Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Richelieu Dennis On Essence Fest 2025 Backlash, Leveraging Your Failures, Essence 2026 + More

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INTERVIEW: Richelieu Dennis On Essence Fest 2025 Backlash, Leveraging Your Failures, Essence 2026 + More · The Breakfast Club

0:01
Speaker 1: Every day, A weak clicks up the Breakfast Club. You
0:05
Speaker 1: don't finished for y'all done.
0:08
Speaker 2: Morning, everybody is DJ Envy just hilarious, Charlamagne to God.
0:12
Speaker 2: We are the breakfast Club. Law La Roses here as well.
0:15
Speaker 2: We got a special guest.
0:16
Speaker 1: In the building.
0:17
Speaker 3: He's back, ladies and gentlemen, Rich Dennis, welcome back.
0:20
Speaker 1: Good morning, Good morning everybody. Thank you for having me back.
0:23
Speaker 2: Good owner of Essence and of course the owner of
0:26
Speaker 2: the Essence Festival that is going down fourth of July
0:29
Speaker 2: weekend in New Orleans.
0:30
Speaker 4: How's let me join us, Come join us, Rich new walking,
0:33
Speaker 4: he says, the first time I've walked in this room
0:34
Speaker 4: and had had had had to apologize.
0:36
Speaker 1: For at least now yet it's early in the day now.
0:41
Speaker 2: For people that don't know, just tell them about this
0:43
Speaker 2: year's lineup, some of the people that will be performing,
0:45
Speaker 2: and some of the cool things you have, like Michelle Obama,
0:47
Speaker 2: which is amazing.
0:49
Speaker 3: Talk about some of the stuff you have going on.
0:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this this year, we really went back. So
0:54
Speaker 4: we took a lot of the feedback from last year
0:57
Speaker 4: and out here, and one of the things that I
0:58
Speaker 4: realized is that we were moving very fast to try
1:02
Speaker 4: to evolve into the future, and we weren't letting people
1:05
Speaker 4: know where we were headed and what we were doing.
1:06
Speaker 4: So we've taken the time this year to say, Okay,
1:08
Speaker 4: we're going to slow down, let.
1:10
Speaker 1: People know where we're going so everybody I can get
1:12
Speaker 1: on board.
1:12
Speaker 4: So the first thing we did was announced our first
1:17
Speaker 4: ever Culture Curator Council and led by Tianna Taylor and
1:25
Speaker 4: some just incredible, incredible women like Nina who leads the
1:32
Speaker 4: Food Festival, Nicole Hannah Jones is leading the book Festival
1:37
Speaker 4: on the nonfiction side, and mar Brakakiel on the fiction side.
1:43
Speaker 4: So Ni Laythan is leading the film festival. So it's
1:46
Speaker 4: been very thoughtful about making sure that all the people
1:49
Speaker 4: that are driving culture can see themselves represented in the
1:52
Speaker 4: people that are actually putting the festival together. So that
1:55
Speaker 4: was the first one. I think that's been a big
1:57
Speaker 4: that's been a big, big win. Right up, we said
2:00
Speaker 4: we're going to get lineup out early. Our strategy, he
2:03
Speaker 4: has always been for the thirty something years, is to
2:07
Speaker 4: drop the lineup as we go along. And there's two
2:10
Speaker 4: reasons for that. One is become a very practical reason
2:13
Speaker 4: is because we compete against Live Nation so Live Nation
2:16
Speaker 4: has the resources and the infrastructure that they suck up
2:20
Speaker 4: all the talent out of the market very quickly. First thing,
2:24
Speaker 4: So we're competing against that as an independent media business, right,
2:32
Speaker 4: and we're fighting everybody at this point.
2:35
Speaker 1: But there's that, right.
2:36
Speaker 4: But then the other reason that that is is because
2:39
Speaker 4: we're not looking to just be.
2:40
Speaker 1: A place where you come to a concert.
2:45
Speaker 4: We don't want to be a concert, right, we want
2:48
Speaker 4: to be a cultural hub, which means we have to
2:51
Speaker 4: curate it around things that are actually driving the broader culture,
2:55
Speaker 4: not just the music culture.
2:56
Speaker 1: Right. So this year you have.
2:59
Speaker 4: Cardi b Lotto Kilani and that's all on Friday Night.
3:03
Speaker 4: They're really driving youth culture right on. But then the
3:09
Speaker 4: greatest part of Friday Night is Michelle Obama opens up
3:13
Speaker 4: the festival on Friday evening with her podcasts on the
3:19
Speaker 4: Essence Festival concert stage in the Superdome, right, so forty
3:24
Speaker 4: thousand people there to see our forever first Lady, and
3:29
Speaker 4: she's partnering with Keiki Palmer.
3:31
Speaker 5: On it which you're being crazy the best.
3:35
Speaker 4: Podcast, the best podcast podcasters out there, having a conversation
3:40
Speaker 4: around where this is all headed. And we're launching the
3:43
Speaker 4: podcast festival within that. So we get to do that
3:48
Speaker 4: and headline our podcast festival with Michelle Obama and Kiki Palmer.
3:52
Speaker 4: You don't get any better than that. You can't get
3:56
Speaker 4: any more grateful than to have those two women in
4:01
Speaker 4: a conversation on the Essence Concert main stage in the Superdome.
4:08
Speaker 4: And we have been doing podcasts and so and thank
4:11
Speaker 4: you for inviting me and and and and entertaining me
4:14
Speaker 4: and supporting me. While while I came to York Blacks
4:19
Speaker 4: because it was for me, it was it was it
4:21
Speaker 4: was mind blowing, right because we've been doing podcasts at
4:24
Speaker 4: festival for probably six seven years, but it's it was
4:29
Speaker 4: never focused and organized, right, it was. It was it
4:32
Speaker 4: was a podcast road and different podcasters would show up
4:35
Speaker 4: and they would do that. And so now having an
4:38
Speaker 4: opportunity to say, okay, well what if we were really
4:40
Speaker 4: thoughtful about building a black creator economy, right, So this
4:45
Speaker 4: isn't about a podcast festival.
4:47
Speaker 1: This is about.
4:48
Speaker 4: Building a black owned, black run, black established infrastructure to
4:55
Speaker 4: grow the creator industry in America. Not just that we
4:59
Speaker 4: have to run to all these different entities to do that.
5:03
Speaker 4: And so that's really the impetus of saying Okay, why
5:06
Speaker 4: don't we put infrastructure into this thing? So why don't
5:09
Speaker 4: we do a creator podcast festival alongside the Film Festival? Right,
5:15
Speaker 4: So the Film Festival this year will have not will
5:19
Speaker 4: have has already almost six hundred and fifty films submitted,
5:24
Speaker 4: which makes us one of the largest film festivals in
5:27
Speaker 4: the country.
5:28
Speaker 1: Right.
5:30
Speaker 4: Last year, out of the Film Festival came two Emmys.
5:35
Speaker 1: That's huge.
