ZACK O'MALLEY GREENBURG

Branson B. introduced rap’s royalty with fine champagne. Now he’s trying to make his own brand of bubbly pop in a crowded marketplace.

Wiz Khalifa’s High Earnings Forbes, 08.09.11 By Zack O’Malley Greenburg The Pittsburgh-bred rapper has transformed his affection for marijuana into a moneymaking marketing tool, and in the process, turned himself into a lucrative lifestyle brand. The Camp Bisco music festival in upstate New York is a morass of sunburned teenagers stumbling around drunkenly in the [...]

Saving The Union (Pacific) Forbes, 10.13.09 Despite a billion-dollar government mandate and the worst recession in memory, chief James Young is putting the country’s oldest railroad back on track. On the fringe of Council Bluffs, Iowa, where the windows are cracked and rust clings to the hubcaps of dilapidated Cadillacs, the future of American railroading [...]

Akon’s Recession-Proof Tune Forbes, 07.09.09 By Zack O’Malley Greenburg One sweet-singing impresario is thriving amid rap’s recession. Ten minutes before the start of a benefit concert at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, and rapper-singer-songwriter Akon is brawling with his deejay over how to hook a stodgy crowd of Manhattan philanthropists at the 2009 Do Something Awards. “We [...]

The Man Who Invented Hip-Hop Forbes, 07.09.09 By Zack O’Malley Greenburg Afrika Bambaataa is credited with creating a musical movement, but he’s no cash king. It’s about an hour past lunchtime, and the man who invented hip-hop is nowhere to be found. The restaurant on Lenox Avenue where we’d planned to meet is closed–and has [...]

Curtis ”50 Cent” Jackson is hedging against the music industry’s whims with the help of an African billionaire.

Lorenzo’s Oil — and Lorenzo’s Courage Washington Post, 06.15.08 Thoughts on the passing of Lorenzo Odone. It’s not often that one stumbles home from a long night out to find an e-mail with the subject line, “Oh my God, I read today’s BBC headline and totally thought you were dead.” On May 30, I returned [...]

On the Rail: True Stories from a Great American Train Ride Yale Daily News Magazine, 2.12.07 Generations past its golden age, is there any romance left on the railroad? Green is probably the last word that comes to mind when one thinks of Los Angeles. Smog, earthquake, ocean, anorexia — these are all more realistic [...]