Amina Diop has had a hen’s eye view of hip-hop from a number of angles. The present CEO of the thriving artist administration firm The Diop Company, Amina moved her method by means of the music business whereas sporting quite a few hats together with managing a few of hip-hop’s favourite artists. On this episode of XXL’s Inside Observe podcast, the Queens native discusses working carefully with Gucci Mane, being a gatekeeper for Younger Thug, Lil Uzi Vert’s rock star standing letting artists be their very own boss and extra.
After rising up in Queens, Amina attended school in Atlanta, the place she earned a enterprise diploma and later started work as an intern at Spere Data, a subsidiary of Arista Data, “many moons in the past” in accordance with her. She later acquired into occasion promotion earlier than managing well-known video vixens like Buffy The Physique, Hoops, Maliah and Rosa Acosta. She opened her personal administration firm, The Diop Company, in 2011, which now boasts purchasers like Gucci Mane, Lil Uzi Vert, Bandhunta Izzy, Peewee Longway, SleazyWorld Go and others. Amina additionally served as Senior Vice President of A&R at Republic Data for seven years.
“After I first labored with Gucci, I used to be his assistant,” Amina explains within the video beneath. “He had simply come house from jail and he simply wanted somebody to deal with some issues for him and he was in a transition section…and he gave me a shot.”
As Younger Thug’s former supervisor, she was tasked with protecting the ship collectively throughout his prolonged authorized scenario.
“I used to be undoubtedly his gatekeeper—will all the time be his gatekeeper,” Amina says. “Belief is vital, so far as like coping with their enterprise. Gucci’s crew may be very, very small. Thug’s crew may be very, very small. So, we kinda saved it that method.”
She additionally addresses the Younger Thug trial through the episode, which was filmed previous to the rapper pleading responsible within the case.
Amina additionally speaks on letting the artists she manages be true to themselves with little interference. “Typically, they’re tremendous artistic. Except they’re attempting to do one thing that’s actually detrimental to the model, then more often than not I will go along with it,” he provides.
XXL is again with one other episode of Inside Observe, a biweekly podcast that spends time with a few of hip-hop’s most influential business executives, entrepreneurs and extra. Hosted by XXL Editor-in-Chief Vanessa Satten and music government 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 hearken to the episode of XXL’s Inside Observe podcast beneath. The podcast could be discovered on xxlmag.com, XXL’s YouTube web page and on most podcast platforms: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and XXL Dwell.