5:36
Speaker 4: Out of the book Festival, we gave five book contracts
5:40
Speaker 4: in partnership with Penguin, Right, so five authors got signed
5:45
Speaker 4: last year books coming out. That's what when we talk
5:48
Speaker 4: about building infrastructure, and we talk about building now the
5:51
Speaker 4: creator infrastructure. It's not just saying, hey, come see these podcasts,
5:56
Speaker 4: but it's taking these podcasts, taking these creators, platform them,
6:00
Speaker 4: and then giving them opportunities beyond what they typically would
6:04
Speaker 4: do in podcasting.
6:05
Speaker 1: Right. So it's an exciting time. I think.
6:08
Speaker 4: I think we're delivering on the promise, and this time
6:10
Speaker 4: we're sharing it early so that people understand what we're
6:14
Speaker 4: trying to do and where and where we're headed with it.
6:16
Speaker 4: So it's going to be exciting. And then we got
6:18
Speaker 4: some big news. So I don't know when you're ready
6:20
Speaker 4: to start talking about that. We did the only reason
6:23
Speaker 4: I'm going today.
6:25
Speaker 3: So yeah, we partnered up.
6:26
Speaker 2: If you don't know, Rich is a huge car collector,
6:29
Speaker 2: like out of this world and not just old new
6:31
Speaker 2: like he's He's such a fixation and nobody ever knows that.
6:34
Speaker 2: And the only reason I knew that we went on
6:36
Speaker 2: a ride one day and he pulled up and I'm like,
6:37
Speaker 2: oh wow. So we're bringing the car show to Es'
6:40
Speaker 2: Music Festival inter Convention Center, so to be absolutely positively free.
6:44
Speaker 2: We're going to curate just some of the dopest cars
6:46
Speaker 2: from different areas from the sixties to seventies to eighties
6:48
Speaker 2: and nineties to two thousands. And we're also bringing a
6:50
Speaker 2: lot of New Orleans talent, so what they're into because
6:53
Speaker 2: everywhere you go they do different things to cars, and
6:56
Speaker 2: New Orleans is totally different. So we have a bunch
6:59
Speaker 2: of cure currency and a bunch of New Orleans artists
7:01
Speaker 2: that's gonna be given the media cause. And what we're
7:03
Speaker 2: doing too is focusing on some of the artists that's performing,
7:05
Speaker 2: like Cardi b has giving me her Ferrari truck, which
7:08
Speaker 2: we're taking from New York and bringing out to audience
7:11
Speaker 2: for her car show.
7:11
Speaker 3: So it's gonna be a lot of fun. I'm excited.
7:13
Speaker 6: That's such a great attraction to you know, it's it's
7:18
Speaker 6: exciting and one of the I don't know if it's
7:20
Speaker 6: the best kept secrets, but one one of the great
7:23
Speaker 6: I think contributions that Essence has made to our society
7:28
Speaker 6: and our community and continues to.
7:29
Speaker 4: Make is it's become a place where people meet right,
7:33
Speaker 4: where people start relationships, whether they're networking to build something together,
7:38
Speaker 4: whether they're falling in love and on their first date
7:43
Speaker 4: together or meeting there. So there's it's a very it's
7:47
Speaker 4: a very family friendly environment. And so we continue to
7:51
Speaker 4: think about how do we include the whole set of
7:56
Speaker 4: our communities, not just one group, right.
8:00
Speaker 1: And so so for.
8:03
Speaker 4: This year we're saying, Okay, what is it that we're
8:06
Speaker 4: going to do so that the men that come to
8:08
Speaker 4: festival with their wives, with their girlfriends, with their daughters,
8:13
Speaker 4: with their grand like however they're coming, that they are
8:16
Speaker 4: also not just an afterthought, but that.
8:18
Speaker 1: They're feeling really, really included.
8:20
Speaker 4: So we started a couple of years ago, we relaunched Swede,
8:24
Speaker 4: we opened it, opened it up as the Swede Lounge,
8:27
Speaker 4: so in the Suede Lounge, we're gonna be doing a
8:32
Speaker 4: car show in the Convention Center, And as you said,
8:36
Speaker 4: I'm really excited about the way you've curated it because
8:39
Speaker 4: you've put New Orleans at the center of it, the
8:41
Speaker 4: New Orleans car culture, and that there's other things for
8:43
Speaker 4: people to see, but the New Orleans car culture is
8:45
Speaker 4: at the center, as you said, having celebrities that are
8:48
Speaker 4: in the shows in the there for the weekend with
8:51
Speaker 4: their cars, because when you're a car guy or a
8:54
Speaker 4: car girl, there's nothing better than the memories that you
8:57
Speaker 4: make with the car. Of course, right it's people get
9:00
Speaker 4: these cars, they put them in garages, they never drives them,
9:03
Speaker 4: they never see them. But when you're working on the
9:06
Speaker 4: car and you're tuning the car, and you're tweaking the car,
9:08
Speaker 4: and you're changing this, and you're you're building a bond
9:11
Speaker 4: in a relationship with the car, you want to share
9:14
Speaker 4: that bond and relationship. And I think all too often
9:17
Speaker 4: it becomes harder and harder for us to do in
9:20
Speaker 4: a community in a community environment. This this where we're
9:23
Speaker 4: now able to do. And as you said, you know
9:27
Speaker 4: everything in the Convention Center General emissions is free there's
9:31
Speaker 4: VIP packages if you want to get to the front
9:33
Speaker 4: of the line and you want to do it. But
9:35
Speaker 4: you can walk in and see anything and meet anybody
9:37
Speaker 4: at any time. It's free, and that's very important to
9:40
Speaker 4: us because that's where you come and you get the knowledge.
9:44
Speaker 1: Right, that's where you get the information. That's where you
9:46
Speaker 1: get the access.
9:47
Speaker 4: That's where you see you know that, and you're you're
9:51
Speaker 4: you're you're hosting the main stage out here.
9:54
Speaker 7: Yes, we're working on it right now.
9:55
Speaker 1: Yes, I knock it out.
9:56
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, welled out.
10:01
Speaker 1: With car and No.
10:03
Speaker 4: That's the concert stage and the main stage in the
10:05
Speaker 4: convention center. So that's that's what we call the Essen stage.
10:08
Speaker 4: So that's where all the big conversations. Yeah, that's where
10:11
Speaker 4: all the big, big conversations happen.
10:15
Speaker 1: And so I'm excited to have you.
10:16
Speaker 7: I'm excited to be on board. This is my second
10:19
Speaker 7: Essence Festival, the first time I've ever participated. So oh really, yes,
10:23
Speaker 7: last time I just went, as it was years ago,
10:24
Speaker 7: I just went as a person just enjoying the festival.
10:27
Speaker 4: So now now you get to be a part of
10:29
Speaker 4: all of that energy and all that. Yes, what do
10:32
Speaker 4: you what do you what do you what are you
10:33
Speaker 4: looking to share with people?
10:36
Speaker 7: I think I'm looking to share with people that like
10:37
Speaker 7: community matters. And I don't mean community like you know
10:40
Speaker 7: how people go to network. I mean like when you
10:42
Speaker 7: meet people for real, for real that like pour into you. Like.
