Lenny S, senior vp at Roc Nation, is a self-described “accessible man” with an elite stage of entry throughout the music trade. On this episode of XXL’s Inside Monitor podcast, Lenny S discusses his unwavering success as an A&R, working with Jay-Z for over three many years, his upcoming e-book primarily based on the now-famous gold sofa and being part of main moments that made rap recreation historical past.
After slicing his tooth in hip-hop as an unbiased road promoter in his house borough of the Bronx, a one-year stint with Dangerous Boy Information led Lenny to an intern place at then-upstart label Roc-A-Fella Information in 1996. He shortly turned a key participant on the Roc and has been firmly positioned on the proper hand of Jay-Z ever since.
Lenny’s first mission as an A&R was when Roc-A-Fella assigned him to supervise the soundtrack for his or her 1998 movie Streets Is Watching. After the Roc’s unprecedented run within the late Nineties and early 2000s, Lenny S later served as an A&R at Virgin Information. He then accompanied Jay-Z over to Def Jam when Hov turned president of the label. Lenny labored with the likes of Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, The Roots and his favourite rapper, Ghostface Killah.
Having labored so carefully with Jay-Z for therefore lengthy, Lenny S shares the most effective piece of recommendation he is ever acquired from the Brooklyn mogul. So far as Lenny’s involved, it is a lesson that he continues to hold with with him by means of all features of life.
“It is one thing that I stay by each single day and I inform everyone,” Lenny S says of Hov’s phrases of knowledge. “[Jay-Z’s advice]: ‘You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.’ And I feel it is so essential as a result of most of my profession, I believed that I’d get issues that I deserved due to what I did or what I put in, or the favor I did for any person, and it might generally by no means come again round. I realized that it is not no one’s fault however my very own. If I did not negotiate a share of that deal, then I am not owed something.”
All through his profession in hip-hop, Lenny S has additionally taken his affinity for candid images to the following stage. Within the coming months, Random Home publishing firm is ready to launch Lenny’s e-book primarily based on images of high-profile artists who’ve posed on the eye-catching gold sofa he has in his Roc Nation workplace. He has not revealed the title but. That is simply one other facet of the Roc Nation SVP’s fascinating decades-long journey by means of the hip-hop world.
XXL is again with one other episode of Inside Monitor, a biweekly podcast that spends time with a few of hip-hop’s most influential trade executives, entrepreneurs and extra. Hosted by XXL Editor-in-Chief Vanessa Satten and music govt Courtney “Courtney CL” Lowery, every episode will proceed to discover hip-hop by means of the eyes of people that have lived and breathed the tradition.
Watch or take heed to the episode of XXL’s Inside Monitor podcast under. The podcast may be discovered on xxlmag.com, XXL’s YouTube web page and on most podcast platforms: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and XXL Stay.
