“Here check this out!” Urged Joe.
I plopped on the headphones and pressed play on the Walkman. My 15 year old ears couldn’t understand the amazing sounds they were hearing. This bass funk solo was just pulsing through my ears and I was hooked.
“Who the heck was that?” I said.
“I dunno but he’s the bass player for Kenny G” Joe answered.
“Dang that guy is nasty on the bass you gotta let me borrow it to make a copy of the cassette.” I said.
“Better not lose it.” Joe answered.
“I promise.” I said.
After school I ran home and searched through my pile of junk for an old cassette tape to record over. That night I immersed myself in this “Kenny G Live” album. My life had changed, at the time I was playing tenor sax and bass in my high school jazz band and the album was the best of both worlds. Kenny G the ultimate sax man and his bass player Vail Johnson the ultimate funk machine turned my whole thinking on music.
I found that dope bass solo on youtube check it out.
20 years Later
You will never guess what Kenny G does besides music.
I received a text from my big brother and it said, “Check out what Kenny G does.” And added a link. The link sent me to a CNBC video of Kenny G being interviewed. Turns out Kenny G is an investor and stock
trader and if you’re not aware I my self am an investor and stock trader as well.
I haven’t followed Kenny G’s career since the 90’s. I figured his career faded out, which it did. He isn’t as well known like he was back in the eighties and nineties. I assumed he was struggling financially and fell into the music business trap like many musicians and never really recovered.
Turns out I was wrong…dead wrong!
Kenny G’s estimated net worth is $50 million and a global total album sales of 75 million. But according to the “G” man himself he stated in an article from Reuters.
“Over the last decade, I have earned as much from stock trading as from music.”
Even though he was the number one instrumentalist back two decades ago he knew his money needed to be invested in other vehicles other than depending on album sales.
What a smart dude.
My sax hero from my childhood was the ultimate “Thinking Musician” and one day I’m gonna meet him and maybe interview him.
Here’s a video of Kenny G on CNBC discussing his investments and day trading. Go ahead and click in Kenny G’s luscious hair.
And another video with Kenny G and super model Cindy Crawford on Bloomberg discussing investment strategies. Click on the image.
The Lesson
Think like Kenny G. Think like the 1% of wealthy musicians, not the 99%.
Investment in only album sales is foolish. Take your hard earned cash and invest it building more and more assets. That way you won’t need to solely rely on performance income or royalties for a living, because as I’m writing this blog major artists are getting their royalties cut from digital sales from companies like Pandora and Spotify. Here is an article about Pharrell Williams click here.
“Think McFly, think!”
Fame and riches is what most artists look for and not everyone gets a piece of the fame pie but everyone can get a piece of the rich pie. Wealth is not made out of shear luck, success is not an accident it’s planned. The wealthy didn’t win the genetic lottery and were born into wealth they earned it.
“More than 80% of all millionaires are self made.”
Every millionaire that I’ve met are self made, they hustled, had a game plan, failed many times, got back up, restructured their game plan, executed, failed again and kept at it until they reached their goal.
“You’ve got to be hungry to succeed.” -Les Brown-
Desire, dedication and discipline is what it takes.
Thanks for reading and please give me some insight into your mind and enter them in the comments section below.