10:45
Speaker 7: The only reason why we're I even started having a
10:47
Speaker 7: conversation with your team is because some of your team
10:49
Speaker 7: listens to the podcast, and when they listen, we actually talk,
10:53
Speaker 7: like we have a conversations about some of the things
10:55
Speaker 7: that I cover my podcast. And from that they were like,
10:59
Speaker 7: we want to invest and like you growing, and we
11:01
Speaker 7: think that the stage would make sense for you. The
11:03
Speaker 7: podcast is amazing, And I was like, and that came
11:06
Speaker 7: from natural conversation. I think Essence Festival is a place
11:09
Speaker 7: where you can, you know, you meet those type of
11:10
Speaker 7: people where they really want to invest and grow. And
11:12
Speaker 7: I think people should come there with the open mind
11:14
Speaker 7: just to do that and have a good time.
11:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
11:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, And that's that's important. So now maybe we
11:20
Speaker 4: can have you do a few years of hosting that
11:22
Speaker 4: because let's say lock it in. No, we will because
11:25
Speaker 4: for me, it's the longevity of it, and it's the
11:29
Speaker 4: long term thinking of it, right and Like I said earlier,
11:31
Speaker 4: sometimes we get too far into the future and we
11:34
Speaker 4: forget to bring people along.
11:36
Speaker 7: But that's why I think it's fired though, because a
11:37
Speaker 7: lot of corporations don't care, like it's like who's hot
11:41
Speaker 7: right now and then they just move on. Like your
11:43
Speaker 7: team is very much invested in a real way. And
11:46
Speaker 7: that's why I think Essence Festival in Essence as a
11:48
Speaker 7: magazine is important. Like you know, that's why when all
11:51
Speaker 7: the other stuff come your way, Yeah, I think we
11:53
Speaker 7: should make sure we balance out that conversation. That's how
11:55
Speaker 7: we kicked off our relationship me and your team is
11:57
Speaker 7: because of the way I covered all the other stuff happen.
12:00
Speaker 4: And that's the thing, right, It's the it's the objectivity
12:07
Speaker 4: right of challenge. Right, So you hit a wall, you
12:12
Speaker 4: run into a problem, you have issues.
12:16
Speaker 1: It's the objective.
12:17
Speaker 4: Thinking around how you solve that that gets you to
12:19
Speaker 4: the other side of it, right, as opposed to the
12:22
Speaker 4: closed thinking, all right, this is this is wrong, so
12:24
Speaker 4: therefore I'm gonna kill it or this is wrong, so
12:26
Speaker 4: I'm definitely never gonna do it. But it's stepping back
12:29
Speaker 4: and saying, hey, what do we what do we do differently?
12:31
Speaker 4: How do we and then you come to realize a
12:32
Speaker 4: lot of this stuff you don't really need to do differently,
12:35
Speaker 4: It's just that you executed it poorly, right, So then
12:38
Speaker 4: you focus on the proper execution and then and then
12:40
Speaker 4: you get it back.
12:41
Speaker 1: But we've we've always been focused.
12:43
Speaker 4: On on on long term and what is it going
12:46
Speaker 4: to look like fifty years from now versus what it
12:48
Speaker 4: looks like today.
12:50
Speaker 7: I saw the Essence Festival Steering Committee that you guys
12:54
Speaker 7: developed with the Mayor Helena Moreno, which is a response
12:57
Speaker 7: to a lot of like the issues that people had
13:00
Speaker 7: last year and like all those things. Can you talk
13:02
Speaker 7: about like what that committee will do for people that
13:05
Speaker 7: are experiencing Essence Festival and why you guys got together
13:07
Speaker 7: with the mayor to create it.
13:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there's I think people when they hear steering committee,
13:12
Speaker 4: I think it's you know, what you read in the
13:14
Speaker 4: presses and always what it is. So we've always had
13:19
Speaker 4: a host committee and that host committee continues right now.
13:26
Speaker 4: We're adding in the steering piece so that we have
13:28
Speaker 4: a closer working relationship between the things that the city
13:32
Speaker 4: is interested in and the things that we're interested in,
13:34
Speaker 4: so that we're able to execute collectively as opposed to independently, right,
13:39
Speaker 4: And so that's the real purpose of that steering committee.
13:42
Speaker 1: Right.
13:42
Speaker 4: So if you think about it, So we just had
13:45
Speaker 4: a press conference last Friday, right where the mayor spoke.
13:51
Speaker 4: So this gives the mayor and the city an opportunity
13:55
Speaker 4: to express their vision for what where the city is headed,
13:58
Speaker 4: what the city is doing, because you got to we're
14:00
Speaker 4: bringing hundreds of thousands of people to the city, right,
14:04
Speaker 4: So the city's ability to weigh in and say, hey,
14:07
Speaker 4: these five things are super important to us, and we're
14:10
Speaker 4: able to say, hey, these five things are super important us.
14:12
Speaker 1: Here's how we solve it.
14:13
Speaker 4: And we've got a great we've got a great framework
14:17
Speaker 4: now to make sure that that that continues in that way,
14:21
Speaker 4: as opposed to a host committee that works on just
14:23
Speaker 4: the hosting issues and then we're working just on the
14:26
Speaker 4: execution issues.
14:28
Speaker 5: And an event becomes so successful that its size actually
14:31
Speaker 5: starts to work against the experience that made people love
14:33
Speaker 5: it in the.
14:34
Speaker 4: First Absolutely, absolutely, I mean I think that's I think
14:37
Speaker 4: that's what we ran up against last year, right, is
14:41
Speaker 4: people look that people go to these experiences because they
14:46
Speaker 4: crave human interaction and intimacy.
14:49
Speaker 1: Right.
14:50
Speaker 4: When you're as big as Essence Festival has gotten, it's
14:54
Speaker 4: easy to lose that right and it doesn't show up.
14:57
Speaker 4: That's not the intent, but just from it's a great question.
15:01
Speaker 4: From the mere size of it, it becomes harder and
15:03
Speaker 4: harder to keep that intimacy. So if you step back
15:06
Speaker 4: at it like we did and say, okay, well, what
15:09
Speaker 4: are the things that keep that right? It is understanding
15:12
Speaker 4: who you're serving and then figuring out how.
15:16
Speaker 1: To super serve them. Right.
15:17
Speaker 4: So we're using the car show as example. There's hundreds
15:24
Speaker 4: of thousands of men that show up, right, and what's
15:28
Speaker 4: programmed for them, what's curated for them is has not
15:31
Speaker 4: necessarily been intentional.
15:33
Speaker 1: So now let's be very intentional about that.
