Prometheus 6

I'm going to be fleshing out some of these issues on my blog as I go through Amos Wilson's Blueprint. Two quick points: black folk in the Caribbean are asking themselves the same questions - do we love this country enough to dedicate more effort than retirement years to this work. Typically, the answer has been a resounding no. Folks would much rather live in Miami, New York, Toronto or London. Second, with respect to Nkiru, I would hope that JZ or anyone else would do a sound business analysis before allowing a bookstore (of all things) to live rent free. Since Nkiru left, three other businesses have failed in the exact same location. While I can appreciate the example, I hope you can appreciate these particulars will apply regardless of the investor or the service/product offered. Moreover, given JZ's partnership with Forrest City Ratner, his efforts to subsidize an Nkiru would put him in direct competition with his role as future landlord to national book chains that presently do not serve the neighborhood. Forget rent free: invest to allow an Nkiru to carry enough titles and purchase in sufficient volume to serve the entire neighborhood - and it's a HUGE neighborhood.

It was an outsized example. Somebody lower down the capitalism scale would be more appropriate. But is there always, of necessity, a higher cost of doing business with blackfolks? I bring up this angle because here in LA the part of town where I grew up was years late getting cable TV, and the only big development has been church expansion. Only recently have banks been willing to loan money for improvements to storefronts and light industrial in the area. If it's mostly subprime lending where critical masses of blackfolks are, then we have a fundamental issue. It might just be that the value of black aggregation is worth paying the premium, but is it a well-understood premium or is it redlining intransigence?

would be more appropriate...the competition will be Barnes and Noble and Borders and the like...It's not obvious to me that Jay-Z or anyone is his income bracket has sufficient revenue or even consumer base to push an Nkiru that could lock down this part of Brooklyn. Imagine Nkiru as a coffee maker owned by Magic Johnson - instead of Starbucks. The question of branding is as important as the question of financing, ultimately - though clearly not in the short term.

there is a class of new money in black spaces that has a (comparatively) significant amount of capital.  but we find ourselves facing a new crisis of the negro entrepreneur.

I don't know if this is off the subject, but how is Jay-Z's boycott of Crystal coupled with his endorsement of Budweiser (I think that is the beer he is endorsing) representative of the issues facing black entrepreneurs?  He is distancing himself from a brand name whose owners are embarrassed with their association with hip-hop and embracing a brand that has the potential to be marketed to a larger number of consumers.               

it may be representative of some of the opportunities facing a small subset of entertainers--hip-hop artists.   but it really doesn't deal with the major issues facing black entrepreneurs--whether from hip-hop, or the nba, or elsewhere--at all.