#170: Digital Music Marketing Executive Jamal Jimoh

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we welcome digital music marketing executive Jamal Jimoh to the Upper West Side! Jamal discusses being raised by a single mother in Rockaway, getting into a gifted and talented program, getting asked to leave the gifted and talented program, playing advanced music at an early age, going to high school with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Immortal Technique, being asked to leave Hunter High School, getting his GED and going to college at 16 years old. Jamal talks about working as a librarian, interning for TheSource.com and Revlon over the same summer, doing facilities work at the Universal Music Group headquarters, roaming the halls of Def Jam, and ultimately being asked to leave for being too social and doing his job too quickly. We talk in detail about the harrowing circumstances that put Jamal under sedation in a hospital bed for a week, waking up with a tube down his throat, how thankful he is for his mother, who saved his life, and how this all changed his perspective on life. Jamal gets into his digital career at Island Def Jam, working with Fall Out Boy, Rihanna, Justin Bieber and The Killers, how he was named to Billboard's esteemed 30 Under 30 list, why he chose to join Nick Cannon's NCredible Entertainment, what being let go from that job after five years meant, and the long, difficult road to bouncing back and figuring out who exactly Jamal Jimoh was outside of a job title. All that, plus his days as a rapper, what his denim collection was like in high school and college, and again, what a great person his mother is!