15:35
Speaker 4: I guarantee you those men will come there and feel like, hey,
15:39
Speaker 4: this was intimate, This was a feeling. I was in
15:42
Speaker 4: a large environment of my people. I felt safe there,
15:45
Speaker 4: but I could also narrow in and focus in on
15:47
Speaker 4: the things that I care about, right. I think it's
15:49
Speaker 4: the same thing for for women. It's like, hey, I'm
15:53
Speaker 4: you know, having mar Brack Akiel and Nicolehannah Jones, who
15:59
Speaker 4: are people that most women in our community grow up
16:03
Speaker 4: absolutely adoring and admiring to now be able to connect
16:07
Speaker 4: directly with them to learn from them. On Okay, how
16:10
Speaker 4: is I successful in writing all these scripts and creating
16:13
Speaker 4: all these all these number one these bestsellers, or how
16:17
Speaker 4: have I been able to change the consciousness of our
16:20
Speaker 4: community and impact the consciousness of our community. There's a
16:24
Speaker 4: group of women that want that, right. Then there's a
16:27
Speaker 4: group of women and men who come and they just
16:29
Speaker 4: want to go see a great show at night and
16:32
Speaker 4: go experience the restaurants during the day. Let's make sure
16:36
Speaker 4: that they get that. But when you get so big,
16:39
Speaker 4: you can lose sight of that, and then the other
16:41
Speaker 4: thing that really happens is the execution becomes challenged. Right,
16:46
Speaker 4: So going back to basis and saying, okay, let's focus
16:49
Speaker 4: on the execution. When I show up here, I'm supposed
16:52
Speaker 4: to start at eight o'clock, let's start at eight o'clock
16:55
Speaker 4: because I've got a full day schedule and I've got
16:57
Speaker 4: to be back in my room by four o'clock because
17:00
Speaker 4: i got to get ready to go see Cardi B
17:02
Speaker 4: at eight o'clock. Right, And so that window that we
17:05
Speaker 4: have with her in the convention center should be flawless right.
17:08
Speaker 4: She should be able to move around easily. She should
17:11
Speaker 4: be able to if she if she bought a VIP pass.
17:13
Speaker 4: She should be able to get to where she's going.
17:15
Speaker 4: She should be able to get her seat, she should
17:17
Speaker 4: be like.
17:17
Speaker 1: So we're really really focused on those things.
17:19
Speaker 4: And I think over the years as it grew, that
17:22
Speaker 4: those things kind of got away from us. Right, So
17:24
Speaker 4: we're going back now to say, okay, let's do that.
17:26
Speaker 4: And I think this now opens up the next tier
17:29
Speaker 4: of growth for us because we're fixing the infrastructure to
17:33
Speaker 4: now handle the scale. Right, And in you guys's individual
17:37
Speaker 4: businesses and all the things that you do, is you
17:39
Speaker 4: know that as you start to scale, it feels different, right,
17:43
Speaker 4: Like when you cook a potus stew for two people,
17:46
Speaker 4: it's a very different cooking experience than when you're cooking
17:48
Speaker 4: it for two hundred people, right, And so we've got
17:51
Speaker 4: to learn that. And the thing is there's nothing of
17:56
Speaker 4: this size and caliber in the black community. So the
17:59
Speaker 4: other thing is making sure that we continue to train
18:02
Speaker 4: up our people so that they can grow along with
18:05
Speaker 4: us as we scale. So big, big emphasis on training
18:09
Speaker 4: up people on what we call the pipeline program in
18:14
Speaker 4: hiring black businesses and then giving them. So we're going
18:18
Speaker 4: to create Last year, we created twenty five hundred jobs
18:23
Speaker 4: over the course of that weekend. Think about that number, right.
18:26
Speaker 4: This year we're going to get close to probably twenty
18:28
Speaker 4: eight hundred. So if you think about that number and
18:32
Speaker 4: you're saying, hey, I want to use this platform to
18:35
Speaker 4: develop these people, to develop these small businesses, to have them,
18:40
Speaker 4: to have them grow alongside us, you're going to have
18:43
Speaker 4: some challenges because they're not getting those same opportunities repeatedly. Right,
18:47
Speaker 4: we may be the only one or two that they
18:50
Speaker 4: get in New Orleans the whole year, or maybe three
18:52
Speaker 4: that they get the whole year, when there's twenty or
18:54
Speaker 4: thirty opportunities.
18:55
Speaker 1: That are out there.
18:56
Speaker 4: So we've got to our community has been patient with us,
19:00
Speaker 4: We've got to be patient with our partners, and we're
19:03
Speaker 4: going to collectively build the infrastructure and the expertise to
19:07
Speaker 4: be able to continue to scale.
19:08
Speaker 7: So what's different this year and how you guys are
19:10
Speaker 7: working with those smaller contractors in production companies on that,
19:13
Speaker 7: Because last time you were here, you were talking about
19:15
Speaker 7: how that was kind of like an issue for you guys.
19:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well it was. It was an issue in
19:20
Speaker 4: that some of some of the folks that we had
19:22
Speaker 4: last year may have had experiences doing other things, but
19:26
Speaker 4: they hadn't had experiences doing essence, and essence is a
19:30
Speaker 4: whole another you know, it's a whole nother vibe, it's
19:33
Speaker 4: a whole another beast. So we've now been able to
19:37
Speaker 4: continue with those partners. So the one thing is you're
19:41
Speaker 4: not going to get you know, I always say, you know,
19:44
Speaker 4: in the black community, you get one shot. In other
19:46
Speaker 4: communities you got two, five, ten times to fail.
19:50
Speaker 1: Right.
19:50
Speaker 4: So I'm not going to be the guy who if
19:52
Speaker 4: somebody failed me one time, I'm going to be like,
19:55
Speaker 4: I see you later, you know, and then move on
19:57
Speaker 4: to the next one. I'm going to be the one
19:58
Speaker 4: that say, let's talk about where where we went wrong,
20:01
Speaker 4: let's put in the things that we're going to fix it,
20:03
Speaker 4: and let's give us another shot. So why I'm confident
20:06
Speaker 4: about this year is because we spent the year working
20:09
Speaker 4: with people where we thought that there were challenges or
20:12
Speaker 4: where we knew that there were issues, putting things in
20:14
Speaker 4: place to fix that. And so now they have a
20:17
Speaker 4: year of experience under them to be able to say, okay,
20:20
Speaker 4: here if this happens, Here's what happened. If this happens,
20:22
Speaker 4: here was what happened. And then the other thing is
20:24
Speaker 4: we upgraded the team. Right, So we went out and
20:27
Speaker 4: found people that have done things at this scale or
20:30
Speaker 4: larger and brought them in to help us make sure
20:33
Speaker 4: that we make sure that.
20:34
Speaker 1: We get it. We get it right.
20:35
Speaker 4: So we're doing the things that it takes to build
20:38
Speaker 4: a business to have a solid foundation that cannot just scale,
20:42
Speaker 4: but that can have longevity and do it profitably, right,
20:45
Speaker 4: because if we're not doing it profitably, Essence won't be here.
20:49
Speaker 1: And that all of that is for not.
20:51
Speaker 5: So what do you do when people like they did
20:53
Speaker 5: it you last year? When people think taking corporate money,
20:57
Speaker 5: it kind of threatens to trust that people have placed
20:59
Speaker 5: in a brand like Essence, who you took dollars from.
21:02
Speaker 1: If you don't get those dollars, you can great, you can't.
