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Article written by: Edward Rubesch and Joy Yomjinda
Most people explain an entrepreneur as a person who creates a new business and commonly seen as an innovator who produces new ideas, goods, services and business.
Is it as simple as that?
And is there a pathway to become an entrepreneur who succeeds?
Entrepreneurs are NOT born. They are driven to create something they believe that is meaningful and life-changing. You simply need to develop your entrepreneurial mindset if you have the drive that is strong enough to make you want to do what is necessary to be an entrepreneur.
To innovate, many entrepreneurs assemble at least 2 skill sets or ideas together and create a new product. Those ideas or skill sets do not need to be perfect or expensive yet. Most entrepreneurs learn to start small and use the resources they have in their hands, which you can also learn and practice to do that as well.
Learning to assemble 2 different expertises to create a new product can help you reach more groups of target customers, and it means that you are stretching the opportunity to succeed in entrepreneurship, no matter which industry or business you are trying to achieve in.
In 2004, a famous American rapper Jay-Z released a single "99 Problems'' which became globally successful. The song came in at no.2 on Rolling Stone's top 100 songs of the '00s, and reached number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song won Best Rap Solo Performance at the 47th Grammy Awards, and has 17 million views on Youtube as of November 2020.
The rap-rock song reflects the struggles in America such as the racial issues where Jay-Z talks about being pulled over by the police for the transgression of being black. The song is widely interpreted as “the story of America” and has been referenced by many people from former President Obama to foreign celebrities.
In 2014, Hugo Chakrabongse Levy, a Thai-British musician based in New York, released his own version of "99 Problems" in the style of bluegrass using instruments such as a banjo which is completely different from the song’s original style. The lyric was rewritten but remains the chorus of Jay-Z’s original version. The song has become popular and was featured in well known Hollywood movies: No Strings Attached and Fright Night, and TV series: The Blacklist. As of November 2020, the song has 7.5 million views on Youtube.
Considering that Hugo created something different using expertise in bluegrass music and turned the original song into a completely different style that has been able to reach different new groups of audience such as bluegrass and country music audience, and also movie and TV series audience. And with the new version becoming famous, it made the original more well-known as well.
Is Hugo’s version of “99 problems” an innovation? Is he entrepreneurial? What do you think?
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