Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Richelieu Dennis Talks 31st ESSENCE Festival of Culture, Teyana Taylor & The Aunties, Black Owned Brands,Caroline Wanga + More

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INTERVIEW: Richelieu Dennis Talks 31st ESSENCE Festival of Culture, Teyana Taylor & The Aunties, Black Owned Brands,Caroline Wanga + More · The Breakfast Club

0:01
Speaker 1: Every day I wake click, yours up the Breakfast Club.
0:05
Speaker 2: You know I'm finished for y'all.
0:06
Speaker 3: Done morning.
0:09
Speaker 4: Everybody's DJ, Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne, Na gud We are
0:13
Speaker 4: the Breakfast Club. Law Lao's here as well. So it's
0:16
Speaker 4: Mimi And we got a special guest in the building.
0:18
Speaker 3: We have the brother Rich Dennis.
0:19
Speaker 1: Welcome back, Thank you, Thank you guys. Rich. I'm getting
0:22
Speaker 1: used to this man.
0:24
Speaker 4: Before we start out, I just want to say one
0:26
Speaker 4: one thing about Essence, because of course Essence Fest was
0:29
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I would
0:32
Speaker 4: say I've never been to Essence. I've always been as
0:35
Speaker 4: a talent, right and being as a talent, I'm only
0:37
Speaker 4: usually there very short periods of time. I go in there,
0:40
Speaker 4: DJ or speak on the panel, get in and out.
0:42
Speaker 4: This was the first time that I was there from Thursday,
0:45
Speaker 4: Wednesday to Sunday, right from nine am to five pm.
0:49
Speaker 4: And it's a different experience, and I have a different experience,
0:52
Speaker 4: and I have a different conversation I want to have
0:55
Speaker 4: with people.
0:55
Speaker 3: I have never been to a place.
0:57
Speaker 4: Where it's over one hundred thousand people that look like me,
1:01
Speaker 4: that care and love on each other. And I know
1:03
Speaker 4: a lot of times when things don't go right, people
1:06
Speaker 4: are quick to kick on people or tear things down.
1:09
Speaker 4: But I really enjoyed it. And I don't think people
1:12
Speaker 4: really understand what essence festival is because I didn't understand
1:16
Speaker 4: what it was between and we'll just talking about the
1:19
Speaker 4: free things right in the convention center. Between the free
1:21
Speaker 4: gives away giveaways a beauty con they were so much stuff.
1:24
Speaker 4: They were people walking around with big boxes and tampons.
1:26
Speaker 4: There were people walking around with big things of vasiline,
1:29
Speaker 4: with makeup, with bounty rolls.
1:31
Speaker 3: With Coca Cola products. People were leaving with luggages of
1:36
Speaker 3: free ish.
1:37
Speaker 4: But now not only that, you got so many artists,
1:39
Speaker 4: so many panels given informative information.
1:41
Speaker 3: You have Gospel Sundays.
1:43
Speaker 4: Which it was just a huge vibe and it was dancing,
1:46
Speaker 4: there was music, there was kids, and it's something that's needed.
1:50
Speaker 5: I think people understand what festival no, not the way that,
1:54
Speaker 5: But I think the reason they attack it is because
1:57
Speaker 5: they have such it's beloved.
1:58
Speaker 4: But I heard Plies say the same thing, because Plaie
2:00
Speaker 4: said the exact same thing, because I don't think he
2:02
Speaker 4: experienced it. But when you experience when you go, when
2:04
Speaker 4: you experience it is a different experience, and you talk
2:07
Speaker 4: about it differently because I don't think we have anything
2:09
Speaker 4: ever like that with that when I.
2:11
Speaker 5: Think was so beloved, that's why it gets the back
2:13
Speaker 5: last year guy.
2:13
Speaker 1: But I think I think it's a couple of things.
