Steve Stoute

... financially, spiritually, and culturally.

And recently Ben Horowitz and Eric Torenberg sat down with Nas, Steve Stoute, and Grandmaster Caz.

Grandmaster Caz also wrote the rhymes that became Rapper's Delight.

Oh.

But many of the people who built it never received the recognition or financial rewards that matched their impact.

In this episode, Ben Horowitz and I sit down with Nas, Grandmaster Caz, and Steve Stoute to tell the story behind the Paid in Full Foundation and its mission to honor hip-hop's pioneers.

We discuss why the foundation pairs financial support with recognition, what happens when generations of hip-hop artists come together, and why giving these artists their flowers is about more than an award.

And Caz shares what that recognition has meant firsthand, from his place in hip-hop history to how Paid in Full helped change his life.

You know what I mean? Now I see him every year.

I can call him on the phone.

Steve Stoute, you hear about Steve Stoute, big businessman.

He done made this person rich.

...

I, uh, I was working at Translation at the time with Steve Stoute, and I helped launch Stashed, which was like our short-lived sort of like media company within the agency where like, you know, I did some, after Source I did like a stint at HipHop Wired where it was like a lot, still a lot of journalism writing and, you know, interviewing and all that type of stuff.

But like Stashed was the opportunity to be like, you know, a woman by the name of Lisa Musich calls me, and she's like, "Um, yo, love what you do on this website.

Would you wanna come and build something like that for us?" And I'm like, "What does that mean?" So basically at that time, uh, I think the closest example I can make of it was like Cornerstone had like Fader or like Fader had Cornerstone where it's like some publications were so popping they had to spin off and make their own agency, whereas, you know, sometimes, you know, the publication is so popping, like the agency's just within it.

So we wanted to build like our own sort of version of that.

And we got some like dope resources to do it.

[laughs] And you know, uh, shout-out to Steve Stoute, who's like an absolute legend and, uh, you know, a dude who, you know, gave me a lot of trust to sort of like help build something really new.

And like, you know, I, I learned a lot from him, just like, and, and the people that worked, uh, at, at Translation.

Right.

But everyone else, he had the hottest dudes at the time-

Yes

... come in and bring what I felt was their hottest beats.

So Illmatic comes out.

It goes crazy.

Everyone, everyone is feeling it across the board.

Mm-hmm.

The big break came for me when I was asked to work on McDonald's I'm Lovin' It.

That's Steve Stoute.

Steve was in charge of pulling off this Trojan horse marketing strategy.

First the song, then the ads.

Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

Over the years, this audio logo has also had its fair share of controversy.

In an interview with Hot 97 Radio, Steve Stoute credited Pusha T with creating I'm Loving It.

You know who did that?

On my latest venture, we all seen this coming up, and I think this is how I got on the Shark Tank.

We saw people brand themselves like the Commissioner Steve Stoute.

We've seen people like Jacob the Jeweler.

We all helped, and now he's globally recognized.