A decade ago, on his album The Blueprint, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter posed the question “do you fools listen to music or just skim through?”  The question was aimed at  those who would write him off as just another superficial rapper obsessed with materialism. Ten years, a...

Skilled orators are savvy marketers by definition. Take for instance, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. The rapper-turned-businessman can deem a product cool or passé simply by how he flips it in a verse. But does Jay-Z co-signing a brand in rhyme necessarily equal a boost in its respective sales?...