2:15
Speaker 1: So what you said, I've heard that three or four
2:19
Speaker 1: different times now since this weekend, right. And the person
2:23
Speaker 1: who brought it to me first with that was was
2:26
Speaker 1: was d Nice. Right. So Dee was saying every time
2:30
Speaker 1: he comes to Essence, he's got ten gigs. He's playing here,
2:33
Speaker 1: he's playing there. He's never had an opportunity to really
2:36
Speaker 1: move around as a person as opposed to talent, right.
2:41
Speaker 1: And I don't think he's going to come back as
2:43
Speaker 1: a talent again. I think he's gone back every year
2:46
Speaker 1: as a person, right, because he he one one of
2:50
Speaker 1: them is exactly what you experienced. One of the things
2:53
Speaker 1: the experiences he's like, I've never been in a place
2:56
Speaker 1: where there's so much love, right, And I tell you
2:59
Speaker 1: one of the ways that that love God express was
3:02
Speaker 1: you know, they had a fire down on Bourbon Street
3:05
Speaker 1: and knocked out some of the power for a few hours, right,
3:09
Speaker 1: and people's hotels. There were complete strangers finding hotel rooms
3:15
Speaker 1: and giving up rooms to other people who had been displaced. Now,
3:19
Speaker 1: it was for a short period of time when the
3:22
Speaker 1: city handled it beautifully. But the point is is that
3:26
Speaker 1: there is that kind of love there where everybody's looking
3:30
Speaker 1: out for each other, everybody, everybody's just loving on each
3:32
Speaker 1: other for three four days. And to your point, Charlemagne,
3:37
Speaker 1: what people remember from nineteen ninety five, and it's not
3:41
Speaker 1: that right, And I think it's I think it's high
3:44
Speaker 1: time that we all realize that the country is in
3:46
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five anymore, right, The people aren't nineteen ninety
3:50
Speaker 1: five anymore. So it's very difficult to say, hey, we
3:54
Speaker 1: are going to serve black women by only giving them
3:57
Speaker 1: what they had in nineteen ninety five. In nineteen ninety five,
4:00
Speaker 1: we didn't have podcasts. Right in nineteen ninety five, we
4:04
Speaker 1: didn't have people attacking DEI, we didn't have people attacking
4:09
Speaker 1: our communities as blatantly as that's happening right now. Right,
4:13
Speaker 1: so people are coming in with a lot heavier loads
4:17
Speaker 1: right from their daily lives. That place is a place
4:21
Speaker 1: where you come there and you can leave everything behind
4:24
Speaker 1: and everybody is there just to love on each other.
4:28
Speaker 1: I say this all the time. You know, if Wakanda
4:30
Speaker 1: were a real place, it would be Essence Festival, right,
4:34
Speaker 1: because it is nothing but love. It is nothing but excellence,
4:39
Speaker 1: but progression but joy, right, And you feel it from
4:44
Speaker 1: the moment you get on the plane, even when you
4:46
Speaker 1: get on the plane going it's it's like, oh, I'm
4:48
Speaker 1: with my people, even before you land, right, and when
4:51
Speaker 1: you land like, oh, I'm with my people. When you
4:53
Speaker 1: go in that convention center, you're seeing between forty and
4:56
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people that are there for the same reason.
5:00
Speaker 1: So you know it's it's it's really a magical, magical place.
5:03
Speaker 1: And that's why I work so hard and my team
5:05
Speaker 1: works so hard to preserve it and to and to
5:08
Speaker 1: elevate it so it's not what it was in nineteen
5:10
Speaker 1: ninety five. It's actually elevated. But it has all of
5:14
Speaker 1: if you're looking for nineteen ninety five, everything you had
5:17
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five is there. I don't think it's
5:19
Speaker 1: a festival anymore. I think it's an institution. I would
5:21
Speaker 1: agree with that. I mean, when you when you.
