Thrive: 30 Inspirational Rags-to-Riches Stories

Jay Z

Shawn Corey "Jay Z" Carter was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His father left the family when he was eleven years old, so Shawn was raised by a single mother in the drug-infested Marcy Houses, a housing project in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The youngest of four children, Shawn expressed an interest in rapping at an early age, often waking his siblings late at night, banging drum patterns on the kitchen table. To make ends meet, Shawn sold drugs during the American crack epidemic. At age twelve, Shawn shot his brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry.

Shawn turned to rap to escape from the drugs, violence, and poverty that surrounded him in the projects. While honing his rapping skills, Shawn also participated in local freestyle battles and accompanied his mentor and local rapper, Jaz-O, in recording a song called "The Originators," which won the pair an appearance on an episode of Yo! MTV Raps. He also changed his rap name from "Jazzy" to "Jay-Z." The project ultimately became a commercial failure. Disappointed, Shawn dropped out of high school and resumed selling drugs. Although he was still rapping, he was also struggling to secure a record deal, even after touring with successful American rapper Big Daddy Kane in 1994.

At twenty-four years old, Shawn met his business partner Damon "Dame" Dash, and the two started working together, releasing Shawn's first single, "In My Lifetime" (1994), via a singles-only record deal with Payday Records. In 1995, after determining they could market records better themselves, Shawn and Dame opened their own record label, Roc-A-Fella Records, with the intent of recording and distributing Shawn's first independent album. They took on a silent partner, Kareem Burke, to fund the project. The label also landed a distribution deal with Priority Records and rented a cheap office in Manhattan, New York on John Street.

After the success of Shawn's second single, "Ain't No Nigga" (1996), which later became part of The Nutty Professor (1996) soundtrack, the label released Shawn's debut album, Reasonable Doubt (1996). The duo sold Shawn's album throughout New York City from the backs of their cars. By the end of 1996, the album sold over 420,000 copies. Shawn also raised a higher profile for himself due to his appearance on The Notorious B.I.G.'s posthumous Life after Death (1997). Shawn followed with releasing In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 (1997), and the album that launched him into stardom, Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life (1998), which has sold over 5.4 million copies in the United States.