21:06
Speaker 4: You can't do the Convince Center for free. But and
21:08
Speaker 4: I think that had an effect that maybe some people
21:12
Speaker 4: we were looking to to have or or or or
21:16
Speaker 4: didn't or or was an unintended consequence. But then we
21:20
Speaker 4: lost sponsors, right, so because of the noise, right, So
21:25
Speaker 4: then so then we lost sponsors. So then I look
21:27
Speaker 4: back and I say, well, you know, if I've got
21:30
Speaker 4: twenty five to twenty eight hundred jobs, that I've got
21:32
Speaker 4: a fund, right, I've got you know, we will have
21:36
Speaker 4: you know, three hundred black businesses in and around the
21:40
Speaker 4: convention center as vendors, as partners. Right, that's a sizeable
21:47
Speaker 4: impact to our community economically. So I don't think that
21:52
Speaker 4: it was people's intent to do that, but I think
21:55
Speaker 4: some of these companies were looking for excuses to not
21:59
Speaker 4: invest in black and so when they hear that, then
22:01
Speaker 4: they can say, oh, you know, even your people.
22:03
Speaker 1: Don't like you, right, that's right. No, but that's what
22:08
Speaker 1: they were saying.
22:08
Speaker 5: They see other black people criticizing something that's for black people, like, well,
22:12
Speaker 5: why should we spend money with them?
22:13
Speaker 1: Why should we?
22:14
Speaker 4: We're not going and now we don't have to that, right,
22:17
Speaker 4: nobody's holding me accountable anymore. Right, So I can take
22:22
Speaker 4: my dollars and I can take it to live nation
22:24
Speaker 4: where you know, my people are the all of their
22:28
Speaker 4: people are there, all their relationships are there. Why would
22:30
Speaker 4: you take it and invest it here? And so I
22:33
Speaker 4: think that was an unintended consequence, at least I hope
22:36
Speaker 4: that there was anybody out there saying, hey, let's just
22:38
Speaker 4: go destroy this black business because we want to. But
22:41
Speaker 4: that's one of the.
22:42
Speaker 7: Consequences why you're on that point. When you see headlines
22:45
Speaker 7: like the four hundred and sixty five thousand dollars and
22:47
Speaker 7: y'all owning money to all these contractors and these people,
22:49
Speaker 7: knowing that you invest in the black talent, how do
22:52
Speaker 7: you feel in response to that, because, well.
22:55
Speaker 4: It's disheartening. I mean it's disheartening because again, we're running
22:59
Speaker 4: a business.
23:00
Speaker 1: Right.
23:01
Speaker 4: When you run a business, you are going to renegotiate
23:05
Speaker 4: or negotiate, or you're going to take stance with other
23:08
Speaker 4: businesses that you don't think are even giving you the
23:11
Speaker 4: value that you want, or they don't think you're giving
23:14
Speaker 4: them the value that you want. It's part of running
23:17
Speaker 4: a business, right, And so the way that I feel
23:20
Speaker 4: about it is, I know I'm running a business. I
23:23
Speaker 4: also know that because of who we are as a
23:26
Speaker 4: black business, we're a target, right, and so people would
23:30
Speaker 4: love to see us fail. But that's not going to
23:32
Speaker 4: deter me from running a proper business. You're not going
23:35
Speaker 4: to threaten me by putting me in the press because
23:37
Speaker 4: you want me to behave the way that you want
23:39
Speaker 4: me to behave. I'm building a business here. I'm building
23:42
Speaker 4: that business for my community. What I tell our team
23:44
Speaker 4: all the three most important things in business, pride, courage,
23:47
Speaker 4: and conviction.
23:49
Speaker 1: Right.
23:49
Speaker 4: If you've got the pride, you've got the courage, you've
23:51
Speaker 4: got the conviction, you will overcome the challenges.
23:54
Speaker 1: Right.
23:54
Speaker 4: So for me, it's hey, this is part of doing business.
23:59
Speaker 1: Right.
23:59
Speaker 4: If you don't like what I'm doing, or if you
24:02
Speaker 4: want to take me out because I'm competitive to you,
24:05
Speaker 4: then those stories get published, right, and then our community
24:09
Speaker 4: reacts in the way that they react, and then it's
24:12
Speaker 4: just like, no, we're not going anywhere.
24:13
Speaker 1: We're doing this.
24:14
Speaker 4: I should have the same right to renegotiate and to
24:17
Speaker 4: negotiate my deals in my terms as any other business.
24:21
Speaker 1: Right.
24:21
Speaker 4: So we go at it from that perspective, and I'm
24:25
Speaker 4: really proud of the way our team has been handling
24:27
Speaker 4: all of this because it's also the maturation process, right, so.
24:32
Speaker 1: The first time, and that's the other thing.
24:35
Speaker 4: Many of our businesses don't have the resources to stand
24:39
Speaker 4: the impact of some of these things that happen to us, right,
24:43
Speaker 4: so those things can take us out. Right, I'm very
24:46
Speaker 4: proud of the fortitude of our team to double down
24:51
Speaker 4: and say, no, we're going to continue executing the way
24:54
Speaker 4: that we need to execute. We're going to make the improvements,
24:57
Speaker 4: but we're going to continue to do the things that
24:59
Speaker 4: we do because we have pride, cards and conviction and.
25:01
Speaker 1: What we're doing.
25:02
Speaker 3: I see we got to see more more hands on
25:03
Speaker 3: this year than ever before. Is that part of the reason?
25:07
Speaker 1: Well, yes, and no.
25:11
Speaker 4: I'm a builder, right, and and I'm a some would
25:17
Speaker 4: say a visionary, right, And so the two don't always
25:22
Speaker 4: go together, right, Somebody that has a vision usually isn't
25:25
Speaker 4: the person that's here. I'm not hands on in terms
25:29
Speaker 4: of building. We've got a great team that's doing that.
25:34
Speaker 4: But what I am hands on about is making sure
25:37
Speaker 4: that the obstacles get removed, right, and partnering with Kirkus,
25:42
Speaker 4: our CEO, to make sure that that the obstacles get removed,
25:46
Speaker 4: and then making sure that the teams are empowered to do.
25:49
Speaker 1: The things that they need to do.
25:51
Speaker 4: So what you're seeing is is us transforming, and we've
25:57
Speaker 4: been doing this very publicly for the past five years, right,
26:00
Speaker 4: transforming a fifty five year old legacy business into a
26:06
Speaker 4: business of the future, right, the things that we were
26:09
Speaker 4: doing five years ago. I mean, look at you guys
26:13
Speaker 4: in your business, right, what you were doing a year
26:15
Speaker 4: ago is not what you're doing today, right, And so
26:19
Speaker 4: if you don't transform, and you don't transform quickly, it
26:24
Speaker 4: becomes I mean, like I've if you look at iHeart
26:26
Speaker 4: and you look at the transition from where you guys
26:29
Speaker 4: were five, six, seven years ago, the things that the
26:32
Speaker 4: business had to do to restructure in order to put
26:34
Speaker 4: it in a healthier place.
26:36
Speaker 1: When that happens with iHeart, no advice has anything with us.
26:42
Speaker 4: It's you know, and that's part of that's a longer conversation,
26:46
Speaker 4: but that's Those are the things that I think Festival
26:50
Speaker 4: helps us to understand and get through even our lived
26:53
Speaker 4: experience with how our businesses is being managed and being run.