5:23
Speaker 5: When you can, when it's big enough to be a
5:25
Speaker 5: backdrop for a movie. Yeah, that made over one hundred
5:28
Speaker 5: million dollars. That's when you know you got anstitution. So
5:30
Speaker 5: how do you protect an institution from becoming a tradition
5:33
Speaker 5: that people attend, you know, out of habit instead of
5:36
Speaker 5: necessity because you wanted to feel like I gotta be there.
5:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I think look, I think you saw
5:43
Speaker 1: a lot of Hey, if I had listened to the internet,
5:45
Speaker 1: I would have I would have never come right, And
5:48
Speaker 1: I tell people that the internet is not a real place. Nope, right,
5:52
Speaker 1: like you when you get there, you see what it is. Now.
5:57
Speaker 1: Do we make mistakes one lots of them. Yes we do.
6:02
Speaker 1: Do we correct absolutely, and I think we correct better
6:05
Speaker 1: than anybody else that team. You've got over one hundred
6:08
Speaker 1: black women that are putting on this festival, right, and
6:12
Speaker 1: then you've got probably another six seven hundred that are
6:15
Speaker 1: contractors working the festival, all black women. Like all your experiences,
6:19
Speaker 1: there are black women. I'm not I shouldn't say all
6:22
Speaker 1: black women, vast majority ninety eight percent of black women. Right.
6:26
Speaker 1: There's a few men doing different things like you did
6:29
Speaker 1: this year. But what you got to realize is that
6:33
Speaker 1: it's also a training ground for those people that own
6:37
Speaker 1: production companies, for those people that are that are that
6:42
Speaker 1: are in the entertainment space, that are getting an opportunity
6:44
Speaker 1: on the super louned stage or in the other place.
6:48
Speaker 1: So it's more than what they What people see is
6:52
Speaker 1: all of the entertainment aspects, all of the all of
6:54
Speaker 1: the value that we create, all of the free products,
6:57
Speaker 1: all of the right. What they don't see is that
7:00
Speaker 1: we look at it. And I've said this here before,
7:03
Speaker 1: we are building the infrastructure for which culture can monetize. Right.
7:07
Speaker 1: So we launched the podcast Festival. What we talked about, right,
7:12
Speaker 1: we had four studios up there, we filmed over we
7:16
Speaker 1: I think it did over fifty podcasts in two days. Right,
7:20
Speaker 1: those podcasts is not walk now walk away? All of
7:23
Speaker 1: them combined about five million dollars of inventory that they
7:27
Speaker 1: can now go sell. There's nowhere else you can go
7:29
Speaker 1: do that, right, and it costs them nothing to do it. Right.
7:32
Speaker 1: We put it, We put it all on right. If
7:35
Speaker 1: you look at what we did with the car show,
7:37
Speaker 1: I can't wait for us to talk about the car
7:38
Speaker 1: show because I think that was probably the biggest mistake
7:41
Speaker 1: we make next to the lines, was it was too small. Yeah,
7:44
Speaker 1: it was too small.
7:46
Speaker 4: But I also feel like sometimes you have to see
7:48
Speaker 4: it to believe it. Like you know, even with you know,
7:51
Speaker 4: dealing with your team, they do everything by the book.
7:56
Speaker 4: I'm the type of person to be like nah be
7:58
Speaker 4: and I will say it, but I asked for you know,
8:00
Speaker 4: I asked for forgiveness and just keep it moving. But
8:03
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's it's one of those things where
8:05
Speaker 4: it's like people just wanted an outlet to see something different.
8:08
Speaker 4: And the car she did amazingly. Yes, we needed more space,
8:11
Speaker 4: there was so many people there. But brother, I don't
8:13
Speaker 4: think you sat down for three days.
8:16
Speaker 3: No, took the Twitter.
8:17
Speaker 4: Everybody, everybody, thousands of thousands of people, everybody.
8:21
Speaker 1: Right and that. But that's that's that's what it's about,
8:24
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know, Tianna Taylor walked that festival
8:29
Speaker 1: floor two three times.
