Intern Chick

I've been admiring Irv Gotti since I was 15 and his Murder Inc. was OWNING the Billboard charts (at one point, 3 of his artists had Top Ten singles all at one time).  But like every leader, his success was a long time coming.  He'd been producing hit records and developing monster artists since the 90's and eventually caught the eye of Def Jam and the real story began.  He started Murder Inc. and was on top of Hip-Hop for a while.  Eventually you get to a point where you're so successful you have nowhere to go but down.  And down he went, but that hasn't stopped him from putting the places in order for his comeback.

One of my first goals in the music industry was to have my own record label and Irv Gotti made it look SO easy.  He made me want to do it even more.  Irv never tries to be anybody but who he is and people who are able to stay humbled after huge successes are few and far between.  He's not overtly flashy and doesn't give off that "do you know who I am" vibe.  Irv Gotti is the type of executive who keeps a hand on everything, from developing an artist, to producing their records, to creating a concept for their album, to pushing their single to radio, to marketing that album.  He's one of the few people left in the Hip-Hop game who are still doing this because they love it, which is apparent by his refusal to give up even after his recent failures.  If I could have just 1/5 of his success, I would be a happy lady because he was able to define his own sound and brand his label into something that exuded superior music.

Check him out as he explains how he runs his label: