2025 Impact 50 Honoree: John Meneilly

JOHN MENEILLY
CEO
Left | Right Management

PRAYING FOR A NEW YORK HIP-HOP HEAD: Former Jay-Z consigliere takes Jelly Roll overseas.

After years of hustling mixtapes in gas station parking lots — and time behind bars — Jelly Roll was on the verge of a label deal, and he knew it was high time to find a manager.

“When I was talking to labels in L.A., I said to myself I should find a Nashville manager, but when I talked to Nashville labels, I said I should talk to a New York manager,” Jelly said during a Q&A with Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino at this year’s Pollstar Live! conference in Beverly Hills, California. His reasoning was that he’d seen the politics of Music Row and reckoned a Nashville manager who had other country clients would have to “play politics” on behalf of and sometimes between his own clients.

“So I literally prayed for an old New York guy, and specifically a hip-hop guy,” he said.

Two days later, his business manager said he’d arranged a call with longtime hip-hop manager John Meneilly.

“I was fixing to sign what I then didn’t know was a huge deal. I thought I was rich already,” he said. “John said let’s reassess this, because, before that, I had negotiated all my own deals.”

The rest is history. Jelly Roll’s Whitsitt Chapel started a stratospheric ascent to country megastardom that saw the unlikely, face-tattooed once-rapper become one of the genre’s biggest draws. This year’s highlights include headlining Stagecoach, joining “American Idol” as its Artist In Residence and winning Country Tour of the Year at the Pollstar Awards. 

Along the way, Meneilly has provided the steady guidance of a man who has navigated the turbulent waters of the music business. After all, until their amicable separation in 2014, Jay-Z referred to Meneilly as his “consigliere,” as the two grew Hova’s brand from the ground up. And now he’s guided Jelly’s rise from amps to arenas (with a special guest slot on Post Malone’s 2025 “BIG ASS Stadium Tour”). The unpleasant task of securing permission for Jelly Roll — a convicted felon —  to perform internationally was handled, and Jelly will play overseas to a truly global audience.