8:31
Speaker 2: I actually was so surprised.
8:32
Speaker 6: Not I know, Tianna Taylor get busy with like anything
8:35
Speaker 6: she does, She's gonna take her time with it. But
8:37
Speaker 6: because she's Tiana Taylor and it's so many people, I
8:40
Speaker 6: thought she was gonna have a hard time navigating it.
8:43
Speaker 6: But the men and I walked into conventions and not
8:45
Speaker 6: only did you see her? You saw all of the
8:47
Speaker 6: Auntie's production stats in their gears, so you felt her presence.
8:50
Speaker 6: I was like, oh, she like they're here, Like this
8:52
Speaker 6: is like then I watched the panel she did and
8:55
Speaker 6: she her and uh Daniel Daniel could yes, and her
9:00
Speaker 6: best friend Coco, and they like took their time with the.
9:02
Speaker 2: Audience and this is like you saw me, right, you
9:05
Speaker 2: see that, you know what you do?
9:07
Speaker 1: They were taking questions. I raised my hand to ask questions.
9:09
Speaker 1: They just glazed over me, like.
9:15
Speaker 6: They moved the couch just closer to the to the
9:17
Speaker 6: end of the stage. But they wanted to like really
9:18
Speaker 6: like connect with the people. But I was just surprised
9:22
Speaker 6: how well she navigated being, you know, a curator or
9:25
Speaker 6: producer of the festival, but also still like being having
9:28
Speaker 6: a presence there too and just like being good with
9:30
Speaker 6: the people.
9:31
Speaker 1: Look, I think I think that that what what Charlemagne
9:35
Speaker 1: said is it's it's it's an institution and at the
9:39
Speaker 1: core of it, it's home. So she felt comfortable enough
9:44
Speaker 1: to not just come to the convention center, but to
9:48
Speaker 1: go through the crowd, right, and the crowd not just
9:53
Speaker 1: embraced her and loved on her, but they gave her
9:55
Speaker 1: space to move around. Right now, I'm not saying you
9:58
Speaker 1: didn't have to get people hey, right, but and the
10:01
Speaker 1: other thing I noticed was she took a picture was
10:03
Speaker 1: just about every kid that came up to her.
10:05
Speaker 3: Right, you don't even know this part?
10:06
Speaker 4: How about this when you were when she was doing
10:08
Speaker 4: that thing, there was I guess it was a VIP
10:12
Speaker 4: place where people can sit. There was two young girls
10:14
Speaker 4: sitting in that place, and they asked the two young
10:16
Speaker 4: girls to leave, and the young girls will crying because
10:18
Speaker 4: they want it to be Tiana. Nobody knew the mom
10:20
Speaker 4: hit me on just hit me on DM and it
10:22
Speaker 4: was like, hey, this is what happened to my daughters.
10:25
Speaker 4: I sent it to Tiana, and Tiana actually called the
10:27
Speaker 4: young girls, sent her a package of stuff and said,
10:29
Speaker 4: you know, made sure that she was cool because it
10:31
Speaker 4: was the girl's birthday. But that's the feeling that I
10:33
Speaker 4: got out of essence. So sometimes when I hear these things,
10:36
Speaker 4: I'm like, that's not.
10:37
Speaker 1: What I've seen.
10:38
Speaker 3: Its like I felt, I felt.
10:39
Speaker 4: The love like no other, and I thought that was
10:41
Speaker 4: an amazing thing.
10:43
Speaker 1: And the Aunties enhanced the overall experience. Oh, I thought
10:47
Speaker 1: it was I thought it was a tremendous enhancement. I think,
10:50
Speaker 1: I think the but I wanted, I want to be clear,
10:55
Speaker 1: that was a very very tight collaboration with the Essence
10:58
Speaker 1: team and the other and the other curators as well,
11:03
Speaker 1: like like Nina and and uh Mara and Nicole right
11:10
Speaker 1: like and Sanid like. They they really came together around hey,
11:16
Speaker 1: how do we make this the best experience for everybody?
