Steve Stoute is the founder of Translation, the marketing company behind some of the most iconic brand work of the past 25 years, and UnitedMasters, the independent music distribution platform he launched in 2017.

Stoute grew up in Queens in the 1980s, where hip-hop was his entire world. He worked his way into the music business, eventually managing Nas and becoming an executive at Sony and then Interscope under Jimmy Iovine.

In 1999, at 29, he walked away from a $2 million salary to take a $150,000 job at the Arnell Group — trading income for education. He was there to learn the advertising business from the inside out. What he saw clearly was that Madison Avenue was using an old playbook, failing to see that artists were shaping fashion and other cultural trends.

Stoute brokered Jay-Z's S. Carter shoe deal with Reebok — the first sneaker deal for a non-athlete — helped launch McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It" campaign, and came within one meeting of signing LeBron James. He watched an 18-year-old LeBron walk away from a $10 million signing bonus to bet on himself. It confirmed everything Stoute believed: the world had already changed, and the old gatekeepers just hadn't caught up yet. UnitedMasters was built on that same conviction — giving artists ownership of their masters and a direct line to their fans.

Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/steve-stoute

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Chapters

(00:00:00) Run Towards The Unknown

(00:04:43) The Men In Black Glasses Nobody Got Paid For

(00:07:34) Too Scared To Buy Apple At Nine Dollars

(00:15:27) Black Consumers Buy What Isn't Marketed To Them

(00:19:13) Betting On The Education, Not The Equity

(00:21:39) A Music Video Is Just A TV Commercial

(00:24:32) The First Non-Athlete Shoe Deal

(00:27:25) LeBron Walks Away From Ten Million To Bet On Himself

(00:30:35) Why Are You Giving It Away

(00:35:18) If Artists Knew Their Fans They Wouldn't Need A Label

(00:39:57) Prince Wrote Slave On His Face

(00:46:01) How Jay-Z, Master P, And Wu-Tang Beat The System

(00:50:44) The Power Of Repetition

(00:54:13) Independent Artists Are The New Small Businesses

(00:58:56) Fame And Talent Are Now At Odds

(01:04:39) Ryan Coogler's Unprecedented Sinners Deal

(01:09:25) Live At The Convergence Of Culture, Technology, And Storytelling

(01:11:09) You Can Get Anything Done If You Don't Take Credit

(01:12:53) Signing Kobe To Out-Rap Shaq

(01:15:25) How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything

(01:18:55) The Barefoot Standoff With Jay-Z

(01:22:50) Getting Jay-Z To Write Still D.R.E.

(01:28:08) Managing Nas, The Greatest Thing He Ever Did

(01:31:00) Walking Into Queensbridge To Find Nas

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