10 Alternative Career Choices Your Favorite Rappers Could Make

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Hip-hop loves side hustles. Whether it’s designing a fashion line or red-hot sneaker like Kanye West, managing big league sports and music stars like Jay Z at Roc Nation, hydrating the masses with electrolytes like 50 Cent, peddling premium Ciroc vodka and running an entire television network like Diddy, or following Ice Cube, Eve and Will Smith’s footsteps into the world of acting, rappers are always looking for new ways to expand their audiences and resumes, and in the process, make some serious cash.

Some rappers like LL Cool J, Queen Latifah and Ice T are so nice with their moonlighting gigs that we have all but forgotten that they were rappers from the start. Changing careers can be challenging. For every savvy business move, like Dr. Dre creating his billion-dollar Beats by Dre empire or Snoop Dogg coaching a successful kids’ football team, there are rappers who took the wrong career turn.

Think of the countless artists who have unsuccessfully tried to expand inorganically by running record labels only for their releases to go double wood, degrading themselves for the wrong reality television show role or selling tacky clothes that currently collect dust on discount store racks. There are so many options available for rappers and one misfire can be detrimental not just to an artist’s side income, but more importantly, to his or her main hustle too.

The Boombox is here to help. We play guidance counselor for some of your favorite MCs to assist them with the perfect career choice if they decide to hang up the mic. From Nicki Minaj to Drake to Rick Ross, check out 10 Alternative Career Choices Your Favorite Rappers Could Make.

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DealBook: Choices Ahead for the Dell Board, but Not Much Time

Gadgetwise Blog: A Wireless Speaker That Offers More Listening Choices

The Minx Air 200 wireless speaker from Cambridge Audio.

The market for wireless speakers is quickly becoming saturated with products in every shape, size and color, but few device makers give consideration to the individual needs of listeners.

The high-end Minx Air 200 wireless speaker from Cambridge Audio, a London-based maker of home theater components, delivers big sound while allowing users to personalize their listening experience with features like bass control and presets for Internet radio.

The Minx Air 200, which Cambridge sells in-house for $600, streams music from a phone, tablet or computer through either AirPlay or Bluetooth; wireless speakers typically feature only one or the other. It has simple, modern design, but behind that are digital signal processing, a subwoofer and a 200-watt amplifier that can fill a large room with rich, clear sound.

The speaker can be controlled by buttons on the top, a remote control or an app, available for iOS and Android devices. The app allows you to fine-tune your preferences, like bass and EQ control and search settings. You can also use the app to select presets for Internet radio stations and set a timer to shut down the power.

Connecting to my home network via Wi-Fi was tricky, involving a lot of steps and some troubleshooting. Syncing via Bluetooth was far easier.

Once I had a connection, I streamed a selection of music from my personal collection and Pandora. The sound was intense and vibrant, so much so that I worried about disturbing my neighbor below me. I could not detect distortions at low or high volumes.

The Minx Air 200 is an impressive speaker, but it’s expensive and enormous, weighing more than 11 pounds. Its size can be prohibitive in a tiny space like my living room. Fortunately, Cambridge has smaller, cheaper offerings worth considering, like the Minx Air 100 and the Minx Go.

Bits: Netflix Allows Americans to Share Viewing Choices with Facebook Friends

Netflix

You no longer have to ask your friends what they are watching on Netflix. Instead, you can now simply peer over their digital shoulder.

Netflix announced Wednesday that it will begin offering United States customers the ability to connect their Netflix account to Facebook to see what their friends are watching on the video rental service. They will also be able to share their own favorite videos.

In a blog post on the company’s Web site, Cameron Johnson, director of product innovation at Netflix, said that the latest sharing feature would offer two main views: customers’ favorite videos and those that they have recently watched on the service.

“You’ll see what titles your friends have watched in a new “Watched by your friends” row and what they have rated four or five stars in a new “Friends’ Favorites” row,” Mr. Johnson wrote. “Your friends will also be able to see what you watch and rate highly.”

For people worried that a secret show will appear in their Facebook timeline for all to see, Netflix gives people explicit options to decide what they share to Facebook.

“You are in control of what gets shared. You can choose not to share a specific title by clicking the “Don’t Share This” button in the player,” Mr. Johnson wrote.

The sharing feature has been available in other countries for some time. But before Netflix could enable it in the United States, the company had to persuade Congress to amend a 1988 law, called the Video Privacy Protection Act, that prohibited video service providers from sharing customers’ viewing history without their consent.

It’s unclear whether American consumers really want to see what their inflated social networks are watching on television. Although the idea sounds great, if your Aunt Mildred is watching World War I documentaries, and your nephew Luca is watching SpongeBob SquarePants, your social feed might not be very useful.

But investors thought the news was great for Netflix, sending the company’s shares up 7 percent in midday trading on Wednesday.