11:19
Speaker 1: And they did a fantastic job. And our team, you know,
11:22
Speaker 1: kudos kudos to our team because it's also a lot
11:26
Speaker 1: to navigate, and we added in a whole nother level
11:29
Speaker 1: of navigation, right, which is which is the curators right
11:33
Speaker 1: and too, and to say hey, here's what we do now,
11:37
Speaker 1: y'all come take it and do it. And we're in
11:39
Speaker 1: a support role. It takes a real mature organization and
11:42
Speaker 1: really talented people to have the confidence to be able
11:45
Speaker 1: to to be able to let that happen. And what
11:47
Speaker 1: I tell the team all the time is you can
11:50
Speaker 1: do anything you want in this world as long as
11:52
Speaker 1: you don't care who gets the credit, right, right, And
11:55
Speaker 1: that's the way that we that's the way that we
11:57
Speaker 1: take it right. And then but the learnings, man, the
12:00
Speaker 1: learnings this year with just it was just like we
12:03
Speaker 1: learned last year. But there's probably more to learn from
12:06
Speaker 1: success than there is to learn from failure, right, because
12:08
Speaker 1: now how do you repeat the things that are successful,
12:11
Speaker 1: and how do you now go focus on the things
12:13
Speaker 1: that you fail that to make sure that they better.
12:15
Speaker 1: I think we nailed that part of it from last year.
12:18
Speaker 1: The big thing that I think we got to focus
12:20
Speaker 1: on this year and what we're already working on and
12:22
Speaker 1: planning is those lines, right, because I think it was twofold.
12:28
Speaker 1: I think one is this is the largest festival we've
12:30
Speaker 1: ever had, Right, There's more people there than you than
12:33
Speaker 1: you can imagine, and it was hundreds and hundreds of
12:35
Speaker 1: thousands of people.
12:36
Speaker 2: I kept hearing that on the ground, So that was true.
12:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, yeah, no, it was. It was one. There's
12:42
Speaker 1: no two ways about it. But part of that is
12:46
Speaker 1: then the infrastructure has to scale to accommodate those people, right,
12:52
Speaker 1: And so and as we grow, we've got to be
12:55
Speaker 1: well ahead of what the infrastructure needs to be and
12:58
Speaker 1: look like so that that number of people can get
13:01
Speaker 1: hands so the lines, we won't have a line problem
13:04
Speaker 1: next year. Right, We're get we're expecting we'll have even
13:07
Speaker 1: more people next year. But while it was going on
13:09
Speaker 1: and people saw during the days, we made adjustments. We
13:12
Speaker 1: got we know how to handle that now, right, and
13:15
Speaker 1: so so we're we're we're we're working even you know,
13:19
Speaker 1: it's not even five days later, we're redoing how the
13:22
Speaker 1: lines work. I think that was that was the biggest thing.
13:25
Speaker 1: And I tell you the thing that I was the
13:26
Speaker 1: most proud of. We had a lot of sponsors pull out, right,
13:31
Speaker 1: we still put on the best festival I think we've
13:34
Speaker 1: put on right, certainly Top three.
13:36
Speaker 4: Was a d was a dead The reason for the sponsors,
13:38
Speaker 4: I think I think d I was a lot of it.
13:40
Speaker 1: The backlash was probably the biggest part of it, because
13:44
Speaker 1: brands don't want to be associated with that. So kudos
13:47
Speaker 1: to our partners like Target, big, big kudos to to
13:51
Speaker 1: Coca Cola, Target Disney, Like these are the people that
13:55
Speaker 1: came back, and like you used to have McDonald's and Delta,
13:59
Speaker 1: and none of those people came back, right, But who
14:02
Speaker 1: came back was Target, Disney, I'm going to Amazon. So
14:08
Speaker 1: they came back, and we need those people to be
14:10
Speaker 1: able to put on that experience. But what we also
14:12
Speaker 1: need is when I talk about building infrastructure and building
14:16
Speaker 1: up businesses. We also need our own businesses that can
14:19
Speaker 1: afford to be there, right, that can afford to pay
14:22
Speaker 1: for the space, and that can put on the experience.
