5 from fashionista_35
1) How did you get into your current field?
Ha! Mom just asked me a version of this. But basically, I knew a guy who knew a guy... I met my boss, Steve Stoute, on a completely personal level. His friend was seeing my roommate, she dragged me literally out of bed one night and made me come, and we ended up at this restaurant called Cipriani. They have this private club upstairs, and they were up there playing backgammon. I was bored out of my mind and that night I couldn't stand Steve. I thought he was a loud know it all. I guess the idea that someone couldn't stand him intrigued him because whenever I would see him afterwards he would purposely seek me out and start a conversation with me. Then we realized we had a lot in common and had a great time together.
I had only vaguely heard his name in connection to music (if anyone follows stupid hip-hop ignorance, he's the guy that Puffy hit over the head with a champagne bottle for not editing him dressed as Christ on the cross out of Nas' Hate Me Now video), but I didn't realize that he was like, THE guy for marketing and branding. He has clients that include MSN, Yahoo. Microsoft, Estee Lauder etc etc etc. Basically, corporate America asks him what's hot, and he tells them. And they pay him a LOT for it. One evening we were having dinner and in the middle of the conversation he said "I want you to come work for me." And of course I said, "Do what?" Anyway, after a lot of back and forth (and him insisting I was fabulous ;-) ) I agreed.
But yeah, I hated him on sight. Then, right before I left my old job I had a birthday, and he sent me these amazing 4 dozen white roses with a card that said "Happy Birthday. I never thought we would be best friends. - S"
I never thought it either.
2) Okay, you are the queen of the tropical travel-- where's your favorite and why?
So far my best vacation was this past New Years, in Dominican Republic. And a lot of that was circumstantial. It's hard to have an amazing vacation when you're in an 8 bedroom villa and anything you want or need is put in front of you. Me and a bunch of my girls and my boss/best friend. Like I said, they pay him a LOT.
I loved the island regardless, though. It was so beautiful ... from Santo Domingo to La Romana and event the road in between. We went to the off shore islands (still part of DR) and I just felt like I'd never seen anything so perfect. So yeah, DR.
But I'm gonna do Virgin Islands soon. I'm craving St. Thomas. It's calling out to me.
3) Best concert experience ever.
Definitely Jay-Z. He is the ultimate hip-hop performer (besides Busta Rhymes). He can speak to the crowd and you feel at any given time, that he has made eye contact with you and only you at least 6 times. I've been to at least a dozen of his shows, but I think the best one was about 1 and 1/2 years ago. He had already "retired" and hadn't performed in a couple years (where before he had done tours every year for the last 7 - 8), and it was a big deal to get tickets to this show. He is an investor in our company and my boss' best friend so we had these great comp seats right in the front - literally, there was only one person in front of me, and it was L.A. Reid. And LeBron James was to my right. He had Ne-yo and Teairra Mari open for him and then the energy that surged through that arena... it was indescribable. The excitement... I could feel it in my hair. He performed all of his classics, including going back to his first album, which he had rarely done before. (Another brief hip-hop history lesson: he and Nas (Escobar) had a highly publicized beef for a few years, many dis records were thrown back and forth, and many personal insults - something to do with Nas' ex-girlfriend... a bunch of dumb shit. But they had a highly publicized beef and there was this crazy rumor going around that Nas was going to perform too, and nobody believed it. The concert was called "I Declare War" for God's Sake. It was supposed to be like, THAT moment of drama. But years before, Nas had a line "I'm out for Dead Fucking Presidents to represent me", that Jay sampled the line into a DOPE song called "Dead Presidents", and during their beef songs Jay even spit the lyric "You made it a hot line, I made it a hot song.") Anyway. Cut to the concert, and the opening bars of the song start. The lights go out, and all you hear is screaming from the crowd. Then a single spotlight goes on at the top of the stage, but nobody is there. Then you hear Jay's voice "Let's go Esco!" And boom, Nas is standing in the spotlight, and they go into the ONLY version of "Dead Presidents" ever performed by the two of them together. Which I couldn't even hear over the crowd. But it was a moment in time. The next thing you know, Puffy is on stage and they are doing "Hate Me Now" and all types of huge 90's hits that have never been performed except as single verses with backing tracks. What a night. The reviews the next day were insane, the writers were flabbergasted, and absolutely called it a moment in hip-hop history.
4) Okay, you were born in a cool city, grew up in a cool city and live in a cool city. You are, at least on the surface, the ultimate urban creature. Could you ever see yourself in a non-city existence? Where?
I am so 100% a city girl. But a part of me wants to go live on an island in a little hut, with a mangy dog and jerk chicken cooking in the back yard. Like in Negril, Jamaica. I'm so extreme. I can't see myself in the 'burbs, like Long Island or something (shit, I can barely grasp the idea of living in Queens), but if I did the island thing I could just go do it all the way.
Or you know, in a 10 room villa in the Bahamas. But yeah, I would definitely do an island.
5) You're going into business for yourself-- any business, any industry, money no object. What are you going to do?
I am creating a make-up line. I won't go into details on what makes it different because it's something I actually am working on and I don't have anything patented yet :-) but it's a make-up line.
