Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Abdul Karim Abdullah On The Evolution Of 'AfroFuture' Festival, Black Innovation, Community + More

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INTERVIEW: Abdul Karim Abdullah On The Evolution Of 'AfroFuture' Festival, Black Innovation, Community + More · The Breakfast Club

0:00
Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club Morning.
0:04
Speaker 2: Everybody is DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Charlamage the God We
0:08
Speaker 2: are the Breakfast Club Lol. The Roses here as well.
0:10
Speaker 2: We got a special guest in the building. Yes, sir,
0:12
Speaker 2: the founder and CEO of Afro Future, Abdullah Welcome, brother,
0:16
Speaker 2: pleasure to be here with y'all.
0:18
Speaker 1: How are you feeling? I feel real good. Thanks for God. Man.
0:21
Speaker 3: Tell people what what Afro Future is from.
0:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, Afrofuture is a cultural Emerson platform that we created
0:26
Speaker 4: in Ghana to celebrate African culture and also to just
0:29
Speaker 4: break it down to people in a way that's direct.
0:33
Speaker 4: We celebrate food, fashion, art, and obviously music as well.
0:37
Speaker 4: In my opinion and our team opinion, we feel like
0:40
Speaker 4: equal parts of all of this gives you a clear
0:42
Speaker 4: understanding of what it's like to visit the continent and
0:45
Speaker 4: that's what we've been doing for the past eight years,
0:47
Speaker 4: inviting people back to Ghana and for the first time
0:49
Speaker 4: ever was showing up in Detroit.
0:51
Speaker 3: So now I was at the last Afro.
0:55
Speaker 1: Yes you was. You was at the last one.
0:58
Speaker 3: That's when y'all announced it was gonna be a the
1:00
Speaker 3: next year.
1:00
Speaker 1: That's correct.
1:01
Speaker 4: It was an opportunity for us to really kind of
1:03
Speaker 4: grow beyond what we've been. I mean, right now, we
1:06
Speaker 4: know that one in ten people by twenty fifty is
1:08
Speaker 4: going to be African. Africa is the youngest continent. There's
1:11
Speaker 4: just a lot of opportunity, and there's been so much
1:13
Speaker 4: misinformation about Africa for so long. I grew up here,
1:17
Speaker 4: I'm like my house, I'm the American kid, but when
1:20
Speaker 4: I went out to school, I was the African kid.
1:22
Speaker 4: So the best way I could do is just kind
1:24
Speaker 4: of bring the world together, and that's what we've been
1:25
Speaker 4: trying to do with this festival.
1:26
Speaker 3: Why why did y'all change the name from Afro a Future.
1:29
Speaker 4: I mean I think that obviously there was there was
1:31
Speaker 4: a lot of there was a lot of issues that
1:33
Speaker 4: we had.
1:34
Speaker 3: They sued like they sue everybody, they just sue me.
1:37
Speaker 4: But I mean, I mean, beyond that, it was just
1:39
Speaker 4: an opportunity for us to like kind of grow beyond
1:41
Speaker 4: where we were.
1:42
Speaker 1: Uh.
1:43
Speaker 4: This gives us an opportunity to let people know that
1:45
Speaker 4: there's a lot happening on the continent and you should
1:47
Speaker 4: be a part of that. Right as far as creativity, entertainment,
1:51
Speaker 4: as far as business, you know, there's so much happening
1:53
Speaker 4: on the continent that everyone should be a part of
1:55
Speaker 4: and that a future kind of speaks to that journey.
1:57
Speaker 2: Well, people don't come for the name, they come for
1:58
Speaker 2: the event.
1:59
Speaker 4: That's exactly and the experience that we've been creating. You know,
2:02
Speaker 4: we've done that without any corporate partners. So that's just
2:05
Speaker 4: like a team of people who was really invested in
2:08
Speaker 4: seeing the entertainment business and continent grow. For us to
2:11
Speaker 4: create opportunities for people on the ground, to change the
2:14
Speaker 4: economy in our own country, but also just to kind
2:17
Speaker 4: of showcase some of these talents. Right when we started
2:19
Speaker 4: in twenty seventeen, they weren't playing any AfroB Beats music
2:22
Speaker 4: on the radio. Ten years later, you can't go to
2:25
Speaker 4: a party, you can't go to a spot in New
2:27
Speaker 4: York without it. And you know, for us, one of
2:29
Speaker 4: the best accomplishments is like a lot of people were
2:32
Speaker 4: able to visit the continent because of our experience. They
2:35
Speaker 4: started in Ghana, but they've grown since to South Africa,
2:38
Speaker 4: to Nigeria, and Ghana was just that that entry away.
2:41
Speaker 5: That's why Detroit for the first stop in the US.
2:44
Speaker 3: Why not New York I.
2:45
Speaker 4: Mean New York. I feel like I'm from New York.
2:47
Speaker 4: Everyone that needs to know about what we're doing on
2:49
Speaker 4: the continent is aware. This is like a cultural melting pot.
