Jay-Z may be a stratospherically popular rapper, and a memoirist, fashion mogul, club owner, and basketball team part-owner, still has a few more realms to conquer.
He's beginning by signing New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano to his management company Roc Nation, which heretofore had not represented athletes. Roc Nation Sports, as the new business is called, will be a partnership with high-powered Hollywood agency CAA. CAA Sports's agents, as ESPN points out, are broadly and deeply experienced, and Jay-Z reportedly intends to become a sports agent.
Cano has been an All-Star four times, including the last three seasons, and won a World Series with the Yankees in 2009. Meanwhile, Jay-Z plans to tour with Justin Timberlake -- another over-burdened multihyphenate -- this summer.
Rest assured, though, the rapper's no stranger to baseball: his single "Brooklyn (Go Hard)," heard in trailers for an upcoming Jackie Robinson biopic, plays with the name and reputation the first black MLB star. Jay-Z calls himself "the black Branch Rickey" -- a reference to the pioneering Major League Baseball executive.
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