RIP Chris Lighty

Longtime Hip Hop executive Chris Lighty has died.

Lighty was integral to the careers of 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, N.O.R.E., Diamond D, and many others. After growing up under the tutelage of Hip Hop icons like DJ Red Alert, Lighty began working professional at Russell Simmons' RUSH Management firm in the late 1980s, where he helped work with Def Jam Records artists and others in securing endorsement deals and touring.

The Violator name carried on in the late 1990s and 2000s, when Lighty launched his own firm. The management company handled clients ranging from Diamond D and Foxy Brown to Busta Rhymes and Q-Tip.

He was found dead on August 30 in what is believed to be an alleged suicide.

4 Ways to Stop Making Excuses and Follow Your Passion

1. Decide if you're truly passionate. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone - it may sound like a sexy career, but the reality is that it takes self-motivation and fortitude. If it isn't for you, that's okay, be honest with yourself about whether you have the tenacity to be an entrepreneur.

Ultimately, passion drives that momentum.

2. Get to know your market. Before launching a new venture, scope out your competitors, get to know your customers, and meet entrepreneurs that you might emulate.

3. Create a safety net. If you're serious about starting your own business, save up the resources you'll need in order to succeed. Lack of time and debt are the two greatest pitfalls that prevent people from starting a new gig.

4. Turn to family and friends for support. The people closest to you can be a vital resource as you prepare to start a new venture. Encouragement from trusted family members and friends will help build entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

They can also help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.

Billionaires Under The Age Of 40

Money does not sleep, those that want it the most - work tireless and smart to get it. We shine the spotlight on 20 of the world's under 40 years filthy rich people.

No. 1: Dustin Moskovitz

Age: 27
Net Worth: $3.5 billion

Dustin Moskovitz was Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard roommate and Facebook's third employee. Despite his billions, he still bikes to work and flies commercial. Moskovitz has also joined Bill Gates' Givinb Pledge. He is just 8 days younger than his friend.

No. 2: Mark Zuckerberg

Age: 27
Net Worth: $17.5 billion

Don't let the hoodie and the sandals fool you, the Facebook founder controls 56.9% of firm's total pre-IPO voting power. The company's IPO is expected to hit in the next few months, possibly boosting his net worth even higher. Zuckerberg is only 8 days older than former roommate Dustin Moskovitz.

No. 3: Albert Von Thurn Und Taxis

Age: 28
Net Worth: $1.5 billion

Albert von Thurn und Taxis first joined Forbes' billionaire ranks at age 8 but officially inherited his fortune in 2001 on his 18th birthday. Eligible bachelor still lives in his family castle and races in a German auto-racing league.

No. 4: Scott Duncan

Age: 29
Net Worth: $4.1 billion

Scott Duncan is one of four children of the late energy pipeline entrepreneur Dan Duncan, the former richest man in Houston, who died in 2010 at age 77. Scott added $1 billion to his fortune in the last year as the company's share price climbed by one-fourth.

No. 5: Eduardo Saverin

Age: 30
Net Worth: $2 billion

Eduardo Saverin was immortalized in the movie, The Social Network, which portrayed him being betrayed by his onetime best friend Mark Zuckerberg. The former pals started Facebook together at Harvard, with Brazilian-born Saverin apparently providing early seed money.

No. 6: Yang Huiyan

Age: 30
Net Worth: $4.7 billion

Her low-key dad, Yeung Kwok Keung, transferred his holding of the family's main fortune, shares in family-controlled real estate developer Country Garden Holdings to her ahead of the company's Hong Kong IPO in 2007. Yang, China's richest person in 2007 (net worth then: $16.2 billion), has seen her fortune drop dramatically since, though she's wealthier than last year.

No. 7: Fahd Hariri

Age: 31
Net Worth: $1.3 billion

Fahd Hariri is the youngest son of slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. He lives in Paris, where he got a degree in architecture. While still a student, he opened an interior design studio on the outskirts of the city, and sold furniture to clients in Saudi Arabia.

No. 8: Sean Parker

Age: 32
Net Worth: $2.1 billion

Facebook's first president is looking to disrupt the Web once again with Airtime, the social video site he plans to launch with his Napster co-founder, Shawn Fanning, by the end of 2012. He's also looking to fix the very music industry he helped break with Napster as an investor and board member of Swedish music platform, Spotify.

No. 9: Ayman Hariri

Age: 33
Net Worth: $1.3 billion

Ayman Hariri is the second-youngest son of slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who left behind a fortune now shared by his five children. On the board of Saudi Oger, he has overseen mega construction projects such as the Princess Noura Bint Abdulrahman University for Women, and the King Abdullah Financial District, both in Saudi Arabia.

