Rush Hour

Although Phat Fashions is still growing at 30% a year, according to Marshall, Rush's COO, Simmons has decided it's time to sell a majority stake. Is that because he sees a coming slowdown or because he needs scale? "We need better investment, sourcing and production and better infrastructure," Simmons says. "The obvious urban business has been fully exploited. We're growing dramatically still, but I believe we're hitting a ceiling."

Simmons has held serious negotiations with Kellwood, but at press time there was no deal. Skeptics say they think his clothing's popularity with the mainstream--suburban white kids--is more of a trend than a permanent cultural shift, as Simmons believes. Another issue is that in the fickle world of youth, popularity almost always means alienating the trendsetters, in this case urban buyers. Simmons's success has also inspired many imitators who are using their roots in the entertainment world to promote their clothing. "I'm agreeing that hip-hop is a culture and a lifestyle, but I'm not agreeing that he's going to be the only player in it," says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, a consumer-market researcher. "Simmons is the biggest player now, but he was filling a void, and that void is rapidly closing."

While hip-hop music has crossed the cultural divide, not every urban-suburban venture has made it. In fall 2002, dRush, Simmons's advertising joint venture with Deutsch, set up to market mainstream products to urban youth, shut down. "Clients' budgets were limited, and they would just take slivers and say, 'This is our minority budget,' " Deutsch says. "But I'd go into business with him again tomorrow."

There are plenty of other projects, starting with DefCon3 soda, which is being distributed exclusively by 7-Eleven, and a joint venture with Unifund, a financial-services company, for the new Rush Card, a prepaid Visa debit card aimed at the estimated 45 million Americans with no access to checking accounts or credit. Simmons hopes to break people's dependence on pricey check-cashing agencies by allowing their paychecks or other funds to be transferred to the card. Not that Simmons plans to give it away: The card costs $19.95, and each transaction costs $1. Cheaper than a check-cashing window, yes. Charity, no. "He loves to say it's hard to help the poor if you're one of them," says David Rosenberg, Unifund's CEO, who predicts that the Rush Card will reach 250,000 people by the end of the year.

Businesses like this one, the kind that may improve someone's economic status, are attracting Simmons's attention these days. In part, the change comes from his nine-year yoga practice, which he says has transformed his life. He goes to class at Manhattan's expensive and star-studded Jivamukti, which combines an intense workout with a distinct spiritual philosophy. A recent Thursday afternoon saw Simmons sneak in late, clad in gray Phat Farm sweats that became drenched over the course of the challenging 90-minute class. Forearm stands, headstands, difficult balance poses--he did them all, concentrating as fully as he had on anything all day. Then he was gone, skipping the meditation segment so he could make it to the MTV awards in time. If Simmons on yoga is a calm man, it's hard to fathom what Simmons on cocaine was like 20 years ago.

Today, the types of activities he's interested in are as much about the give-back as the bling-bling. So he's wading more deeply into politics, making headlines earlier this year by meeting with Governor Pataki and others in his attempt to try to get New York State to repeal the draconian Rockefeller drug laws. The attempt backfired; not only did the laws remain, but Simmons found himself under investigation by the New York Temporary State Commission on Lobbying for organizing a rally on the issue without lobbyist credentials. Typically, he's undeterred. "People were saying I'm in trouble," he says, amazed. "But they're talking about the drug law. That's all I ever wanted. I can say whatever the f*** I want about their laws. How dare they?" Simmons is suing the state for violating his free-speech rights, and in a telling line, says he did it "on behalf of the hip-hop community."

Another political power base is Simmons's Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, which meets in different cities and had its 11th meeting in Philadelphia in August. The all-day event featured speakers such as Philadelphia Mayor John Street and rapper LL Cool J, and the price of entry was a voter-registration card. "Our high aspiration over five years is to register 20 million voters," says Chavis, the network's president and CEO, who claims that the group has already registered 1 million voters. It's no wonder that Democratic presidential candidates Howard Dean, John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, and Al Sharpton have already met with Simmons. "I think he's going to end up running for some sort of political thing," says Ludacris. (Simmons denies it.)