How an Unconventional Path Got Nabil Ayers to President of One of the Most Influential Music Label Groups

The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show

Chase Jarvis

Celebrity, Art, Career, Creativity, Money, Entrepreneurship, Self-improvement, Education, Careers, Writing, Interview, Investment, Influencer, Business, Photography

4.8 • 641 Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2022

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nabil Ayers is the president of Beggars Group USA, which has released albums by many world-famous artists and Grammy winners. He has also written about music and race for major publications including The New You Times and Rolling Stone. From musician to entrepreneur to president and now writer, Nabil Ayer has always chosen a path different than most, which as revealed in his memoir has been much more connected to his absentee father than he would have known.

I have been friends with Nabil for 10-15 years now and have also had him previously on my show where we spoke about his career journey from musician and record store owner to General Manager of Beggars Group 4AD. He has since then become president of Beggars Group and has now written a memoir of his life and journey. Our conversation during this show focuses on his book being released this week: My Life in the Sunshine; Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family.

Enjoy!

Highlights from the Show:

[00:00] Intro

[06:06] The Early Days

[09:25] Evolution of the Path

[15:00] The Dissonance of Choosing a Different Path

[21:10] Working With a Label

[22:56] Becoming President of Beggars Group

[29:24] Parallels of Being Both on the Inside and the Outside

[34:20] Hacking the System

[37:01] The Role of My Father

[43:49] From New York to Salt Lake City to Seattle and Racism

[50:01] The Creative Process

[55:26] Writing

[57:01] Trauma and the Therapy of Writing

[1:01:00] Book “My Life in the Sunshine"

[1:02:02] Where to follow Nabil

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody, what's up? It's Chase. Welcome to another episode of the Chase Jarvis Live show here on Creative Live. The show where I sit down with incredible humans and I do everything I can to unpack their brain with the goal of helping you live your dreams. Today's guest is Nabil Ayers. Now, Nabil is many things, among them, an author, an entrepreneur,
0:24.3	a record executive. And that's where I'd like to sort of focus in why you should care about
0:29.6	this episode. We all are multi-hyphenates. And you're going to hear about the person who is now
0:35.1	the president of Beggers group, the label that has
0:38.7	legendary bands like Radiohead and the national grimes and dozens more that are absolutely
0:46.2	legendary and impactful in the music world. But where Nabil really stands out is his ability
0:52.2	to share stories and insights from his childhood through a mixed
0:56.9	race where he knew, despite being at a small liberal arts college in Washington, that his life
1:03.8	was meant to be different than many of those in his peer class. It's a very fascinating story,
1:10.0	how we unpack the labels that we carry,
1:12.5	how we truly ought to be able to pursue the things that we know are what we see for ourselves
1:20.3	in our hearts, the ability to manage all this, to cut his way from starting a record store at a very
1:26.2	young age in Seattle to now being one of the
1:28.1	top executives in a music industry and having what I believe will be a New York Times bestseller
1:33.1	on his hands. It's a brilliant book, tons of insights. And if you were raised with a single mother,
1:38.4	if you are of mixed race, if you are a person who put your dreams on hold in order to fulfill the life that someone
1:47.3	else had for you or the other way around, if you were managed to flip the script, this book
1:52.6	and this particular show is definitely for you. So I confess that I am a long-time friends
2:00.1	with Nabil. I think that makes this conversation even more interesting,
2:04.0	and I can't wait for you to tap into it.
2:06.7	So again, I'm going to get out of the way.
2:07.8	Yours truly in conversation with Nabil Ayers.
	...

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