No. 10: Robert Pera

Age: 34
Net Worth: $1.5 billion

Apple hardware engineer turned wireless networking entrepreneur struck out on his own in 2005 with the goal of bringing affordable internet access to the world's emerging markets. Six years later, Pera became a billionaire when his Ubiquiti Networks went public in October 2011.

No. 11: Yvonne Bauer

Age: 34
Net Worth: $2 billion

In December 2010 German publisher Heinz Bauer, age 72, transferred 85% of the limited partnership of the family-run business to his daughter Yvonne, who is the company's CEO. She is the fifth generation of the family to run the group, which was founded in 1875.

No. 12: Yoshikazu Tanaka

Age: 35
Net Worth: $4.3 billion

Yoshikazu Tanaka is the founder and CEO of Gree, a mobile gaming service that is Japan's biggest online social network. Gree aims to outpace Japanese rivals abroad: it acquired U.S. mobile gaming company OpenFeint last year, and works with China's largest net portal, Tencent.

No. 13: Maxim Nogotkov

Age: 35
Net Worth: $1 billion

New Russian billionaire Maxim Nogotkov got his start selling computer programs while in school and later began selling cordless phones. In 2000 he began trading cell phones wholesale and later founded cell phone retailer Svyaznoy; the privately held company is now the second-largest cell phone retailer in Russia.

No. 14: Alejandro Santo Domingo Davila

Age: 35
Net Worth: $9.5 billion

Alejandro became the face of his father's company after 87-year-old Julio Mario Santo Domingo Pumarejo died in October 2011. A Harvard history grad, the Columbian is the eldest son from the jet-setting beer magnate's second marriage. The family owns a private island, Baru, off the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

No. 15: Chase Coleman

Age: 36
Net Worth: $1.1 billion

A direct descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, Coleman is a Deerfield and Williams grad and "Tiger Cub" trained at Julian Robertson's famed hedge fund shop Tiger Management. His Tiger Global outperformed just about every hedge fund in the world in 2011, finishing the year up 45%.

No. 16: Yusaku Maezawa

Age: 36
Net Worth: $1.1 billion

Yusaku founded online fashion mall Zozotown, a wildly popular website with some 1,600 brands, mostly Japanese, and 4 million members. The website is structured like an actual mall where stores are set up; items are even sold on consignment.

No. 17: Andrey Verevskiy

Age: 37
Net Worth: $1 billion

Ukranian took agribusiness conglomerate Kernel Holding public on Warsaw stock exchange in 2007. Parliamentary deputy adroitly switched parties from Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc to new president Victor Yanukovich's bloc when the political winds shifted.

No. 18: John Arnold

Age: 38
Net Worth: $3 billion

Arnold began trading oil at Enron in 1995 and is said to have earned $750 million for company in 2001. When the energy outfit famously collapsed a year later, he went into business for himself founding Centaurus, a hedge fund focusing mostly on natural gas and energy trading.

No. 19: Kostyantin Zhevago

Age: 38
Net Worth: $1.8 billion

Ukraine's second-youngest billionaire recently purchased Danube River waterway transport provider Helogistics. Graduate of Kyiv State Economic University is also a parliamentary deputy, and he owns FC Vorskla soccer club.

No. 20: Fang Wei

Age: 38
Net Wroth: $1.1 billion

Beijing-based investor targets under-performing state-owned listed companies for restructuring. Fangda Group now has more than 30,000 employees across more than 10 provinces in China.

Jigga & B Top The Money List

Love doesn't pay the bills, Jigga and B might 100% agree. Forbes has named Jay-Z and Beyoncé the world’s highest paid celebrity couple of 2012 after they grossed a combined $78 million last year. B earned $40 million, while Hov tallied $38 million, largely in part to the Watch the Throne album and tour he did with Kanye West, in addition to all his business ventures.

In being named the highest paid celeb couple, Jigga and B took the title from Tom Brady and supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen, who were the top-grossing celebrity couple last year. They came close to repeating as Forbes top couple after taking home $72 million, just six million less than the music power couple.

Soccer superstar and global icon David Beckham and wife Posh Spice Victoria Beckham grossed a combined $54 million to come in at No. 3, while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie pocketed a combined $45 mil for the fourth spot. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith were ranked fifth for the $40 million they earned.

Fineline Productions Wants To Discover & Develop Black Filmmakers

Earlier this year, Fineline Productions received funding from the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) to develop and produce annual feature films - R6m for three years.

The goal is to discover and develop new black filmmaking talents in South Africa.

Junaid Ahmed of Fineline Productions said that his motivation for the project was based on:

His concern over the slow advancement of black film professionals; particularly screenplay writers, directors and producers in the film industry. An intensive-action plan was hatched by Ahmed and his team at addressing the root of the problem. This involves selecting and grooming aspirant film-makers with “natural DNA and flair for the art of visual story-telling,” said Ahmed.