Ha! Mom just asked me a version of this. But basically, I knew a guy who knew a guy... I met my boss, Steve Stoute, on a completely personal level. His friend was seeing my roommate, she dragged me literally out of bed one night and made me come, and we ended up at this restaurant called Cipriani. They have this private club upstairs, and they were up there playing backgammon. I was bored out of my mind and that night I couldn't stand Steve. I thought he was a loud know it all. I guess the idea that someone couldn't stand him intrigued him because whenever I would see him afterwards he would purposely seek me out and start a conversation with me. Then we realized we had a lot in common and had a great time together.
I had only vaguely heard his name in connection to music (if anyone follows stupid hip-hop ignorance, he's the guy that Puffy hit over the head with a champagne bottle for not editing him dressed as Christ on the cross out of Nas' Hate Me Now video), but I didn't realize that he was like, THE guy for marketing and branding. He has clients that include MSN, Yahoo. Microsoft, Estee Lauder etc etc etc. Basically, corporate America asks him what's hot, and he tells them. And they pay him a LOT for it. One evening we were having dinner and in the middle of the conversation he said "I want you to come work for me." And of course I said, "Do what?" Anyway, after a lot of back and forth (and him insisting I was fabulous ;-) ) I agreed.
But yeah, I hated him on sight. Then, right before I left my old job I had a birthday, and he sent me these amazing 4 dozen white roses with a card that said "Happy Birthday. I never thought we would be best friends. - S"
I never thought it either.
2) Okay, you are the queen of the tropical travel-- where's your favorite and why?
So far my best vacation was this past New Years, in Dominican Republic. And a lot of that was circumstantial. It's hard to have an amazing vacation when you're in an 8 bedroom villa and anything you want or need is put in front of you. Me and a bunch of my girls and my boss/best friend. Like I said, they pay him a LOT.
I loved the island regardless, though. It was so beautiful ... from Santo Domingo to La Romana and event the road in between. We went to the off shore islands (still part of DR) and I just felt like I'd never seen anything so perfect. So yeah, DR.
But I'm gonna do Virgin Islands soon. I'm craving St. Thomas. It's calling out to me.
3) Best concert experience ever.
Definitely Jay-Z. He is the ultimate hip-hop performer (besides Busta Rhymes). He can speak to the crowd and you feel at any given time, that he has made eye contact with you and only you at least 6 times. I've been to at least a dozen of his shows, but I think the best one was about 1 and 1/2 years ago. He had already "retired" and hadn't performed in a couple years (where before he had done tours every year for the last 7 - 8), and it was a big deal to get tickets to this show. He is an investor in our company and my boss' best friend so we had these great comp seats right in the front - literally, there was only one person in front of me, and it was L.A. Reid. And LeBron James was to my right. He had Ne-yo and Teairra Mari open for him and then the energy that surged through that arena... it was indescribable. The excitement... I could feel it in my hair. He performed all of his classics, including going back to his first album, which he had rarely done before. (Another brief hip-hop history lesson: he and Nas (Escobar) had a highly publicized beef for a few years, many dis records were thrown back and forth, and many personal insults - something to do with Nas' ex-girlfriend... a bunch of dumb shit. But they had a highly publicized beef and there was this crazy rumor going around that Nas was going to perform too, and nobody believed it. The concert was called "I Declare War" for God's Sake. It was supposed to be like, THAT moment of drama. But years before, Nas had a line "I'm out for Dead Fucking Presidents to represent me", that Jay sampled the line into a DOPE song called "Dead Presidents", and during their beef songs Jay even spit the lyric "You made it a hot line, I made it a hot song.") Anyway. Cut to the concert, and the opening bars of the song start. The lights go out, and all you hear is screaming from the crowd. Then a single spotlight goes on at the top of the stage, but nobody is there. Then you hear Jay's voice "Let's go Esco!" And boom, Nas is standing in the spotlight, and they go into the ONLY version of "Dead Presidents" ever performed by the two of them together. Which I couldn't even hear over the crowd. But it was a moment in time. The next thing you know, Puffy is on stage and they are doing "Hate Me Now" and all types of huge 90's hits that have never been performed except as single verses with backing tracks. What a night. The reviews the next day were insane, the writers were flabbergasted, and absolutely called it a moment in hip-hop history.
4) Okay, you were born in a cool city, grew up in a cool city and live in a cool city. You are, at least on the surface, the ultimate urban creature. Could you ever see yourself in a non-city existence? Where?
I am so 100% a city girl. But a part of me wants to go live on an island in a little hut, with a mangy dog and jerk chicken cooking in the back yard. Like in Negril, Jamaica. I'm so extreme. I can't see myself in the 'burbs, like Long Island or something (shit, I can barely grasp the idea of living in Queens), but if I did the island thing I could just go do it all the way.
Or you know, in a 10 room villa in the Bahamas. But yeah, I would definitely do an island.
5) You're going into business for yourself-- any business, any industry, money no object. What are you going to do?
I am creating a make-up line. I won't go into details on what makes it different because it's something I actually am working on and I don't have anything patented yet :-) but it's a make-up line.