Sublime

an empire is defined solely by its cultural diversity and flexible borders, rather than by its origins, its form of government, its territorial extent, or the size of its population.

That notion of empire—expanding into adjacent industries, starting companies, building new brands, grooming protégés, growing bigger and stronger—seems to be a much more natural part of hip-hop than other creative fields. The path from hustler to artist to mogul is a well-trod one, from P. Diddy to Birdman to Jay Z.

For these empire-builders, the vast grassy steppe that stretched across Eurasia from Manchuria to Hungary was an open road to commercial wealth and almost limitless power. The trading cities of the Near and Middle East were a natural target.

The adoption by the provincial gentry of literati ideals (and bureaucratic ambitions) was a vital stage in China’s transition from a semi-feudal society, where power was wielded by great landholders, into an agrarian empire. What made that possible was an imperial system that relied much less on the coercive power of the imperial centre (a clumsy

empire is primarily a money-making concern.