By Great Big Story
“Kareem Wells grew up in a rough neighborhood in Chicago. He started selling drugs when he was 14 and dropped out of school two years later. Still, he never let his love of music go. When he got a call to perform at his first bar mitzvah, his whole life changed. Now, as Chicago’s go-to local entertainer, Wells is the reigning King of the Mitzvahs. Today, he’s so popular that his gigs are booked three years in advance.”
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“For those who do manage to snag him, Wells doesn’t come cheap,” Jeff Ruby wrote last fall for Chicago magazine. “Though he’s reluctant to publicize his fees, people talk; party packages with him personally emceeing start at $7,500. That includes sound, lights, a DJ, and two dancers. The price goes up if you want additional dancers and amenities such as a stage or ‘silent cocktails,’ where each guest receives a pair of multichannel, multicolored headphones and three DJs play simultaneously on separate channels so the guests can choose to listen to hip-hop, pop, or music from the ’80s and ’90s.
“Wells, who is 43, makes enough from all this to keep more than 30 people on his Flow payroll and still afford a $100,000-plus Tesla SUV, a four-story house in West Town, a high-rise apartment on the Gold Coast, and a bar on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. When he went to Vegas for a recent vacation with his wife, a choreographer named Evelyn Rice Wells, and their 19-month-old daughter, they flew on a private jet. How much exactly does he rake in? Wells smiles sheepishly and says, ‘It’s a lot.'”
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Kareem Wells’ TEDx Chicago talk.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on March 20, 2018