2:52
Speaker 4: We have a restaurant here, people know what's going on
2:55
Speaker 4: in the side of the city. But one of the
2:57
Speaker 4: things that we've learned is that there's an opportunity to
3:00
Speaker 4: Troit being one of the most creative places also one
3:02
Speaker 4: of the blackest cities in America, and we could build
3:04
Speaker 4: that bridge between Detroit and the continent, like there's no
3:08
Speaker 4: saying where things can go. And that's the opportunity there.
3:11
Speaker 4: And then also we have an amazing partner in Bedrock
3:13
Speaker 4: that's that's promoting opportunities and business in the city. So
3:17
Speaker 4: we're looking at it as an opportunity to kind of
3:19
Speaker 4: grow our audience and not just kind of speak to
3:21
Speaker 4: the same people.
3:22
Speaker 6: That's crazy to think that y'all don't have no sponsorships.
3:25
Speaker 4: No, we have sponsorship. When you were there a few years,
3:30
Speaker 4: we had some sponsorships. What we don't have is a
3:32
Speaker 4: corporate sponsors So we never had like a Live Nation
3:34
Speaker 4: Year or any of those brands behind us. We literally
3:37
Speaker 4: built this from the mud and as far as sponsorships,
3:40
Speaker 4: we've had some of the first ever. So when when
3:43
Speaker 4: Meta wanted to first come to the continent, they showed
3:45
Speaker 4: up to our to our festival, we're able to work
3:48
Speaker 4: with them. When you two wanted to announce shorts, we
3:51
Speaker 4: were able to like build the playground in our field.
3:53
Speaker 4: Audio Mac, we brought the CEO of Audio Mac to Ghana.
3:56
Speaker 4: We ran this program called the Rising Star program and
3:59
Speaker 4: now Audio MA because now the number one download the app
4:01
Speaker 4: in West Africa, you know. So we were able to
4:04
Speaker 4: be that conduit for a lot of brands that want
4:06
Speaker 4: to come to the continent and then we've been doing
4:08
Speaker 4: business like that since.
4:10
Speaker 7: But those aren't considered corporate sponsors.
4:11
Speaker 4: Even they are corporate sponsors, but they don't. You can't
4:15
Speaker 4: build an event with corporate sponsors because you're probably not
4:18
Speaker 4: going to get the money to after the event is over.
4:20
Speaker 4: But like if you have like a festival partner, we're
4:22
Speaker 4: still an independent festival in that we eat what we
4:26
Speaker 4: kill basically.
4:27
Speaker 2: But you started off with four thousand attendees. Did you
4:30
Speaker 2: expect it to be this big as a concert series
4:32
Speaker 2: or was it one of those things where it was
4:33
Speaker 2: more like a smaller well.
4:36
Speaker 4: I just wanted a place for us to connect. There
4:38
Speaker 4: were so many people in the diasport that were doing
4:40
Speaker 4: amazing things, whether it was in London or it was
4:43
Speaker 4: in America, but we just could never connect. We just
4:46
Speaker 4: came to Deddy December and we just partied and went away.
4:49
Speaker 4: So with the festival, this is an opportunity to really
4:52
Speaker 4: kind of showcase what the amazing people on the continent
4:55
Speaker 4: are doing, but also like how we can help and
4:57
Speaker 4: how we can add the sauce to it as well.
5:00
Speaker 4: But I did think we were going to be big.
5:02
Speaker 4: I didn't think we were going to be big as fast.
5:04
Speaker 4: So we started in twenty seventeen. The year one we
5:07
Speaker 4: did four thousand people, Year two we did twelve thousand,
5:10
Speaker 4: and then year three was a year of return. So
5:12
Speaker 4: it kind of forced us to scale faster than we
5:14
Speaker 4: were ready to.
5:15
Speaker 6: And then I think the rise of afrobeats because the
5:17
Speaker 6: year I was there, you had burn a Boy headline.
5:19
Speaker 1: Yeah that was that was two years in the making.
5:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, we've had almost we've had all of them perform
5:24
Speaker 4: for ourself. We've had whiz Kid, We've had David Though,
5:27
Speaker 4: we've had a shot K, We've even had Rama for
5:30
Speaker 4: like one of our side events that we did, uh
5:32
Speaker 4: you know, we did a fashion out experience with ig
5:34
Speaker 4: Instagram and we had Rema they're performing. So we've pretty
5:37
Speaker 4: much been the launching path for a lot of people.
5:39
Speaker 4: Uncle Waffles probably one of the biggest DJs right now.
5:43
Speaker 4: We were one of the first people to fly out
5:44
Speaker 4: of the Southern Africa to Ghana. Put on the billboard
5:47
Speaker 4: she performed at our show. We've done that for a
5:49
Speaker 4: lot of artists, I mean a lot of that on
5:51
Speaker 4: my piano artists through the pandemic we broke in Ghana.
5:55
Speaker 5: Four thousand is still a lot for the first festival. So, yes,
5:59
Speaker 5: that's amazing to go from four thousand and forty one
6:01
Speaker 5: thousand is I mean four thousand year, four thousand and
6:04
Speaker 5: forty one thousand is amazing, but for the first time,
6:06
Speaker 5: four thousand is still a lot.
6:08
Speaker 1: Yeah. We actually shut it down, yeah the first year. Yeah,
6:11
Speaker 1: we were afraid.
