Carolina Alumni Review - November/December 2011

magazine’s website. He suspects it was a School of Journalism and Mass Communication classmate of his, working for CNBC, who in fall 2010 pitched the unusual story of a Goldman Sachs banker who also was producing hip-hop music. “It created this tremendous hype around me. The press just had a great time with it,” Mask says. Goldman eschews publicity. The Ne w York Times, in an article that included Mask’s experience, said that at Goldman “a public persona can be a liability.” “Goldman got a little bit nervous,” Mask says. He was told he could not appear on the CNBC piece, and his employers set rigid restrictions on what he could do outside of work. “Basically, what they were saying was that music was over for me if I wanted to stay there.” Mask says Goldman wasn’t specifically nervous about his art form, hip-hop. Had standards singer Michael Buble been the banker involved, Goldman would have had the same reaction, Mask says. “They get really talented people [to work there] and to really focus … people work 100-hour weeks. You don’t do anything else.” For someone more in love with music than banking, it was time to move on, especially since his fiance lived in San Francisco. “I really love doing deals,” he said in his best Gordon Gekko impersonation. So when he moved west, it was to work in the same kind of position but for an organization with a very different attitude toward employees, Google Finance. His attire and hours changed, and the corporate reaction to his outside interests was supportive. Being able to pursue outside interests immediately paid

off for Mask and a Bay Area children’s arts program. Mask had done well in a previous VH1 music video competition, so he entered the cable network’s Battle of the Bands, jointly sponsored with DoSomething.org and The Hot Topic Foundation. He produced and starred in The Next Big Thing, a hip-hop video featuring students from the Children’s After School Arts program. Out of

20,000 submissions, Mask’s entry won the grand prize and $5,000 for the program.

It’s an entertaining video, shot coincidentally by fiance Carly Brantmeyer ’ 10. It’s uplifting and positive in tone, calling for more arts in the schools and exhorting children to appreciate their teachers.

It’s a tune that even his parents and professors with more traditional musical tastes might enjoy.

— Paul T. O’Connor

Musically, Mask
can play the sharp-
dressed man or present
a more casual style, in
hopes of reaching a
wide audience.
“Ultimately, I want to
make music for as many
people as I can. I want
everyone to enjoy it,”
he says.