Alone and Barefoot, an Executive Joked His Way Out of a Standoff With Jay-Z
What looked like a late-night face-off over a contract ended in laughter, video games, and the discovery they were family.
David Senra · The Marketing Genius of Steve StouteIt was 9 o'clock at night at 550 Madison Avenue, the Sony Music offices in New York. The elevator doors opened and in walked Jay-Z, then an emerging Brooklyn rapper, with four or five other men. Waiting for them was Steve Stoute, a young executive at Sony in charge of an unsigned artist both sides wanted, sitting there by himself and barefoot.
The fight was about paperwork and patience. The artist had a deal on paper with Jay-Z's camp but had left it unsigned for half a year. In that time, Stoute said, other companies offered more money, and he wanted to take it. Jay-Z's side said a promise was a promise, no matter how much time had passed.
Stoute understood what they expected to find. As he later put it, they thought they were coming upstairs for some kind of face off, and that he would have his own guys waiting. He let them up himself, they walked in, and saw one man alone with no shoes on. That surprise set up the line that turned a possible fight into a friendship that quickly led to business together.
He looked at their faces and said it plainly. Stoute recalled saying, "I don't want to have an argument about anything that doesn't involve big houses."
By big houses, he meant serious money. His point was that without a huge payday at stake, there was nothing worth fighting over. It was a funny way to say this deal was too small to fight about, and the room got it instantly. They started laughing.
After that, Stoute and Jay-Z started spending time together and playing the Madden football video game all the time. They started doing business immediately. The first deal they did was getting Jay-Z to write "Still D.R.E." for Dr. Dre, and Stoute later did Jay-Z's sneaker deal.
Hanging out, they pieced together something neither had known that night in the office. Stoute's uncle, his father's brother, had married a woman connected to Jay-Z's family. Stoute's cousin and Jay-Z's cousin were cousins, so the two men learned they were second cousins by marriage.
Questions people ask
Who is Steve Stoute?
Steve Stoute was a music executive at Sony in his 20s who later left the record business for advertising. He founded the agency Translation, worked with brands including Reebok and McDonald's, and later started the distribution company UnitedMasters to let artists keep ownership of their music.
How big was Jay-Z when this happened?
At the time, in the mid-1990s, he was an emerging Brooklyn rapper who had been turned down by major labels. He and his partners had started their own independent label, Roc-A-Fella Records, in 1996, and were fighting to hold onto artists and deals.
Are Stoute and Jay-Z really cousins?
They are connected by marriage, not by blood. Stoute's father's brother married a woman whose family connects to Jay-Z's family, so Stoute's cousin and Jay-Z's cousin are cousins. That makes Stoute and Jay-Z second cousins by marriage.