You Got to Have Guts

By Dorinda Elliott

Kevin Liles loves to give advice to young African Americans hoping to get into business. Starting as an unpaid intern at Def Jam, he worked his way up to president. Now an executive vice president at Warner Music, Liles, 37, recently published an inspirational book called Make It Happen. TIME's Dorinda Elliott talked with him about the race factor in business and playing the card game Guts with Jay-Z--but only after a barber gave Liles a trim in the Atlantic Records office:

What hidden obstacles do young African Americans face in the business world?

I could easily say there are some forms of racism today. But I choose not to make it an excuse. We think about lack of knowledge, lack of opportunity and lack of access. But I'm going to provide a solution because someday I'm going to wake up and say, "I'm here." So don't say it can't be done without the Harvard degree, without the friend of a friend. I don't want to be labeled as a black executive. No. I'm a great executive, and I run a great division. I'm not the executive vice president of the black division of Warner Music. Stan O'Neill does not run the black division of Merrill Lynch.

Do you think others pigeonhole you, or does the black community pigeonhole itself?

I think there's a bit of both. What people don't realize is for someone to be a CEO of a FORTUNE 500 company--s___, in the 'hood, we celebrate! Hey, my friend Stan--he's black! Oh, my! Not out of sayin' black people can't do it, but they never had the position before! So it's a celebration, a sort of coming out for a culture. But it's gotten a little too much because then you have people saying he got the position because he's black. We have to get back to the person. This is all post-fight the power, post-the revolution.

What was it like for you, coming from Def Jam, which was a mostly black environment, moving into Warner, the big U.S. corporation?

We're color-blind. We're not going to all eat matzo-ball soup. We're not going to all wear white on white--we're not! But as my Jewish friends would say, We can come and kibitz together.

A black admissions officer at a private school told me it has got harder to recruit qualified black students, in part because of hip-hop culture.

It's not about hip-hop. The truth is, because of hip-hop, you can be all you can be, and we've created a culture [where you can go] from thousands of dollars to tens of millions of dollars. People think they can have everything now, so they don't have to work 40, 50 years. We've got to learn to work hard. It's now up to us. But it sounds like you're trying to say, instead of the Establishment embracing [African Americans], I can't go there unless I'm of a certain status. That is Big Brother to us.

What do you mean?

Big Brother is something that's elite. At one time you had to be a certain color. Now, it's not the color; it's you gotta do this, you gotta know this, you gotta get a letter from this. And I'm doing all of this for what? To be accepted? Rule No. 2 in my book says, "Do You." But I can't Do Me if the only way to get in your organization is to Do You. I will show you kids who might not be statistically qualified but are now running $2.6 billion businesses and took them public--i.e., Kevin Liles.

You write about playing an underground card game with Jay-Z. What does Guts have to do with making it in business?

A lot of times you think you're built for it, and you're really not. The way to know? Put up your money. Not just a dollar; put up some real money. There's usually $10,000 per person riding each round when we play. Nine times out of 10, people give up--and they do that in life too. You got to call it, believe it and be ready to put your money up.

Who's got the most guts?

They call me the cowboy. But it's whoever brought the most money that night.