The company plans to spend R2m each year (or about $250,000) developing and eventually producing 1 feature film, and has issued a call for submissions for narrative feature film projects, with an application deadline of Monday, September 10, 2012.

The company says it's especialling searching for "submissions that have a strong commercial bent especially in the genres of action adventure, drama, romance, comedy and thrillers."

The rest of the criteria follow below:

• The Writer/s, Producer and Director must be black.

• Writers must have authored at least one dramatic fictional work which has been accepted for publication OR must have written at least one script of no less than 24 minutes which has been produced OR must have graduated from an accredited film school (with good references) or the NFVF writers’ programme.

• Directors: must have directed at least one fictional short film OR two episodes of a television drama which has been accepted for broadcast OR a feature film which has been accepted either for distribution or screening by an accredited film festival.

• Producers: must have a track record of working at least two years in the film and/or television industry. Experience in production, production accounting, distribution, writing or directing will lend weight to this application.

Obviously, this isn't a program for first-timers.

If you fall intor any of the above 3 main categories (writer, director or producer), and you're black, and you are South African, or you know someone who fits the above criteria, here's what you need to submit:

• 1 page story synopsis

• 1 page project motivation

• 1 page bio of key personnel (Writer/Producer/Director)

Selected applicants will be required to pitch their projects to a panel. Pitching of projects will take place in Johannesburg at a date to be confirmed.

Mail your application to:

Fineline (Slate Productions)
P.O.Box 30210
Mayville 4058
KwaZulu Natal
South Africa

And of course, if you have any further questions, you're encouraged to email the company at: junaid@fineline.co.za.

Four Career Tips From Billionaires Who Never Graduated

A college diploma is not a prerequisite for obtaining an absurd amount of wealth. Out of the 400 richest people in the U.S., 63 entrepreneurs don’t have one–more than 15% of the list. With total U.S. With no cash for college and unemployment pushing hard budding entrepreneur might be tempted to skip university and instead enroll in the school of hard knocks.

Author Michael Ellsberg spent two years interviewing business titans who did just that for his book The Education of Millionaires. Here are a few lessons gleaned from four billionaires who learned from life experience, not lecture halls. Inspired? Great. If not, you can always plop down six figures and head to campus.

SKIP COLLEGE; GOOGLE YOUR EDUCATION

When these incredible tools of knowledge and learning are available to the whole world, formal education becomes less and less important. We should expect to see the emergence of a new kind of entrepreneur who has acquired most of their knowledge through self- exploration.

YOU CAN ALWAYS GO BACK

Take Facebook for example billionaire Dustin Moskovitz left college to join Mark Zuckerberg, he said, “I could have gone back to Harvard anytime. My friends might not be there anymore. I might have to start over socially. That was a risk. But it was a pretty small risk compared to the opportunity at the time.”

LOOK OUT FOR NO. 1

Billionaire Phillip Ruffin’s last duty as someone else’s employee was to repossess a monkey. He quit and founded a chain of stores, and later, hotels and casinos. “The advice I would give to young people? Quit your job. Don’t work for anybody. You really can’t make any money working for someone else.”

GET THICK-SKINNED

The Navy vet slept in an ancient Rolls- Royce on Sunset Strip as he slung shampoo door-to-door before making it big with Paul Mitchell. “I learned sales and marketing from knocking on a hundred doors a day. You quickly discover that you’ll get 99 slammed in your face before you make a sale.”

Generate Your Own Startup Capital

One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs of all ages is getting ahold of startup capital. But for young and first-time entrepreneurs in particular that task can be even more formidable. Banks and investors typically like to see that you’ve started successful businesses in the past or that you’ve worked in your chosen industry.

Fortunately you can rely on yourself — you are, after all, your best source for capital. Here are 10 ways to use your own best asset: You.

Income.

If you have a job, keep it, or consider just reducing your hours. It will be tough to startup while you’re still working, but that constant, stable source of cash could help sustain you and your startup until it starts generating enough money on its own.

Savings.

Before you startup, save as much as possible. This personal nest egg is your best source for start-up capital, as it can help further your business plans without asking others for money.
   
Downsize.

If your personal expenses such as rent and car payments are too high, you may not have enough left to start your business. To keep your costs down, live in student mode — where cereal and noodles are daily staples — even if your income has moved up. You may need to consider more drastic measures: Moving back in with mom and dad, for instance, is a common strategy among startup entrepreneurs.
   

Investors.

Some people see long time even when there's no glimmer of hope, try to find such people and don't give up no matter how many doors are slammed in your face.

Credit.

While you should avoid crazy spending sprees, your credit cards may be a valuable resource while you’re getting started. Look for cards with no annual fee and a low interest rate on balances.