26:58
Speaker 4: But also now to take all of that knowledge and
27:00
Speaker 4: put it on these stages, right, because that's what you're
27:02
Speaker 4: going to get. You're not going to get somebody who's
27:05
Speaker 4: you know, hypothetically done something on Instagram teaching you how
27:09
Speaker 4: to go do. You're gonna get real professionals that have
27:13
Speaker 4: had real experiences, that have developed real businesses, or that
27:17
Speaker 4: have built real families, that have done, right, that have
27:20
Speaker 4: really done these things that are vetted that you can
27:24
Speaker 4: trust and rely on to be the ones providing the information.
27:27
Speaker 4: That's the other that's the other thing that we take
27:29
Speaker 4: great pride in is vetting the information that we that
27:33
Speaker 4: we put out and the people that the people that
27:35
Speaker 4: we bring in, because otherwise it becomes what's the difference
27:39
Speaker 4: between a an essence and you know, anything else that's
27:47
Speaker 4: out there. Right, it's got to be trust, it's got
27:49
Speaker 4: to be valuable. We've got to invest in it. And
27:51
Speaker 4: that's what we're doing it. And that reminds that takes
27:53
Speaker 4: me to another exciting part.
27:54
Speaker 1: And so we're also relaunching the magazine. Oh print print.
28:04
Speaker 1: We're the only black owned print, right, I think that's
28:08
Speaker 1: something to that.
28:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, we can't go away, right, It's like we don't
28:11
Speaker 4: have a we don't have a choice, right, So we
28:14
Speaker 4: have to make sure that we're delivering an excellent product
28:18
Speaker 4: and that we're doing it across our platform. So so
28:22
Speaker 4: the magazine now you know, more long form focus. Right,
28:27
Speaker 4: we're not trying to compete with Instagram and Facebook and all.
28:31
Speaker 1: Right, long form long form.
28:34
Speaker 4: Focus, real journalism around the things that are happening in
28:38
Speaker 4: our communities, Real stories about the things that are happening
28:42
Speaker 4: in our communities from our community's point of view, right,
28:46
Speaker 4: not just one writer or one editor and one We
28:51
Speaker 4: want to bring our community onto the platform, Let them
28:54
Speaker 4: tell their stories. Use our platform as the vessel, but
28:57
Speaker 4: let them tell their story. So we're really excited about
29:00
Speaker 4: and that'll drop at festival.
29:01
Speaker 3: Wow, who's on the cover for that one?
29:03
Speaker 4: I can't tell you, but what I can tell you.
29:05
Speaker 4: What I can tell you is that you will be proud.
29:09
Speaker 1: You know. I just got a couple of questions.
29:10
Speaker 5: A lot of black institutions have had to answer, the question,
29:13
Speaker 5: how do we evolve without losing our soul?
29:16
Speaker 1: Is that one of the challenges is no, no, no, no,
29:19
Speaker 1: no no.
29:20
Speaker 4: Ours is not a sole problem, right, It's how do
29:24
Speaker 4: we evolve without losing a generation or two?
29:29
Speaker 1: Right?
29:30
Speaker 4: Because if you think about it, you know, at the
29:33
Speaker 4: core of it, you know who we serve are black women, right,
29:38
Speaker 4: And we are hyper hyper focused on that.
29:40
Speaker 1: Right.
29:41
Speaker 4: And you and you and your children, and your mother
29:45
Speaker 4: and your grandmother all care about the same things but
29:49
Speaker 4: in different ways, right, And so our job is to
29:53
Speaker 4: make sure that the things that you all care about
29:55
Speaker 4: are represented but that you can experience it in different ways, right,
30:00
Speaker 4: And that's where it's hard, right, because if you do
30:03
Speaker 4: something this way, it's like, oh, now you're focused on
30:05
Speaker 4: young people. You're not focused on who got you here?
30:08
Speaker 1: Right? If you do too much here, essence is old
30:11
Speaker 1: is not right.
30:12
Speaker 4: And at the end of the day, if you don't
30:15
Speaker 4: have this evolution, then where do your daughters go?
30:18
Speaker 1: Where do your children? Where do my child? Where do
30:20
Speaker 1: your children go? Right? Where? Where where's the pride that.
30:23
Speaker 4: Comes and sits on your coffee table, you know, once
30:26
Speaker 4: a month, once every three months, or you know quarterly
30:29
Speaker 4: or annually, whatever it?
30:30
Speaker 1: Where's that pride?
30:31
Speaker 4: Where do you physically see yourself in a in a
30:35
Speaker 4: publication that is talking about the things that you care about, not.
30:38
Speaker 1: Just about your dress and not just about your hairstyle.
30:41
Speaker 4: Right, those things are important, but the things that fuel you,
30:44
Speaker 4: the things that challenge you, the things that develop you. Right,
30:47
Speaker 4: there's got to be a safe space for that. That's
30:49
Speaker 4: what essence is. And then you see that manifest and
30:52
Speaker 4: live experiences.
30:53
Speaker 1: Right.
30:54
Speaker 4: And so so it's it's not it's not a sole
30:56
Speaker 4: question for us. It is a generational question, right, And
30:59
Speaker 4: we've got to We've got to make sure that we
31:01
Speaker 4: build a big enough boat that all generations can feel respected,
31:05
Speaker 4: wanted and loved. And so you see that even with
31:08
Speaker 4: the even with the lineup, you know, we go everything
31:10
Speaker 4: from Cardi b to George Pat, George Clinton, Leon Thomas.
31:18
Speaker 1: Right. So we're curating a cultural experience every year, which
31:23
Speaker 1: becomes harder and harder to do as people steal more
31:26
Speaker 1: and more of our culture and represent it as their own.
31:30
Speaker 6: I'm really excited about being a chief care I know
31:34
Speaker 6: you don't want to get everything, give everything away, right,
31:36
Speaker 6: but be able to bring.
31:39
Speaker 4: Oh boy, So so she's been she's been able to.
31:43
Speaker 4: So here's the here's the interesting thing, right, it's you know,
31:46
Speaker 4: we we have you guys ever heard of the company
31:50
Speaker 4: actively black?
31:54
Speaker 1: Lanny has a uh a election.
32:02
Speaker 4: That had some mixed reviews called black women are Superheroes, right,
32:09
Speaker 4: and he had he hadn't produced it for a while,
32:11
Speaker 4: and then he brought it back and he did a
32:13
Speaker 4: video explaining why he brought it back, right, And I
32:16
Speaker 4: thought that was that was extremely powerful.
32:19
Speaker 1: Right.
32:22
Speaker 4: The connection between that and Tiana is Tiana is helping
32:26
Speaker 4: us bring it back.
32:28
Speaker 1: Right. She's she's helped she's helping us rethink how we
32:33
Speaker 1: go forward. Right, the future is the future, it's what's there.
32:37
Speaker 4: She's helping us rethink, oh should do this, we should
32:40
Speaker 4: do that, we should do the other. Right, here's how
32:42
Speaker 4: the merch should look, here's how the audience address. Here's
32:46
Speaker 4: here's what and let's let's help them do that.
32:48
Speaker 1: Let's let's create. Let's create the recreate the community feel.
32:52
Speaker 4: Not not so much the individual feel, but let's recreate
32:55
Speaker 4: the community field.
32:56
Speaker 1: So she's she's been wonderful. And I even gotten to
32:58
Speaker 1: the to the creative party.
33:00
Speaker 6: Yeah right, I'm listening an everything she touched.
