I think the year was 1995 when I got a potential career changing opportunity. It was fire!
I got hired to do a rap recap of the NBA playoffs for 40 games in 40 nights, which basically meant I had to do a Monday Night Football style opening for every game.
The idea was that every morning I would go into the studio and do a rap summary of the previous night's game—Lakers hit a buzzer beater, Shaq went for 30, stay tuned for game two, coming up on TNT, you know the drill. I’d hype the next game.
Now, when it came down to discussing my fee, I was a bit lost. I mean, how much do you charge for something like this?
My agent suggested $15,000 per game, which would amount to $600,000 for the entire gig.
I was like, "Oh my God... 40 days... can I really charge them that much?"
So, when I went to someone else for advice, they were like, "Dude, that's more than the announcers make in an entire year. There's no way they're going to pay you that much."
I was looking for confirmation, not good advice, so I decided to take a chance and asked for $600k.
They freaked out, to say the least.
But they came back with an offer of $11,000. I knew I had to move to Atlanta for a month so I asked them to throw in a bike. They agreed. And I took it.
Sure, it was a far cry from my initial ask, but I still won in the end. I got national exposure, moved to a new city, met all sorts of interesting people, and had a blast doing what I loved. All for $11,000 and a bike.
Sometimes there’s value beyond the numbers.