Rebound From Failure

Failure of any kind can be a setback for entrepreneurs, but it doesn't have to spell disaster. When faced with any setback, here are five rules that might helped you.

Don't pretend it never happened.

People are often so anxious to avoid the stigma of failure that they refuse to admit what happened. Denial usually results in a host of other problems, including internal stress and delaying any effective remedy. The late Dale Carnegie, a well-regarded lecturer and author of the bestseller "How to Win Friends and Influence People," said that when you're quick to admit that you screwed up, your peers will stop holding your feet to the fire and actually begin to comfort you.

Avoid making excuses.

Some people wiggle past the truth by admitting to a problem they sugarcoat in excuses. Don't confuse a failed goal for a failed person, sometimes people take the opposite approach and blame themselves for any and every failure, creating a pattern of negative self-reinforcement. Remember, you are not alone, people fail to reach goals all the time - everyone's bound to stumble every once in a while.
   
Focus on the lessons learned.

The only way to survive such a world-class level of failure is to focus on the future. Not many people can say they've literally lost lots and chalk it up to "business lessons."

Musicians' Income Can Still Be Huge With The Right Brand, Team

The Future of Music Coalition found that average musicians don't make much money on CD sales worldwide.

What gives? It's tempting to chalk the difference up to disparities in record sales - some musicians have always gotten huge while their peers languished in obscurity. But even top artists are selling far fewer records than they used to. For total North American sales of recorded music fell 36 percent between 2007 and 2011 alone, according to a recent report. And it's clear that digital music sales haven't yet made up for lost physical sales and won't anytime soon.

So how can artists make money?

According to industry experts, the only way to make money in the music business is to turn an artist into a brand - then do everything in your power to maximize that brand's value.

The first step on this path still involves music. Songs make an artist famous in the first place and allow the artist to define his or her brand. Touring can also be lucrative; spending on concerts in surpassed spending on recorded music. But tours are also expensive to produce, so they aren't necessarily as profitable for the artist as they initially appear. For that reason, artists across the globe have gotten increasingly creative with their business ventures. Some artists charge to much and are hardly booked - promoters prefer house DJs instead.

Many years ago, if you had a hit song on the radio and a great tour, then you'd sell a million records, two million records. That's not necessarily the case anymore. But today, if you have a hit song and you have a sold-out tour, then other ancillary opportunities are available to you: sponsorships, endorsements, TV, movie, features. Recording an album should be a promotional tool. An artist needs to jump into the studio and make music that will have their names on everyone's lips then capitalise on endorsements.

So once an artist becomes popular through music, the four members of his or her management team (agent, manager, lawyer, business manager) (that's if they have those) work to turn fans' goodwill into revenue. They secure deals for music-merchandise manufacturers to sell anything with their clients' faces on them, get their clients lucrative judging positions on reality TV shows, adverts, acting gigs and help broker clothing-design jobs with apparel companies. In the US for example, some artists have made more with these kinds of deals than they would have in the golden age of the CD.

The best deals, in addition to being lucrative, also make an artists' brand more appealing for future endeavors.

Open auditions for Intersexions

All the fame chasing hustlers - this might be your chance at stardom (not sure about the money as many actors run around crying that they are broke).

Members of the public are invited to audition for roles in the second series of the multiple award-winning SABC1 drama Interxexions, which is currently in pre-production. The first auditions will take place in Johannesburg, followed by Durban and Cape Town.

Intersexions 1 consisted of 25 standalone episodes, each linked by a character, which portrayed how HIV moves through the human sexual network. A 26th episode took the form of a documentary that explained how HIV spread throughout the 25 stories – from the point of view of the virus itself. It immediately grabbed audiences’ attention, and within three weeks of first being aired in late 2010 it became South Africa’s second-most popular television show across all genres. Viewers actively engaged with the series on social media, frequently sending more than 2,500 tweets per episode – while they were being screened.

The first series garnered local and international acclaim. It won an unprecedented 13 South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) earlier this year, as well as a Peabody Award – the leading global broadcast accolade.

The first round of auditions for Intersexions II takes place in Johannesburg on 4 August, at the Bassline club at 10 Henry Nxumalo Street, in Newtown. People wishing to audition should prepare one of four roles, which can be accessed on www.facebook.com/pages/InterSEXions, and they may audition in any of the country’s official languages.

John Legend Entering TV Business

John Legend is stepping into a new showbiz venture... films. Legend and his Get Lifted Film Company has signed an exclusive deal with Universal Cable Productions to develop TV series for both cable and broadcast networks.

No details yet on what type of programming we can expect from this deal, but this apparently marks Legend's first real, concerted effort to expand his empire beyond music, calling it the “next step forward in building Get Lifted.”

His IMDB resume is chock-full of TV appearances as himself; but he's done a little acting, and is listed as producer of a new TV series called Famewhore.