberg apparently expressed some interest, but decided Facebook didn’t need the extra cash, and moved forward without a check from Braun.

“I definitely didn’t know how big it was going to become,” Braun told me in 2012, back when I was a staff writer at Forbes. “But i...

The Five Best Songs Of The Past Year

The Grammys are coming up, and in honor of music’s self-proclaimed biggest night, I figured I’d share the top five songs of the year—according to Riley, my eight-month-old daughter. The catch is that none of these songs were actually released in the past year.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: The Grammys celebrate the best new music, so a temporally-agnostic list doesn’t really fit the theme of an awards ceremony. Right?

Well, not necessarily, given the vagaries of the Grammy eligibility calenda...