#HerLifestyle: Rachel Jackson

Puma and DTLR team up for this line-up of amazing women. | Atlanta, Georgia

I’m Rachel Jackson from Atlanta, Georgia, director of A&R at Roc Nation Label.

When did you recognize your purpose?

I recognized my purpose by being open—when I was a teenager, I tried everything. I started as a teen promoter, and through mentorship, I was able to really hone in on all that I was doing that made up the mosaic I didn’t see for myself. It’s very important to not only seek out, but also invite energy that is tenured into your process as you move along the way, and you’ll always be successful.

When and how would you describe your big break?

My big break is a moment in time that I honestly will never forget, and it came two-fold. In November 2007, that was the first teen party, when I was 16, I had ever thrown in my life. I got there because there were some guys in my similar age bracket, and they were like “Rachel you’re popular so let’s just try and throw a party.” did it and we threw it at a real dusty place on the Eastside, and it was just really, really crazy, but it ended up working. And then from there, that’s when visibility for me as the “Teen of the A” kind-of began, and then from there, I took an internship at Disturbing the Peace Records, as we know, you know, Ludacris’s label. From there, I started packing CDs, and I was just always like, “Hey, I’m throwing a party, can I have some of these CDs to pass them out at my party?” They noticed me doing that—they noticed I was making waves on the teen scene—and my responsibilities grew from there.

Who or What inspires you to work?

I am thoroughly inspired by travel and meeting new people; I feel that when you put yourself in a vulnerable place where you’re uncomfortable, you’re more susceptible and more open to receiving different perspectives and knowledge. Just when you feel like you’re a little out of control, in a sense, you gain a new level of control, and you can bring it back and roll it into what you have going on in your daily work life or just your personal life. I’m super, super inspired by seeing new things, meeting new people, and just allowing myself to decompress and give myself to the universe where I am in a foreign place.

What advice would you give to other women interested in your industry?

I live by and detail my life by this quote “Most people do what is required, but successful people do more.” With that, I would give the advice for other women looking to break into any field of any sort to do that extra research, go the extra mile, make sure you read that extra book, go to that extra seminar, pay that extra dollar, or save that extra dollar, to be whoever you want to be, and know that what separates the real from the fake or the real from the “trying” is just that extra push. Don’t be afraid to put in the extra work to differentiate yourself, but at the same time, know that you have to work on you. You are your biggest and most prized possession and investment, and no one is going to love you like you, so make sure that as you are on your career path, as you’re trying to reach your goals, give yourself some grace. Women of all diasporas have been killing it in aerospace, education, sports. We owe it to other women that are coming up and are wanting to learn how we made it—we owe it to them to tell our story. We owe it to them to bring whatever we can to build a proper structure and trajectory.

I’m Rachel Jackson and this is HerLifestyle.