Goldman Sachs’ ‘secret rapper’ has quit J.P. Morgan to go it alone

Jihan Bowes-Little is as well known for his rap skills as his trading prowess. The former Goldman Sachs trader is also known as Metis – a hip hop artist who wrote a track called “Goldman Rucksack” about his dilemma over whether to display the bank’s logo when he wore its corporate freebie.

Bowes-Little, who has shifted from Goldman Sachs to hedge funds and finally to J.P. Morgan’s private bank in Los Angeles, has just left to start his own venture capital firm.

Bowes-Little worked at Goldman in London for seven years until 2009, when he left to start Roark Entertainment, an investment firm for artists and creative entrepreneurs. He went back into mainstream finance with a portfolio manager role at Bluecrest Capital Management in January 2012.

Last year, he shifted again, joining J.P. Morgan’s private bank in March. 18 months on, and he’s now founder and managing partner at Bracket VC, according to his public profile. No further details were available on the firm and he did not respond to requests for comment.

Bowes-Little has spoken extensively about his secret double-life while he worked as a European credit derivatives trader at Goldman Sachs, spending evenings trying to carve out a rap career in sweaty London clubs. He told the FT that he regularly had to takes calls for work from Tokyo after gigs, and that he hired a PR company to ensure no one in the music industry knew his day job and that no one at Goldman knew he rapped.

He told Brown’s alumni magazine that the Goldman job was a “means to an end”: "I had to put some money away and help my parents out. I went to Goldman mainly because it would teach me a lot and give me the opportunity to do what I wanted to do later on."

Bowes Little is not the only former Goldmanite to embark on a rap career, and use his time in the City as a source of inspiration. As we pointed out previously, Rehan Islam, who worked as an analyst in structured finance at the bank for three years, was asked by his interview to prove his rap skills – and got the job.

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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