33:03
Speaker 1: Oh my god, amazing. She's one of my favorite creators
33:07
Speaker 1: all the time.
33:08
Speaker 3: She's all hands on this.
33:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I'm like, she went last week for
33:12
Speaker 2: community the community stuff, like she's.
33:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's all And those are the kinds of partners. One,
33:18
Speaker 4: those are the kinds of partners that we all need
33:20
Speaker 4: in our businesses. But two, and probably more important, our
33:25
Speaker 4: young people need to see black people collaborating and building
33:29
Speaker 4: stuff together, right, Like, like they really really really need
33:33
Speaker 4: to see that because they're growing up in an environment
33:36
Speaker 4: that's telling them black people don't matter anymore. Right, And
33:39
Speaker 4: you guys definitely shouldn't be doing stuff together, right, And
33:43
Speaker 4: so we've got it. We've got any anywhere that we
33:45
Speaker 4: can show that and display that we should and then
33:48
Speaker 4: we should come back and talk about the results.
33:50
Speaker 5: Two last questions, are you gonna be able to celebrate
33:52
Speaker 5: the entire the sport this year without unintentionally making some
33:56
Speaker 5: people feel like their own traditions are being diluted because
33:58
Speaker 5: last year they got on you.
33:59
Speaker 1: They not once you celebrating Mother Africa for whatever reason.
34:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, the the So the answer to the questions, yes, right,
34:08
Speaker 4: I think it again.
34:09
Speaker 1: It's helping people.
34:10
Speaker 4: Understand where we're headed and what we're doing and how
34:13
Speaker 4: we're doing it. This is not about making anybody feel
34:16
Speaker 4: less than or forgotten.
34:18
Speaker 1: In fact, we're leaning even.
34:20
Speaker 4: Harder right into into the different communities and how we
34:25
Speaker 4: and how we serve them, and there will be something
34:27
Speaker 4: for everybody, right, And we are not under any illusion
34:32
Speaker 4: here that we're ever going to get away from serving
34:35
Speaker 4: Black American women.
34:37
Speaker 1: Right. Black Americans is who gave all of us that.
34:40
Speaker 4: Came from somewhere else the opportunity to be here and
34:43
Speaker 4: to stay here, and we all ought to be grateful
34:46
Speaker 4: for that. I for one, am extremely grateful for that.
34:48
Speaker 4: I am never going to forget that, right. Second part
34:51
Speaker 4: of it is this is my children's life, right, and
34:56
Speaker 4: they are making sure that this thing stays here as well.
34:59
Speaker 4: So they're all working here, learning and building together. So
35:03
Speaker 4: we believe we're greater together than we are separate. And
35:09
Speaker 4: we also understand the doctrines that separate us, right, and
35:13
Speaker 4: the strategies and the systems.
35:15
Speaker 1: That try to keep us separated. Right. And when you
35:17
Speaker 1: can separate us.
35:19
Speaker 4: You can do things to us that you can't do
35:22
Speaker 4: when we're together.
35:23
Speaker 1: Our job is to bring us, is to bring us together.
35:26
Speaker 1: Our job is to.
35:26
Speaker 4: Make sure that we have a very strong and healthy
35:30
Speaker 4: connected community globally, because that's the greatest protection we can have.
35:36
Speaker 1: If we don't have that, we are.
35:38
Speaker 4: Just small pockets, small pockets. And just look at how
35:42
Speaker 4: we're being picked off right now. Take a look at
35:44
Speaker 4: what's happening in black media.
35:45
Speaker 1: Where the voices right, where are the platforms jobs? They
35:49
Speaker 1: don't have no jobs, right, Not only do they have no.
35:54
Speaker 5: That we live in right now because you can create
35:56
Speaker 5: your own platforms and there's so many people that are
36:00
Speaker 5: doing it.
36:00
Speaker 1: The joy read the Don Lemmon, I mean I can name.
36:03
Speaker 5: A million people that have their own platform, but Charlemagne
36:07
Speaker 5: one that was a reaction.
36:13
Speaker 1: To somebody else's action. It shouldn't have been them, but
36:16
Speaker 1: it was right.
36:18
Speaker 4: And so the way that I think about it is again,
36:23
Speaker 4: places like Essence and Essence Festival should be there to
36:27
Speaker 4: teach people the paths and the ways, so that it
36:31
Speaker 4: doesn't have to be a reaction that they that that
36:34
Speaker 4: in their mind, it's always an action. And I think
36:37
Speaker 4: that the generation that's coming up behind us has that mindset.
36:42
Speaker 1: But they still need the tools.
36:44
Speaker 4: Right, They still need the access, they still need they
36:46
Speaker 4: still need the experience, they still need the expertise, right,
36:49
Speaker 4: So so going and starting your I mean like and
36:53
Speaker 4: you're a perfect example of that. The you know, the
36:56
Speaker 4: twenty two year old Charlemagne would not have been to
37:00
Speaker 4: build what you're building, absolutely right. You had to be
37:03
Speaker 4: somewhere to learn it. So if I'm not getting a job,
37:06
Speaker 4: if I'm not getting twitored, if I'm not getting mentored,
37:08
Speaker 4: if I'm not getting access, I'm not getting that. More
37:12
Speaker 4: than that, I think the thing that makes us great
37:16
Speaker 4: is our abilities to leverage our.
37:19
Speaker 1: Failures expound on that.
37:21
Speaker 4: I like that if you don't get an opportunity to fail. Right,
37:26
Speaker 4: either either you never did anything, or you did something
37:29
Speaker 4: and you failed and you never were empowered to do
37:33
Speaker 4: it again. You never learn how to build, you never
37:37
Speaker 4: learn how to scale, And there's nothing that happens in
37:40
Speaker 4: this world without failure, nothing, Right, you name the most
37:44
Speaker 4: successful people on this planet, they've probably failed more than
37:48
Speaker 4: you and I. Right, But it's learning how to fail,
37:51
Speaker 4: it's learning how to then leverage.
37:53
Speaker 1: That failure to go do the next thing.
37:56
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, we don't have the.
38:00
Speaker 1: The grace in this world right to be able.
38:04
Speaker 4: To fail repeatedly and fail up right, we get judged
38:08
Speaker 4: very quickly before we ever get in the door, we
38:10
Speaker 4: were already judged, so which means it's going to be
38:13
Speaker 4: hard for me to get the opportunity to fail one time, right,
38:16
Speaker 4: And if I go do that and I fail, I'm done.
38:20
Speaker 1: Right. So part of what we're.
38:22
Speaker 4: Trying to do here is yeah, you come and you
38:24
Speaker 4: have the great entertainment and you get there. But it's
38:27
Speaker 4: what happens on the Global Black Economic Forum stage that's
38:31
Speaker 4: teaching you about the economics, right, what's happening there that's
38:35
Speaker 4: teaching you about your voter rights and protecting protecting them
38:39
Speaker 4: and with real lawyers, real civil rights lawyers that are
38:43
Speaker 4: trying these cases, and taking what they've learned from trying
38:46
Speaker 4: these cases and bringing that information back to our community
38:49
Speaker 4: and putting it out there for everybody to see and
38:52
Speaker 4: to engage with rights. It's those things that make us different.
