The BIG lesson from Jay Z, Drake and Sade Adu – Emma Ugolee writes
170 award nominations, 36 wins including a Grammy for best rap album 2 years ago, sold out concerts the world over, records on the charts.
Drake is a force!
Against this, with confidence, Drake reached out to Sade Adu for a musical collaboration
Sade, mind you is not exactly the most popular music making name on the lips of today’s youth. So Drake with 25m followers on twitter probably thought he was doing Sade with 121k followers, a favour with the offer of a joint project
The request for the collaboration made news in Hollywood but the real news came with Sade’s rejection of the offer. Sade and her management didn’t in anyway see the fit. Sade’s world was different they thought.
Her pedigree, her status, her ideals, her market, her strategy, her person just had little to get off Drake, regardless of his hype.
I could summarize the lengthy respectful letter of rejection in a sentence for you in pidgin English, ‘Drake, No vex, Sade no be your mate. We no dey do any collabo’.
Drake hadn’t done his research well otherwise he would have found out that she had turned Jay Z down earlier.
She wasn’t about to lose the essence of her brand because this young man came with the heat of the moment.
Let’s face it. A lot of us need the Sade mentality. We need to check to confirm that our sense of worth is not evaluated by the swinging up and down values around us. Social acceptance and money clearly are faulty parameters for evaluation.
Your pedigree, your vision, your positioning, ideals, values, your respect stands independent of who made the Forbes list or whose buzzing. You can’t put a prize tag on these assets.
We must remember this especially when dealing with low times. Seen old men shamelessly ass kissing small boys for the sake of hand downs. Sad case of calling the cow uncle for a little beef to come your way.
Mistake this not for arrogance please just a reminder that world standards and rough times shouldn’t define your worth.
Always have respect for who it is that you are!