madeincharlie: “We knew that no matter how big his career would...

By :Anwar Washington 0 comments

“We knew that no matter how big his career would get and how big his celebrity would get, we wanted to offset that with something that always reminded everybody and us of what we set out to do,” El-Khatib said. “There would always be this contrast of the high-level, ‘Okay Drake, we’re going to try and get as big as possible and we’re going to try and have as much success as possible,’ [but] we’re going to have this local blog of ground-level energy that’s OVO — that’s untainted, that’s not for sale, that’s uncompromised.”

“There are many different motivations on many different levels,” El Khatib said. “Not to be corny, but making the city proud of what we’re doing, and making what we’re doing a part of the city, and making everybody in the city know that you can be a part of it too is really important. I have partners in what I do that make all this possible, who are all geniuses in their respective spaces. Just in life, not even in the industry, it’s about what you’ve done lately. You can’t hang on to some amazing thing that you maybe contributed three or four years ago. Everything is very constant. We have a great team and we have people who are experts at a certain space so I can trust you and you can trust this person and you can trust this person. It’s a circle of trust and we hold each other to standards that I think are insane, and we’re all ambitious. The most important thing is your team.”

“There was definitely a time where I knew the role that I wanted to have with Drake. I didn’t want to be a manager in the music business. I didn’t even want to be in the music business. I didn’t care. It was Drake that I believed in, so that’s what I wanted to be a part of and I was going to be a part of however I could.

“To own the company, you have to be able to do everything, like getting down on your hands and knees to tie your shoes a certain way to be negotiating deals. There’s so many different levels of being part of a team. It’s a pretty egoless job at the end of the day to be able to make something work. Whether you own a small business or a restaurant, whatever the case, you have to be willing to do everything as the owner.”

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