![]() The executive tried to make a point to congratulate Carson via text message after Sparks wins, but Carson consistently would beat Smith-Craig to the punch, sending out emails and fixing mistakes in production materials from the seat in front of her locker immediately after the final buzzer. Folks at the Capitol offices in Los Angeles got used to seeing Carson first thing in the morning on game days and then again between shootaround and tipoff. Smith-Craig, now the senior director of Motown Records, saw the same hustle from Carson. ![]() Nneka Ogwumike, a teammate of Carson’s the past three seasons in Los Angeles, remembers enjoying the Pr3pe sound before her new teammate arrived. Ogwumike gained even more respect for Carson when the two would head out for parties thrown by the label and mingle with Carson’s colleagues in the industry, then she’d see Carson tapping away at her computer waiting for the drills to begin the next day at practice.Īs president of the executive committee of the Players Association - which has been in a standoff with ownership that could lead to a strike at season’s end - Ogwumike recognizes that “because of the lack of financial opportunity in the league, we delve outside the ‘W’ to maximize our potential.” She is doing the same this season from Phoenix. and has since been relaunched under Capitol. That meant in 2018, Carson was playing in the WNBA and working full time. “If I have the opportunity to learn it, why wouldn’t I?”Īfter her three-month internship, “word got around that I was pretty good at what I was doing there,” Carson says, and she ultimately was chosen for a full-time position as manager of the distribution company Priority Records, a label that was instrumental to the launch of West Coast hip-hop starting with N.W.A. “I hate to not be in the know or ignorance itself, just not knowing something because you don’t want to know,” Carson says. It was heady stuff for an intern, but Smith-Craig says she saw in Carson a hunger for information and an overachieving nature. So she started working with streaming services such as Apple, Spotify and Tidal to deliver the elements they need, while she also managed relationships with video platforms for artists seeking to release music videos. The WNBA and union staff identify three-month internship opportunities that are “meaningful and match their post-playing career interests,” says Jayne Appel-Marinelli, the WNBPA director of player relations. Carson, who interned alongside six-time WNBA All-Star Cappie Pondexter, dove into the thick of business operations, as her mentor, Lisa Smith-Craig, believed Carson’s music degree from Rutgers and abilities in recording would be a nice gateway into front-end production. A program put on by the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) helped her find a gig as an intern for Capitol Music Group under the ARTium Records label. But elbow surgery in 2017 left Carson unable to play professionally overseas - as most WNBA players do to supplement their income - and looking for a way to fill her time during recovery. ![]() Throughout her time in the league, Carson, 32, has released music as the recording artist Pr3pe (pronounced “Preppy”). ![]() Since then, she’s had a successful 12-year WNBA career - an All-Star appearance in 2011, a title with Los Angeles in 2016 - as she blossomed into a defensive specialist with a deadly three-point shot. But it was an injury that set her on her most fulfilling course at last.
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