Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

This is said.  Only 31 years old, Skakir Stewart, the 31 year old vice president of Def Jam Records, died outside of Atlanta, GA of a "self-inflicted gun shot wound."  Why he would do that is anyone's guess.  He seemed to have the World on a string. This is a kind of bio on him: Shakir Stewart was born in Oakland, California and realized very early that the music "business" was his destiny. In 1989, Shakir worked the neighborhood music scene as a club promoter. Recognizing that his flair for marketing and promoting had limitless potential, Shakir enrolled in Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia and in 1996, graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing. During his years at Morehouse, Shakir became known in the then, budding, "dirty south", as a concert promoter; promoting for top notch talents like Luke, Scarface, Nas, Too Short to name a few. Immediately after graduating, he incorporated the art of negotiating into his marketing & p...