Civil, Karen

Impact on the world

After beginning her career as a teenage fan-site builder and a Hot 97 radio internship, Civil founded karencivil.com and her Always Civil Enterprises marketing agency in 2008, quickly becoming a go-to digital strategist for hip-hop artists including J. Cole, Drake, and Nicki Minaj; her highest-profile early project was building and running Weezythanxyou.com in 2010, the website through which incarcerated rapper Lil Wayne communicated with fans, which established her as a pioneer in artist-fan digital engagement before social media dominance made such tools standard. She served as digital marketing manager for Beats by Dre from 2011 to 2018, was a close business partner and friend of the late rapper Nipsey Hussle, co-founding the Marathon Agency and reading a letter from President Obama at his 2019 memorial, and was named Black Enterprise's “Social Influencer of the Year” in 2017.

Life & background

Born November 8, 1984, in Brooklyn, New York, to Haitian immigrant parents, Civil was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she has described herself as a socially awkward child who found early comfort building fan websites, including one for The Backstreet Boys that placed third in a national competition. She attended Elizabeth High School and Union County College before leaving in 2002 for an internship with DJ Funkmaster Flex at Hot 97, later working with the Diplomats and Asylum Records; she earned an online business credential from Harvard Business School in 2019. She has consulted on digital strategy for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, self-published the book Be You & Live Civil in 2015, opened the Live Civil Computer Lab at a Haitian orphanage in 2017, and continues to work as a producer, public speaker, and brand consultant based in Los Angeles.

Sources

1. Forbes; Essence