6:12
Speaker 4: That it was like people were not going to be
6:14
Speaker 4: able to have as much fun or we weren't going
6:16
Speaker 4: to be able to control it. So we wanted to
6:17
Speaker 4: be able to still make sure people had a good time,
6:20
Speaker 4: so we actually shut it down when it got to
6:21
Speaker 4: a certain limit. We wanted to make sure we had
6:24
Speaker 4: that good premium experience.
6:25
Speaker 5: Did you have any problems that?
6:26
Speaker 4: No, No, that that first year was just it was
6:29
Speaker 4: it was a learning experience. It was an accomplishment. I remember, like,
6:32
Speaker 4: you know, being very happy that we was able to
6:34
Speaker 4: kind of see our vision through. But we didn't really
6:37
Speaker 4: have that many experience issues.
6:40
Speaker 2: That first year was as what's the hardest thing you
6:41
Speaker 2: faced do any shows? Was it sponsorships?
6:43
Speaker 1: Is it people? Is it?
6:45
Speaker 4: I think there's a combination of all of that. Uh,
6:47
Speaker 4: you know, our first time was just really just kind
6:50
Speaker 4: of understanding the business. We had no idea how to
6:53
Speaker 4: throw a festival. We know how to do parties, but
6:55
Speaker 4: we didn't know how to do festivals. The second year
6:58
Speaker 4: was just more of by scale, right, just under standing
7:00
Speaker 4: like logistics and how to deal with people moving from
7:03
Speaker 4: like what was polo field to a stadium. The third
7:07
Speaker 4: year was just kind of scaling where our company wasn't
7:10
Speaker 4: just ready to kind of get all of those people
7:12
Speaker 4: coming in for the year return, but also Ghana's tourism
7:15
Speaker 4: wasn't quite ready for the amount of people that came
7:18
Speaker 4: into that year of return. So yeah, there's a combination
7:21
Speaker 4: of money there's a combination of just kind of learning,
7:24
Speaker 4: opportunity capacity building in the space. Equipment is one of
7:28
Speaker 4: the things that we don't necessarily have much of the continent,
7:31
Speaker 4: so the expense is high. And now we're dealing with
7:34
Speaker 4: cost of talent, right, So like all of those things
7:37
Speaker 4: are different at different points, there was different hard things.
7:40
Speaker 6: I don't even like going outside, but I remember when
7:43
Speaker 6: I first went to Ghana, everybody was like, yo, Ghana's
7:45
Speaker 6: nightlife is incredible, and I remember thinking, Ghana's nightlife and
7:48
Speaker 6: me and my wife and our team was outside every night.
7:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, very important. They do. Like people on the continent
7:56
Speaker 4: know how to have a good time. And in December,
7:58
Speaker 4: everybody's off, right, it's like a vacation for everybody. So
8:02
Speaker 4: the reality is you can go out every night.
8:04
Speaker 3: The restaurants clubs in Silver Fox.
8:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can have a vibe from morning to morning,
8:09
Speaker 4: like you know what I mean, and people do it
8:11
Speaker 4: and I love that for people. And depending on the
8:14
Speaker 4: type of experience you want to have, you can have
8:16
Speaker 4: that party track, you can have the tourist track, you
8:18
Speaker 4: can have the restlue track.
8:19
Speaker 1: It's really your choice.
8:20
Speaker 6: Now we'll say the only thing I will say about
8:22
Speaker 6: Ghana is the service Yeah, yeah, restaurants, you will wait
8:25
Speaker 6: for a long time.
8:26
Speaker 4: But that's an opportunity. I mean we see it as
8:28
Speaker 4: an opportunity because you got to think about a capacity building, right.
8:31
Speaker 4: Ghana is very young to tourism, Whereas like a lot
8:34
Speaker 4: of Caribbean countries have been getting tours for hundreds of years,
8:37
Speaker 4: Ghana's only been free since nineteen fifty seven, so and
8:41
Speaker 4: then the tourism sector really just started, I would say,
8:44
Speaker 4: a boom after the year of return. So we're still
8:47
Speaker 4: learning how to do that. So there's an opportunity. So
8:49
Speaker 4: if people want to start a service based business, I
8:52
Speaker 4: mean I'm inviting you to Donna to do that.
8:55
Speaker 6: I I was saying to myself, I want to go
8:58
Speaker 6: to Ghana outside of the simmer, which I'm going to do,
9:01
Speaker 6: but absolutely because I wanted, like, how was it throughout
9:04
Speaker 6: the rest of the year.
9:04
Speaker 4: No, you can have What you see in December is
9:07
Speaker 4: not foreign to people. People do this weekly in Ghana
9:10
Speaker 4: if they want to, Like, you know what we see
9:12
Speaker 4: in December. I know a lot of people is surprised
9:14
Speaker 4: to them, but this is some people do this weekly
9:16
Speaker 4: if they want to. But like, you can have a
9:18
Speaker 4: great time in the you know during Easter, you can
9:21
Speaker 4: have a great time in the summertime. It's just not
9:24
Speaker 4: as packed with foreigners, right, but the experience is still
9:27
Speaker 4: the same. You can still have fun at the restaurants,
9:29
Speaker 4: the clubs are still packed. People are still having a
9:31
Speaker 4: good time. And you know, we just had a change
9:34
Speaker 4: of government this year in Ghana as well, so that
9:37
Speaker 4: you know, the economy is coming back to where it's
9:39
Speaker 4: supposed to be and I think people are getting more
9:41
Speaker 4: there's more consumer confidence.
