Q&A: Steve Stoute on Kanye West, Justin Bieber, and Music as Culture's “Trojan ... - Vanity Fair

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Music-industry veteran and brand-marketing innovator Steve Stoute's The Tanning of America is a candid, fearless and thorough exploration of how hip-hop culture became a mainstream influencer in the new century, affecting the "mental complexion" of the nation. Stoute sat down with VF Daily to discuss the book, music as a Trojan horse, and Obama's 2012 campaign message—highlights from the conversation:

VF Daily: This may be a strange question to lead with, but I noticed that you put asterisks in some of the curse words in the book and I was curious. Was that a style choice?

Steve Stoute: It was almost like I'm softening the use of the curse word, almost as a way to accentuate the statement, but not to forcefully say "shit" or "fuck."

So it wasn't self-censoring. I was wondering, because this is something that students could read like a history-class text?

That's a very good observation. I wrote the book not necessarily to be a history book, but I am actually teaching a course at N.Y.U. and it's also called "The Tanning of America." Students will take a semester of what led to this phenomenon. In order to highlight the culture shift, you have to state the before and after and show the transitions.

You open the book with the rise of Run DMC and their relationship with Adidas in the mid-80s, but cite the Sugarhill Gang's 1979 single "Rapper's Delight" as the real turning point. We're about the same age, and I can clearly recall the moment that I heard it and how it affected me. I was a white kid from Long Island, born in Queens.

What part of Queens?

Far Rockaway.

I was born in Queens Village.

I probably had the same excitement hearing that full, 15-minute version that you or anyone would have, and that was, in its way, a great force for unification.

It's very important, but music is not the pivotal thing to tanning. Music was the Trojan horse that brought in the culture. The culture was the pants and the language, the Ebonics, the systems in your car, an entire swagger and way to live your life. It was the videos [that] taught people how to act. It brought a tutorial for that way of life.

The music was the delivery system for ideas. It makes me think of that Kanye West quote in the book where he says that you "can say anything (in a song lyric) as long as the drums are right."

He told me, "Whoever thought you could get a song called 'Jesus Walks' into a club where people are smoking marijuana and drinking drink and popping pills? But when you got the drums right, you can say anything over it." There's a lot of messaging and coding going on in the music, because people were dancing and paying attention to the drums—meanwhile the words were shaping a generational shift, shaping a generation's thought.

Let's talk about the phrase "the tanning of America"—how did it come about?

People told me that they thought the word was a little too strong of a term. They probably felt like I could have softened the word up. When I speak about "tan," I speak about the mental complexion, and unless you take the time to read the book, you may start thinking of tan like people's skin tones are getting darker because of all the interracial relationships or the penetration of African Americans and Hispanics in America. I'm not speaking about the physical DNA. But yeah, I got resistance from the publisher and other people. They thought it was too strong a term—that's why I even put the Census Bureau form in the book, so you could understand how I approached it.  

You also have to appreciate the ring of it. You hear it once and don't forget it. It has power just as a term.

I'm a marketer, and I did believe that the word "tanning" could be a new description of how you would describe the phenomenon, yes. I have a Web series with AOL. I interviewed Will Smith, Justin Bieber, Jay-Z, Puffy, Jimmy Iovine, and it was all about what was their tanning moment. It's called "the tanning effect." Lady Gaga tells me how hip-hop culture affected her art. Justin tells me how young he was, and what it meant to him that America had an African-American president.

You write about President Obama's successful 2008 campaign, and I feel like I can't let you go before asking about his current message from a marketing standpoint, leading into the 2012 run.

I don't think he's given himself enough credit for what he has done. I think people kind of skim that he caught Osama bin Laden.

He took no victory lap.

He took no victory lap, so no one even gives him the victory for it. People think about it, but if everybody had true insight into what al-Qaeda was really doing and what could have been, they would give him the credit he deserves. It helped save the world—it made the world a better place.

You'd lead the campaign with that?

Wouldn't lead with that, but I would give that story a fresh coat of paint.

Did you have a strong sense that this was the right time to put the book out?

Oh yeah—it's the right book at the right time. Because the shift that's taking place right now—and the census data highlights the shift—is that one in seven marriages now are interracial. That's marriages. That's not even sex and babies—that's going all the way with it. One in seven now. And the biggest growth in Hispanics in America is no longer Florida and California—it's the growth in North Carolina and Illinois. The penetration of culture is getting into Middle America. With the Internet spreading shared cultures and values, we've now gotten to a place where one's ethnicity no longer determines what their cultural drive is. You know that coming up in Rockaway—you were on the cusp of it—but now it's happening in Iowa.