Jay-Z’s Secrets For Personal Success

A sharp piece on Jay-z at BestLife:

Staying true to yourself might stand as a succinct summary of Jay-Z’s philosophy of success. The notion goes back to Shakespeare’s “To thine own self be true,” and further back than that to the Greeks. But for Jay-Z, it has an urgently contemporary meaning. Even, or perhaps, especially, in recessionary times, amid the thousands of entertainment and lifestyle choices consumers have available to them, what separates winners from losers is a commitment to a single proposition: You are the product. If people believe in you, they will believe in what you create. Jay-Z understands this and is down with it.