Managing an Artist

Cortez Bryant is the CEO of Bryant Management and Lil Wayne’s manager. He also manages Lil Wayne’s company called Young Money. Bryant was a classmate of Lil Wayne at the Eleanor McMain Secondary School in New Orleans. Once Lil Wayne’s career stated to take off, Wayne wanted Bryant to help him manage it because he was the only one he trusted. Bryant has a degree in mass communications and graphic design from Jackson State University.

Bryant was very instrumental with getting Lil Wayne appearances with other artist in order to build his reputation in the industry. In 2008, Lil Wayne won a Grammy Award for “The Carter III”. He sold 3.5 million units and became a solid contending artist.

According to (Larry Leblanc, In the Hot with Larry Leblanc) in an interview with Bryant, he speaks candidly about Lil Wayne. He states, “ He’s the creative guy, I’m the voice”. Cortez Bryant has managed to juggle all of Lil Wayne’s dreams and ventures with humility and ease. Although he had no formal training as a manager or desire at first, he does an incredible job of representing his childhood friend.

Lil Wayne was born Dewayne Michael Carter Jr. He came on the music industry scene at 9- years old, when he got the attention of Birdman Williams. By 1995, Lil Wayne was 13-years old and signed to the Cash Money label as one of the rappers of Juvenile. Soon after, Lil Wayne and other members of the group formed another group called “Hot Boys”.

By the time Lil Wayne was 17, he released his first solo album called “The Block is Hot”, this was his first hit which came out in 1999. He managed to have other success with his next album as well but lost his group members in the process. It was not until he completely went out on his own with the “The Carter II” album that he got real recognition as well as hit the billboard charts from selling about 240,000 units.

During Lil Wayne’s incarceration, Bryant was diligent about making sure Lil Wayne was not forgotten.
Several new singles were released strategically until Lil Wayne returned back to work. Bryant also had Lil Wayne’s protégé mix their material with Lil Wayne’s released material in order to keep Wayne's fans interested.

References:

Larry Leblanc http://www.celebrityaccess.com/members/profile.html?id=545

Google Images
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