Why Does Andreessen Horowitz Have an Official Rapper?
Divine, an underground rapper from Brooklyn, has taken his friendship with venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, who invested in Rap Genius, to the next level. First Divine made a music video for Horowitz's birthday. Now they're posing in matching tees that says: VC LIFE: Inspired by Ben Horowitz.
In a lengthy interview with Rap Rehab, Divine recently explained how he learned of Ben Horowitz while he was incarcerated. "My first reaction to that was white dude—older white gentleman from Silicon Valley, venture capital, naw mean, loves hip hop? To me that just didn't sound right."
Once he read Horowitz's post on the origin of "how Hip Hop became the inspiration for all my thinking on leadership," Divine tried to get Horowitz's attention on Twitter and investor followed him back. "He wasn't officially verified at the time, so I thought somebody is playing games with me," he told Rap Rehab.
Horowitz, who described Divine as "the modern Jean Valjean," reportedly dubbed Divine "the official Andreessen Horowitz rapper" after Divine produced theme music for the venture capital firm's podcast, according to TechCrunch:
A16Z's Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Lyons reached out shortly after and asked Divine to put something together for their podcast. But of course, Divine wanted to do more than that. He produced the theme music for the podcast and then wrote an entire song to pay homage to his new friend Ben.
Divine: And so I said to Chris I wrote the song and I recorded it but I hadn't even started yet. But I said you know what? Let me get this done and I bang it out in 15 minutes. So Chris mixed and matched it and sends it back to me a week later you know, on my birthday. The next day I get an email from Ben and he says I'm now the official Andreessen Horowitz rapper.
Divine says he is inspired by charities run by Horowitz and his wife. Those "VC Life" t-shirts apparently refer to a new "movement." See, he's already locked down the Silicon Valley lingo.
"VC Life" by Divine: A new lifetime lifestyle choice movement inspired by @bhorowitz...#VCLIFE pic.twitter.com/uYs2tRXlFD
— Divine (@4thlettermusic) September 12, 2014
Self-made...'3 The Hard Way': Wit' @bhorowitz & @Nas getting our 'Rakim' on... pic.twitter.com/iS9JmkGRg7
— Divine (@4thlettermusic) September 12, 2014
Here's the interview from Rap Rehab:
To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.