One More Time

Jay-Z is at it again. First he retires, now he steps down. Good thing we all know better than to think he's actually going anywhere.

Though rumors have been cirulating for weeks, the news was finally announced on Christmas Eve that Def Jam Records President Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z, is stepping down from his position at the label at the end of the year when his contract expires. No replacement has been announced, but several likely candidates have been named including Jermaine Dupri.

For more on HOV's retirement from the presidency, check out this article or just type "Jay-Z Def Jam" in google and you'll probably get about 500 articles.

While I think it's great that Jay has decided to move onto "new challenges", I am skeptical of his move from the president position. He still owes one more album to the label and we've all learned "retirement" doesn't mean anything definite for HOV, but how greedy is he really being? He's got his hand in a multitude of other business operations and has used his own label to aid his own recording career more than anyone else.

While some of his intentions seem honorable and knowledgable, including his feelings on the future of the business side of the industry ("It's really about trying to invest in the future, trying to invest in maybe coming up with a new model. Because going in hard making records with artists and throwing those records into a system that's flawed is not exciting for me. It's not the music; people ingest music the same way. It's just that the model of selling CDs has changed. So doing things the typical way is not in the best interests of anyone and not exciting for me. My whole thing is, how do we invest in the future? If everyone is committed to doing that, then I'm sure there's a deal to be made.") I wonder how greed and media saturation play into the equation.

What do you think?