9:43
Speaker 2: Why people reach out to you because we had the
9:46
Speaker 2: CEO and chairman of Richmond. Yeah, that was like, that
9:49
Speaker 2: would be dope to do, like a Friday night Afro future.
9:53
Speaker 6: You want to people off, I said, I don't understand
9:57
Speaker 6: the conversation, but people are mad about the whole time Africans.
10:00
Speaker 6: You know, it's the whole Africans versus Black American argument.
10:03
Speaker 6: And you know, Black Americans have been complaining that African
10:06
Speaker 6: culture is different than Black culture and they feel like
10:08
Speaker 6: Essence was trying to force it on people.
10:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think at the core of it,
10:12
Speaker 4: it's all about misunderstanding and we just really are not
10:15
Speaker 4: speaking to each other. We're speaking past each other, and
10:18
Speaker 4: the reason why our festival exists is really to just
10:20
Speaker 4: kind of domestify and really make you understand if the
10:23
Speaker 4: African American and you've been to the continent, you know
10:25
Speaker 4: that people love you, right because this is all they consume,
10:29
Speaker 4: your content, the music, the art, everything. And then I'm
10:32
Speaker 4: also a child that's like, was born here in America,
10:34
Speaker 4: so part of my life is an African American lifestyle.
10:37
Speaker 4: Went to high school here, I went to college here.
10:39
Speaker 4: So I think really it's just kind of making sure
10:42
Speaker 4: we understand and respect each other at its core. On
10:45
Speaker 4: the continent, if you grow up there, all you see
10:47
Speaker 4: is black people versus where you grew up here in America,
10:51
Speaker 4: you go to college, you go to go to work,
10:53
Speaker 4: there's these microaggressions and things that you don't that you
10:55
Speaker 4: have to face. It's a very different understanding for everyone, right.
10:59
Speaker 4: So on you know, think about hierarchy of needs on
11:01
Speaker 4: the continent, that the need is just we need.
11:04
Speaker 1: We need to eat.
11:04
Speaker 4: So it doesn't matter if I'm dealing with a little
11:07
Speaker 4: bit of racism because at the end of the day,
11:09
Speaker 4: I got to eat, Whereas here I need to survive,
11:12
Speaker 4: I need to live. So that racism, that that's oppressive,
11:16
Speaker 4: that that that that you know, that takes away from
11:19
Speaker 4: my joy, you know what I mean? And I think
11:21
Speaker 4: that just really respecting everyone's perspective on their need at
11:25
Speaker 4: that point is really what I think needs to happen.
11:28
Speaker 4: But I also think that we just need to learn
11:30
Speaker 4: about each other a little bit more and we can
11:31
Speaker 4: find those synergies.
11:33
Speaker 5: Speaking of eating Joel Off rice or jambalaya, so we
11:38
Speaker 5: so we.
11:39
Speaker 4: Actually did that event. My boys and I did that
11:41
Speaker 4: event right. I don't think that they should be mad
11:44
Speaker 4: at us. I think that's really just understanding why we
11:47
Speaker 4: did it right. So Jumbalaya is a version of what
11:51
Speaker 4: Joelf would be, or like a rendition of it. So
11:54
Speaker 4: I don't know if anybody here has seen high in
11:56
Speaker 4: a hog, but talking about food origins, really we were
11:59
Speaker 4: just trying to connect people. Our goal is not to
12:02
Speaker 4: make it a competition, and we didn't compete against the rice.
12:04
Speaker 4: It's really just kind of like, let you know, if
12:07
Speaker 4: you're African, this is an opportunity for you to learn
12:09
Speaker 4: about jambalaya. If if you're an American, this is your
12:12
Speaker 4: opportunity to taste some jew of rice and and that
12:14
Speaker 4: was just a way of us trying to connect the
12:17
Speaker 4: culture and connect people through basketball, sport that people love,
12:21
Speaker 4: and then also through food and just kind of build
12:22
Speaker 4: that connection. I think we could probably could have did
12:24
Speaker 4: a better story telling opportunity of just kind of the
12:27
Speaker 4: connectivity between Jumbalayan and jewel Off. And I think that's
12:30
Speaker 4: great feedback. But I don't think of it as a
12:33
Speaker 4: way for us to erase anybody's culture or like you know,
12:37
Speaker 4: africanize anybody's culture. Our goal is to be respectful. We
12:40
Speaker 4: should be respectful, and I think that that's the that's
12:43
Speaker 4: the goal that I'm learning.
12:44
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
12:45
Speaker 3: If you show up, you hungry. I want both where
12:48
Speaker 3: to come from?
12:49
Speaker 6: I want to Yeah, my guy chef bj Benjamin Dennessee,
12:53
Speaker 6: he was on High on the Hull and from Charleston,
12:55
Speaker 6: South Carolina, exactly back Carolina where I'm from.
