Jay-Z Influence on the Nets Eclipse his Ownership Stake

Mr. Carter’s credibility was indisputable: a product of the Marcy Houses, he had an early career as a drug dealer (and kept a “stash spot” two blocks from the arena site, according to one of his songs) before becoming one of the most successful rap artists of all time. He had also shown talent as a businessman, creating his own record label and what soon became a wide range of other business ventures.       

Mr. Ratner was wary. He often says he overcame his concerns about Mr. Carter’s more offensive lyrics — celebrating gangster culture and denigrating women — only after learning there were cleaned-up “radio versions” of the songs, too. And Mr. Carter, he said, appeared nervous about having to meet with David Stern, the N.B.A. commissioner, who asked him to discuss his guilty plea to stabbing a record producer in 1999. (Mr. Carter described the incident, for which he received three years’ probation, as a symptom of “the world I lived in once,” Mr. Ratner recalled.)       

Mr. Carter’s involvement frustrated opponents of Mr. Ratner’s development plans in Brooklyn who saw the arena and proposed residential and office towers as a subsidized land grab that could ruin the neighborhood. They complained that residents who might have been wary of Mr. Ratner’s promises to create jobs, nonetheless trusted Jay-Z, who invoked his roots and insisted he could never support “anything that’s against the people.”       

“Bringing in someone who grew up in public housing, with a rags-to-riches story, who could identify with Brooklyn and African-Americans, that was slick,” said City Councilwoman Letitia James, a critic of the project. Mr. Ratner played down Mr. Carter’s importance in overcoming opposition. “Had Jay-Z not come along,” he said, “we’d still have an arena.”       

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *