ABSTRACT
The origins of Simmons’ empire are in the hiphop culture of New York’s squalid black neighborhoods; though, by 1994, he presided over the most multifarious black culture industry, which included inter alia record labels, management agencies, designer label fashion houses and film/television production companies. Famed for his constant on-the-move cell telephone conversations and his Adidas shoes (which were an advertisement rather than a fashion statement), Simmons took a black culture redolent of the crime that comes from poverty and stylized it.