12:58
Speaker 3: I'm not West Africa.
13:00
Speaker 6: Like a lot of the things that we eat and
13:02
Speaker 6: stuff are rooted in West African culture.
13:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's some of the things that we want to do.
13:06
Speaker 4: We want to tell more stories about food and the
13:09
Speaker 4: origins because if you look at a lot of food
13:11
Speaker 4: that people are eating here in America, across the Caribbean
13:14
Speaker 4: and across the continent. There's so many similarities, but there's
13:17
Speaker 4: barely any places that you can go and find if
13:19
Speaker 4: you were born here in America. Like, for instance, we
13:22
Speaker 4: know about I know about jay Z's history from getting
13:24
Speaker 4: to the end, and like I follow all of his
13:26
Speaker 4: albums and I know the next story is going to
13:28
Speaker 4: come on the next one. We don't necessarily have that
13:31
Speaker 4: about our afrobeats artists. I think there's an opportunity there
13:34
Speaker 4: for us to tell those stories, and that happens for
13:36
Speaker 4: all categories. The same thing in our same thing and fashion,
13:38
Speaker 4: same thing in food. We need to tell those stories,
13:41
Speaker 4: and that's why our platform exists to be able to
13:43
Speaker 4: tell those stories and buy into that. Like we all
13:46
Speaker 4: loved Black Panther when it came out, although it's not real.
13:49
Speaker 4: We all love The Women King when it came out.
13:51
Speaker 4: But we need more shows, more movies like that, because
13:54
Speaker 4: if somebody is sitting here in America and all they've
13:56
Speaker 4: been taught is that Africa is full of poverty, and
13:59
Speaker 4: as an African, I know a lot of young Africans
14:01
Speaker 4: that didn't want to associate with that either, So it
14:04
Speaker 4: kind of makes sense. But now if we can tell you.
14:06
Speaker 4: With the Internet penetrating at forty and fifty percent in
14:10
Speaker 4: Africa right now, Africans are able to tell you in
14:12
Speaker 4: real life who they are and what they do and
14:14
Speaker 4: the type of lifestyles that they live and vice versa.
14:16
Speaker 6: Man, I've made it my business to take my family
14:20
Speaker 6: to somewhere on the continent at least once a year.
14:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
14:23
Speaker 6: So I've been to Johannesburg, I've been to Zanzibar and Tanzania.
14:27
Speaker 6: I've been to Ghana. I'm going to Cape Town. Is
14:29
Speaker 6: amazing when you see these places, you like wow. Yeah,
14:34
Speaker 6: I say it all the time. They lied to us.
14:35
Speaker 1: About the opportunity.
14:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, and just beyond that, like I was on Kamala's
14:41
Speaker 4: the group that went to the continent when she went
14:43
Speaker 4: to Africa, And for me, it's very important for everybody
14:47
Speaker 4: to if the whole world is fighting for a piece
14:49
Speaker 4: of Africa, why aren't you looking at that as an
14:51
Speaker 4: opportunity for yourself? And our festival is a way to
14:54
Speaker 4: introduce it, right, you know, something that you're familiar with,
14:57
Speaker 4: come to the continent that experience the food, experience experience fashion,
15:01
Speaker 4: experience the music in real time with the people on
15:04
Speaker 4: the ground, smell and feel the place, and then you know,
15:07
Speaker 4: use that as an opportunity the next time you come
15:09
Speaker 4: to see how you can help, how you can work
15:11
Speaker 4: with somebody to make something really dope happen.
15:13
Speaker 1: That's our goal.
15:14
Speaker 7: You said that tourism is new for you guys. So
15:16
Speaker 7: when people experience all of that, what is the one
15:19
Speaker 7: thing at the end of the day that you feel
15:20
Speaker 7: like people still miss that? You're like, man I wish
15:23
Speaker 7: y'all would have gotten this though.
15:24
Speaker 4: I mean one of the things that I mentioned earlier
15:27
Speaker 4: is that you know, we're a small business still. Although
15:29
Speaker 4: we've gotten all of this pressing these bylines and a
15:32
Speaker 4: lot of people from America have come to our festival
15:34
Speaker 4: forty percent, there are still growing pains that we're going through.
15:38
Speaker 4: To build infrastructure. We need to build infrastructure around touring.
15:42
Speaker 4: We see most African arts they're not touring around the continent.
15:45
Speaker 4: The cost is too high. We need to build infrastructure
15:48
Speaker 4: just around education. You know, you have return taught me
15:51
Speaker 4: that We booked Ori Lennox and she came to Ghana
15:53
Speaker 4: and she was so happy about her experience, but she
15:57
Speaker 4: received comments that didn't really make her happy. And that's
16:00
Speaker 4: because there's so much learning that we have to do
16:02
Speaker 4: and unlearning that we have to do as well. So
16:04
Speaker 4: it's just kind of those kind of things that we
16:07
Speaker 4: need to be better. We have to be better at service.