38:56
Speaker 4: I think that makes the Essence and that's why I
38:58
Speaker 4: changed the name the Essence Festival culture because it's not
39:01
Speaker 4: just about entertaining right, it's not just about having a
39:04
Speaker 4: great time.
39:05
Speaker 1: We have to have that.
39:06
Speaker 4: We're going to have that, no doubt, but it's also
39:09
Speaker 4: how do we leave their armed with the knowledge to
39:11
Speaker 4: go combat the things that.
39:12
Speaker 1: Come at us?
39:13
Speaker 4: How do we how do we get a collective viewpoint
39:17
Speaker 4: of how to even maneuver around those things?
39:19
Speaker 1: Right? Because I'm sitting at home, you're at home, you're
39:22
Speaker 1: at home.
39:22
Speaker 4: It's tough, right, but you're we're all experiencing things differently,
39:27
Speaker 4: and there's nowhere where we're collectively strategizing on how we're
39:30
Speaker 4: going to overcome those challenges.
39:32
Speaker 1: Right.
39:33
Speaker 4: We do things in in in reaction because we're not
39:38
Speaker 4: given the opportunity to prepare. Let's use Essence as the
39:42
Speaker 4: place to prepare. Both your mind your soul, your heart,
39:46
Speaker 4: your spirit. Let's use that plus we're bringing get lifted back.
39:51
Speaker 1: This is my last question.
39:52
Speaker 5: Are you nervous going into this year's festival due to
39:55
Speaker 5: all the backlash from last year?
39:56
Speaker 1: Are you confident in the changes that have been made? No,
39:59
Speaker 1: I'm coming. I'm confident because a lot of.
40:03
Speaker 4: The the challenges last year weren't structural. There were executions, right,
40:11
Speaker 4: so let's make sure we get the execution right.
40:14
Speaker 1: That though the poor.
40:16
Speaker 4: Execution in some instances. And here's the other thing, Right,
40:20
Speaker 4: we still had.
40:21
Speaker 1: Forty thousand people a day right come through. We still mate.
40:25
Speaker 1: I mean there were no incidents, there were no right.
40:28
Speaker 1: So there's.
40:31
Speaker 4: There's this tendency to want to go back and dwell on,
40:35
Speaker 4: hey this was bad that that's not the case, But
40:38
Speaker 4: there were a ton of learnings on how to be better, right,
40:42
Speaker 4: and so that's what we're taking forward.
40:44
Speaker 1: And so I'm extremely confident.
40:45
Speaker 4: Right is we've learned from that, from the execution challenges,
40:49
Speaker 4: We've made the adjustice. The soul was there, the intent
40:53
Speaker 4: is always there, and now we just got to execute
40:55
Speaker 4: against it. And then the other thing is communicating what
40:58
Speaker 4: it is that we're attempting to do so that people
41:00
Speaker 4: know what they're coming along.
41:02
Speaker 3: For and get lifted for. Is the spiritual and gospel
41:05
Speaker 3: side of.
41:08
Speaker 5: Legend.
41:11
Speaker 2: That's why I get lifted is Yes, we appreciate you
41:13
Speaker 2: for joining us, and thank you so much.
41:14
Speaker 3: And the crazy thing about it, the.
41:15
Speaker 2: Car showed conversation happened on the plane. We were on
41:18
Speaker 2: a plane with each other and I was I think
41:20
Speaker 2: I was going to a city for a car show,
41:21
Speaker 2: and he's like, why don't you bring up the essence?
41:23
Speaker 2: And I was like how he was liked in the
41:25
Speaker 2: convention center And that was I think last July.
41:28
Speaker 3: That was last yearly last July, and we got it done.
41:30
Speaker 3: So thank you so much.
41:32
Speaker 1: I've got a.
41:32
Speaker 7: Strong spirit, like for everything that they'd be trying to
41:35
Speaker 7: throw at everything that you do, but you are so
41:37
Speaker 7: focused on like the silver lining, and like still poor people,
41:41
Speaker 7: some people everybody don't make it.
41:46
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not, you know.
41:48
Speaker 4: And and when do you ask me a question last
41:51
Speaker 4: time I was here, uh, if I was angry or
41:56
Speaker 4: or And my response then always has ben continue to
42:00
Speaker 4: be I don't have the luxury of being mad, right
42:04
Speaker 4: that that's that's a luxury that that others.
42:08
Speaker 1: Can afford in our world. We can't afford that.
42:11
Speaker 4: We got to pick up and keep going because at
42:13
Speaker 4: the end of the day, my job is to leave
42:16
Speaker 4: this place a better place than I found it for
42:18
Speaker 4: my children, and I think that's all of us as jobs, right,
42:21
Speaker 4: So getting mad is't gonna it's not gonna change it.
42:24
Speaker 4: It's not gonna not gonna make But there's the other
42:26
Speaker 4: side to this though, right, is when they love me,
42:30
Speaker 4: they love me right, So I can't I can't you
42:34
Speaker 4: know that it's never as good as it feels, and
42:37
Speaker 4: it's never as bad as you think.
42:38
Speaker 1: Right.
42:39
Speaker 4: So it's like when when we're doing good, they're loving
42:41
Speaker 4: on us, they're pushing us up, and when we're not
42:44
Speaker 4: giving what they want, they let us know. The only
42:46
Speaker 4: thing that I say to that is let's just not
42:49
Speaker 4: do it in a destructive way because it can be
42:51
Speaker 4: permanent and some people can't recover from it. I'm seeing
42:54
Speaker 4: you know, you guys have all seen all these these
42:56
Speaker 4: these black businesses that have closed.
42:58
Speaker 1: For one reason or another.
43:00
Speaker 4: A lot the ones that are most disheartening are the
43:02
Speaker 4: ones that are closed because their community turned on them.
43:05
Speaker 4: And Dennis, right, they couldn't handle it mentally, or they
43:07
Speaker 4: couldn't handle it financially, or you know, their families, and
43:12
Speaker 4: so we just got to be thoughtful in how we
43:15
Speaker 4: try to help each other get better and not be
43:17
Speaker 4: destructive in doing it.
43:19
Speaker 3: That's right.
43:20
Speaker 1: Last thing.
43:20
Speaker 3: The next year, you got to add a comedy component,
43:23
Speaker 3: so we'll talk.
43:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me know, let me know. Next time you're
43:27
Speaker 1: on a plane, I'll meet you.
43:28
Speaker 2: The Ris Dennis Ladies and Gentlemen Essence Festival goes down
43:33
Speaker 2: July third through the fifth.
43:34
Speaker 3: If you haven't get your got your tickets. Get your tickets.
43:37
Speaker 2: Cardi b Kalanie, Brian Demonica, Patti LaBelle, Leon Thomas, George Clinton,
43:41
Speaker 2: baby Face, Public, got to me, Dougie Fresh plus tons
43:44
Speaker 2: of free stuff. So get your tickets and I'll see
43:46
Speaker 2: y'all down there. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning, all right,
43:51
Speaker 2: every day up.
43:52
Speaker 1: Way click up the Breakfast Club. You don't finish for
43:55
Speaker 1: y'all done