Kevin Liles - Make It Happen: The Hip-Hop Generation Guide to Success

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Copyright 2005 by KWL Enterprises, LLC

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Liles, Kevin.

Make it happen : the hip-hop generation guide to success / Kevin Liles ; with Samantha Marshall.

p. cm.

1. Success in businessHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Marshall, Samantha, 1966II. Title.

HF5386.L595 2005

650.1dc22

2005048075

ISBN-10: 1-4165-1048-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-1048-2

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This book is dedicated to the Struggle. For who we are not supposed to be and what we are not supposed to know. For the dreams we are not supposed to dream and the love for one another we are not supposed to show.

For now I understand, the bad before the good, the storm before the sunshine, the loss before the win and the down before the up. The Struggle made me stronger and for that I dedicate this book to hip hop for through you anything is possible!

My cousin Tony always told me there are three kinds of people in this life: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those who let it happen to them. Which kind do you want to be?

From early on, I decided to take control of my fate and put myself in that first category. If I was ever going to be a success in life, I had no choice.

On the streets of West Baltimore where Im from, you dont get handed a comfortable living. Every day is a struggle to survive. My hometown is one of the crime capitals of America. Every year, about three hundred people are murdered. As a young black man, I stood a better chance of getting shot or thrown in jail than getting a good-paying and respectable job.

I love where Im from, but I wasnt going to let myself become another statistic. I didnt just want to survive. I wanted to be a success.

Thats what hip hop is all about. Despite what you read about the bling, the Bentleys, the Benzes and the beefs, those are trappings that have nothing to do with the true spirit of the culture. We are all about overcoming the odds and making success happen for ourselves by being ourselves, only better. Whatever our detractors say, we pulled ourselves out of the ghetto the old-fashioned waythrough hard work.

Every real success story in hip hop comes down to the same thing: someone who finds the will, focus and drive to achieve. It doesnt matter if you are male or female. It doesnt matter what race or religion you are. It doesnt even matter what hustle you choose.

You could be a firefighter, a rapper, a banker, an athlete or a nurse. If you fight against the odds to realize a dream and be the best that you can be at whatever industry you choose, you are doing it the hip-hop way.

We dont take no for an answer. We dont abide the negativity of people who tell us, You cant. Well fight to turn a no into a yes. For us, impossible is nothing.

If I had let the statistics define me, I wouldnt even be here. When I was fourteen I watched another kid get beaten close to death with a baseball bat. When I was eighteen one of my homeboys was shot in the head at a basketball game over some beef.

I was no angel. I did things that were strictly dumb. My friends and I used to hustle car stereos, whatever could get us a few dollars. Wed steal stuff, just for the thrill of it. Once or twice I came inches from getting thrown in jail.

The day of my high school graduation from Woodlawn High was a turning point. So many of my buddies didnt make it. The time for playing around was over. Still in my graduation gown, gripped by a sudden panic, I stood on the street outside the commencement hall and turned to my mother.

Ma, what am I going to do now?

My mother, Alberta Fennoy, made all the reassuring noises good parents do, telling me I could do anything I put my mind to.

Kevin, she said. You will be successful, you just have to decide that you want to be.

To me, at that time, success was a secure job paying $30,000 a year. I wanted a roof over my head and the ability to provide for my family. Unlike a few of my classmates who were going on to top colleges, I didnt have a rich dad or an uncle who could bring me into their business. If they werent on the hustle, the kids from my neighborhood were taking minimum-wage jobs flipping beef patties at some fast-food joint.

I chose a different path: business. I made it from intern to president of Def Jam in nine years, before I turned thirty. Today, at just thirty-seven, Im executive vice president of Warner Music Group, a multibillion-dollar content company thats one of the biggest in the music industry.

My hard work has given me so much success, access and opportunity that I now experience things most of us only dream of: travelling by private planes, vacations in places I never knew existed and the best of the best that life has to offer. Ive gone from what I thought was rich to creating one hundredyear estate wealth planning so my childrens great-grandchildren will receive the fruits of my labor.

So how did I make it happen? As I look back over the last decade, its a question Ive been asking myself a lot lately. I know Ive been blessed. Some of those kids I grew up with are still there on the corner, many struggling to survive, many more not making it, ending up in jail or worse.