16:09
Speaker 4: Like you mentioned, I think that all of those things
16:12
Speaker 4: have changed. So if you've been the gun in twenty nineteen,
16:15
Speaker 4: if you go today, those things have drastically improved, you
16:18
Speaker 4: probably won't recognize it from the last time you went.
16:21
Speaker 4: And those are the learnings that are happening on the continent,
16:24
Speaker 4: and I think in the next couple of years you're
16:25
Speaker 4: going to see a lot more happening. The continent is
16:28
Speaker 4: just getting younger and people are getting wiser, and the
16:30
Speaker 4: internet's penetrating at a very high clip.
16:32
Speaker 6: You know, Bill Gates said that he wanted to give
16:35
Speaker 6: ninety nine percent of his two hundred billion dollar fortune
16:38
Speaker 6: and healthcare and education in Africa. Where would you tell
16:41
Speaker 6: him specifically you need to put them in.
16:44
Speaker 4: I mean, I would say, like, you know, healthcare is
16:46
Speaker 4: a great opportunity. You know, research is one of the
16:49
Speaker 4: major platforms that we did that we that we do
16:52
Speaker 4: right here in America. I think there's an opportunity on
16:55
Speaker 4: the continent for us to kind of invest in research.
16:58
Speaker 4: I would say agriculture is a very big component. A
17:01
Speaker 4: lot of people outside of South Africa are really importing
17:03
Speaker 4: their food, so it makes the cost of food higher.
17:06
Speaker 4: If we can invest in that infrastructure of agriculture and ARGROATEEC,
17:09
Speaker 4: I think there's an opportunity. Entertainment has been one consistent
17:13
Speaker 4: way that people are making money on the continent right now.
17:15
Speaker 4: A lot of the skip makers, a lot of the artists,
17:18
Speaker 4: a lot of the content creators. You know, we all
17:21
Speaker 4: saw the rise of els in Majimbo. We all see
17:23
Speaker 4: the rise of Kabi Lame. I think there's an opportunity there.
17:27
Speaker 4: You know, this year, for the past two years, our
17:30
Speaker 4: Business Culture Management Group has been running entertainment for the
17:33
Speaker 4: Basketball Africa League and we do have time shows, We
17:37
Speaker 4: do all of their influencer management and booking their DJs
17:42
Speaker 4: and things that nature. There's an opportunity for entertainment on
17:44
Speaker 4: a grand scale. In twenty twenty eight, we hear F
17:47
Speaker 4: one is coming to the continent. Like there's so much
17:49
Speaker 4: happening that I just think people need to tap in. So,
17:52
Speaker 4: you know, I encourage people to get in groups. You know,
17:56
Speaker 4: let's let's buy property let's build infrastructure, Let's start a
18:00
Speaker 4: and farm less start or you know, uh, you know,
18:03
Speaker 4: a manufacturing company. There's so many things you can do
18:05
Speaker 4: on the content and to create jobs, but also to
18:08
Speaker 4: to give back and to be self sustaining.
18:10
Speaker 6: I definitely invest in some property out did I want.
18:12
Speaker 6: I want to invest in some more. I feel like
18:14
Speaker 6: the Basketball African League is dropping the ball with the merchandise.
18:17
Speaker 6: So I mean, I feel like you I would want
18:19
Speaker 6: to wear a gone.
18:20
Speaker 3: A jersey of African jersey.
18:23
Speaker 4: They're getting there. I mean I would say that this
18:25
Speaker 4: is a a growing league. There's just opportunity for them
18:28
Speaker 4: to to be able to do more. They've only been around.
18:31
Speaker 4: This is the fifth season that we just came out of,
18:33
Speaker 4: so I think that they are going to do a
18:35
Speaker 4: lot more. You're gonna see a lot more dope merch
18:37
Speaker 4: you know, dope games. If you come to the games
18:40
Speaker 4: like you know, it's a it's you won't miss anything
18:43
Speaker 4: from the NBA because we have all of the entertainment
18:45
Speaker 4: pieces in that experience. So the continent is growing and
18:49
Speaker 4: people can be a part of this growth. So think
18:51
Speaker 4: about you know, if you had an opportunity to be
18:54
Speaker 4: a part of the Harlem Renaissance, like, like what would
18:57
Speaker 4: that mean for you today? And that renaissance is happening
19:01
Speaker 4: right now on the continent. You know, our art is
19:03
Speaker 4: selling at a higher clip. The artists are selling out stadiums,
19:07
Speaker 4: you know the fashion. You know, everyone on the met
19:09
Speaker 4: gala was in African for the most part, positive Blatcheaing
19:12
Speaker 4: and all of these people. I think it's time for
19:14
Speaker 4: for more black people to get involved and be a
19:17
Speaker 4: part of this growth.
19:19
Speaker 7: How do you think what Donald Trump is doing with
19:21
Speaker 7: like the visas, like how that will affect tourism and
19:24
Speaker 7: people just being able to come in and out and yeah,
19:27
Speaker 7: you for what you do with your festival.
19:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we don't. We tend not to do
19:31
Speaker 4: well when he's in office. But I would say that,
19:34
Speaker 4: you know, one of the things that I would say
19:38
Speaker 4: is that he's been helpful in people just kind of
19:40
Speaker 4: discovering themselves and who they are and what they can do.
19:44
Speaker 4: And I would say for the continent, I do see
19:47
Speaker 4: that as a value for that pride to be reinstilled
19:50
Speaker 4: in it. You see governments speaking back, you see people
19:53
Speaker 4: pushing back and really wanting to build their own and
19:57
Speaker 4: I just love I don't love the divisiveness that comes
20:00
Speaker 4: with it, but I do love the opportunity that people
20:02
Speaker 4: are seeing and just kind of looking into themselves in
20:04
Speaker 4: the opportunity there. It is definitely affecting us as far
20:07
Speaker 4: as tourism. People are not able to fly as easily,
20:12
Speaker 4: and people are afraid and things that nature. But you know,
20:15
Speaker 4: the goal is for us to continue to send those
20:17
Speaker 4: positive messages that continue to build our community, and the
20:20
Speaker 4: hope is that people find that comfort within the community
20:23
Speaker 4: that we're building.
20:24
Speaker 7: That's why what happened with Aria Lennox was so sad
20:26
Speaker 7: because I felt like it was like a moment of
20:27
Speaker 7: self discovery for her and people thought she was like
20:29
Speaker 7: I don't know if they thought she was trolling or what,
20:31
Speaker 7: but it was like they they bashed like they bashed
20:33
Speaker 7: her for feeling like I belong.
20:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's you know, that's Internet, right, people were say,
20:37
Speaker 4: that's Internet culture. I don't necessarily know that that's the
20:39
Speaker 4: experience of everyone that was in there in real time felt,
20:42
Speaker 4: but I do see that there's an opportunity for us
20:45
Speaker 4: to do a lot of learning and unlearning. And what
20:48
Speaker 4: I mean by what I met by saying that everyone
20:50
Speaker 4: on the continent that grows up seeing all black people.
20:52
Speaker 4: They don't see themselves as an other. Whereas here we
20:56
Speaker 4: you know, I grew up here, I went to school here,
20:58
Speaker 4: I worked here. I can understand and what you mean
21:00
Speaker 4: when you feel like another right. And so to somebody
21:04
Speaker 4: who is like starving or they're getting maybe less than
21:08
Speaker 4: one thousand dollars a month for their salary for them
21:11
Speaker 4: to take care of their families, they see you as
21:14
Speaker 4: a wealthy person. They don't see that you have a
21:16
Speaker 4: lot of troubles. And that's still a level of ignorance
21:20
Speaker 4: that we need to overcome. Right, So that's all about learning,
21:23
Speaker 4: all about having empathy, all about just really just kind
21:27
Speaker 4: of un learning a lot of things that have been
21:28
Speaker 4: taught to us that keeps us divided.
21:30
Speaker 6: If you black, and you've been to any place in
21:33
Speaker 6: Africa for the most part, especially Ghana, you know exactly
21:36
Speaker 6: what our linux man Like My daughters were probably three
21:42
Speaker 6: and five, they were young.
21:44
Speaker 3: Seven and five. We went seven and four. Something like
21:46
Speaker 3: that they noticed.
21:50
Speaker 6: Was like where a white people are literally like they
21:52
Speaker 6: was like, damn it, there's so many black like they
21:54
Speaker 6: It's on the billboard, it's on the TV.
21:56
Speaker 4: See everywhere you see. Yeah, And I think that's the
21:59
Speaker 4: beauty for me. For the first four years, I didn't
22:01
Speaker 4: really get a chance to see the festival. So the
22:04
Speaker 4: only way I could live it is through how people
22:06
Speaker 4: told me it made them feel, and how I saw
22:09
Speaker 4: their life had changed when they came back to the US.
22:12
Speaker 4: So it was beautiful to see people who had no
22:15
Speaker 4: ties to the continent, had no family there, come back
22:18
Speaker 4: and feel home, feel welcomed, feel comfortable. I saw people
22:22
Speaker 4: walk in the street, I see people in restaurants just
22:25
Speaker 4: literally having a home, good time, safe and sound, and
22:29
Speaker 4: wanted to go back. You know, we started with four thousand,
22:32
Speaker 4: but like we've had that, people have always come back
22:35
Speaker 4: with two or three more people. So that's how we
22:38
Speaker 4: were able to grow from four thousand to forty one thousand.
22:40
Speaker 1: Over those years.
22:42
Speaker 3: I think what y'all doing is amazing.
22:44
Speaker 4: When the show in Detroit, Detroit is August sixteenth and seventeenth,
22:48
Speaker 4: we have a lot of cool things planned in Detroit,
22:52
Speaker 4: a little bit yeah, yeah, yeah, we gotta have we
22:54
Speaker 4: gotta have all yeah. We gotta have a little bit
22:56
Speaker 4: of culture all over there. Right, So there's a little
22:58
Speaker 4: hip hop, there's a little dance music, there's little on
23:00
Speaker 4: my piano, and then afrobeats. Our goal is to really
23:03
Speaker 4: introduce afrobeats to people who have not really had an
23:07
Speaker 4: immersive experience, and also just to kind of give people
23:09
Speaker 4: some things that they're familiar with. But for us, our
23:12
Speaker 4: approach is really community. So we're partnering with groups like
23:15
Speaker 4: Black Tech Saturdays, we're Venture three and three. We're doing
23:19
Speaker 4: a pitch competition to give back to the community. We're
23:21
Speaker 4: talking to some of the business leaders you know, and
23:24
Speaker 4: and bringing them into our community. We're running like a
23:26
Speaker 4: bar business crawl just to kind of make sure when
23:29
Speaker 4: people come to Detroit they know what businesses to support
23:32
Speaker 4: and how to support them. So we're doing a lot
23:34
Speaker 4: of things that we partner with Pencil Lewis College. One
23:37
Speaker 4: of the ones I'm very excited about. Pencey Lewis College
23:39
Speaker 4: is a historical Black college in Detroit that is focused
23:43
Speaker 4: on design. So they do design and footwear and apparel
23:47
Speaker 4: and also furniture, and we collabor with them to design
23:51
Speaker 4: merch for the festival and giving students an opportunity to
23:53
Speaker 4: make some money.
23:54
Speaker 1: So really excited about that. That's Dope.
24:00
Speaker 4: Merchants on the Jersey you got, I got David a
24:05
Speaker 4: shot k headliner we have. Yeah, we got Miller, Little Miller,
24:16
Speaker 4: Miller from Brazil. So there's a little bit of you know,
24:19
Speaker 4: there's a little bit of you know, vibes for everyone.
24:22
Speaker 3: You designed theeds for the Bronx.
24:24
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, So the Bronx we called the Bronx Little Cross.
24:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have.
24:30
Speaker 4: We called a Bronx Little our craw And you know,
24:32
Speaker 4: you can see a large Guanian population in the Bronx.
24:36
Speaker 1: My family is from there.
24:37
Speaker 4: We own a restaurant there called a Craws Restaurant, been
24:39
Speaker 4: there for thirty eight years. And you know, the shoe
24:41
Speaker 4: is really just kind of an ode to that culture.
24:46
Speaker 4: Talking about the color patterns that you know, the embroidery.
24:50
Speaker 4: We wanted to have something where you can dress up
24:52
Speaker 4: and dress down at the same time. There's some of
24:55
Speaker 4: dincer symbols on there that just kind of speaks to community.
24:58
Speaker 4: And you know, one of the things that we like
25:00
Speaker 4: to say about the shoes just kind of we're separated
25:02
Speaker 4: about thousands of miles, united about culture. And although you
25:06
Speaker 4: know there's all this divisiveness, we know that when you
25:09
Speaker 4: see somebody doing something, you know that's culture. You can
25:11
Speaker 4: give it the head now and pretty much that's what
25:13
Speaker 4: we're trying to do with.
25:19
Speaker 1: Regularly.
25:22
Speaker 3: No, okay, that's why I asked questions. Absolutely, because.
25:29
Speaker 4: Yes, please go to Detroit that afrofuture dot com. You
25:33
Speaker 4: will find all the information you need. We got hotels
25:36
Speaker 4: up there, We got a discount with Delta up there
25:39
Speaker 4: for you, and you know, we got the hotels. People
25:41
Speaker 4: can come out and have a great time and definitely, uh,
25:44
Speaker 4: look look to your flights for Gana in December. We're
25:46
Speaker 4: going to have a very dirty one. So is Detroit
25:48
Speaker 4: gonna be the city whole city every year right now? Yes,
25:51
Speaker 4: yes we are. We're doing Detroit. We have a great
25:53
Speaker 4: partnership there. We love the community there. They're very you know,
25:56
Speaker 4: their creativity and they're welcoming attitude reminds me of what
26:00
Speaker 4: what we were building when we started and guarding us
26:02
Speaker 4: and we're very excited about that. But we do have
26:04
Speaker 4: smaller other activations around the U S that that we're.
26:07
Speaker 1: Looking to bring.
26:08
Speaker 4: I want to South Carolina, Yeah, invite us, would definitely
26:11
Speaker 4: love to do it then out there. Love to do
26:13
Speaker 4: some experiences out there. We're working with arts artists, people
26:16
Speaker 4: who you know painters. We're working with fashion designers. Got
26:20
Speaker 4: some cool one. This is a young designer called Bing.
26:23
Speaker 4: We just brought them the synagogue. So we want to
26:25
Speaker 4: we want to continue to you know, celebrate, you know,
26:27
Speaker 4: the culture and bring people together.
26:30
Speaker 1: That's all.
26:30
Speaker 6: My ancestry is Senegalgue, Sierra Leone, that whole Mali region.
26:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a beautiful senagogue is very beautiful. Like the
26:38
Speaker 4: beach is the beach town. I encourage everyone to just visit, like,
26:41
Speaker 4: just go and experience it and I'm sure that you
26:44
Speaker 4: will love it and you see the vibe that we're
26:46
Speaker 4: talking about.
26:46
Speaker 1: Right well, there you have it.
26:47
Speaker 2: The founding CEO of Afro Future Abdullah.
26:51
Speaker 3: It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning, wake that answer up
26:54
Speaker 3: in the morning.
26:54
Speaker 1: The Breakfast Club