14:24
Speaker 1: So if you went to Beauty con right, most of
14:27
Speaker 1: those sponsors that were there in years past either pulled
14:30
Speaker 1: out or scaled down bigly. Right, you know who stepped up,
14:35
Speaker 1: the black owned brands, the black owned businesses was ninety
14:40
Speaker 1: percent of the revenue that came in to put on
14:43
Speaker 1: Beauty con So stop and think about But those are
14:46
Speaker 1: businesses that we've been nurturing and developing in our community
14:49
Speaker 1: and our fund in our not for profit over the
14:52
Speaker 1: past ten years or so. Many of them we had
14:56
Speaker 1: nothing to do with their development. But because of what
14:58
Speaker 1: they've seen us do, the ways that you know, the
15:01
Speaker 1: ways we've navigated the marketplace and the doors that we've opened,
15:04
Speaker 1: they've been able to come in and do that. So
15:06
Speaker 1: now you've got brands like Canvas, Beauty Black Girl, Vitamin Brown,
15:11
Speaker 1: Sugar Babe like they're now anchoring. They're now anchoring Beauty
15:15
Speaker 1: Con right at festival. By the way, get your tickets
15:19
Speaker 1: to Beauty Con La September. I think it's September nineteenth.
15:23
Speaker 1: Already all the early bird has sold out. Everything is
15:28
Speaker 1: sold out there. It's just the GA tickets in some experience.
15:31
Speaker 1: But the point is that we now have in the
15:35
Speaker 1: beauty community enough businesses that can support this type of infrastructure.
15:42
Speaker 1: If I had listened to the naysayers two years ago
15:46
Speaker 1: or even last year, that wouldn't have been the case.
15:49
Speaker 1: Or if this backlash had happened three years ago, we
15:53
Speaker 1: wouldn't have had businesses that were ready to step in,
15:56
Speaker 1: to step in and fill in the gap. Now, those
15:59
Speaker 1: companies that have pulled out, they're going to lose market shared,
16:02
Speaker 1: lose market share over and over again because now that
16:05
Speaker 1: these now that the black owned businesses an't in the space,
16:09
Speaker 1: they're curating that thing on a whole nother level. Like
16:11
Speaker 1: the energy is crazy.
16:13
Speaker 6: So what did that teach you, like as a person
16:14
Speaker 6: that's in the program in space of essence about or
16:16
Speaker 6: not teach you, but like what what what's your plan
16:18
Speaker 6: moving forward next year about focusing just on those black
16:22
Speaker 6: owned brands and not always leaning toward like the big
16:24
Speaker 6: corporate sponsors, Like what we see more of that?
16:26
Speaker 1: So we've never done that, right, So that's that's perception. Right,
16:30
Speaker 1: What we've done is said, Okay, we're going to use
16:33
Speaker 1: our resources to develop and platform black owned businesses. Gotcha,
16:38
Speaker 1: that's what we do. Right. We also understand that we
16:42
Speaker 1: need those corporate dollars in order to make the investments right.
16:45
Speaker 1: They don't just happen, right, So we've focused, we've we've
16:50
Speaker 1: we've been able to focus on both, right, and we're
16:52
Speaker 1: going to continue to focus on both because the other,
16:55
Speaker 1: the other side of this coin is that those companies
16:59
Speaker 1: we need, need those companies to pay attention to our
17:02
Speaker 1: communities because they have the resources to drive scale, to
17:07
Speaker 1: drive access, to drive structural development and improvement, to provide
17:13
Speaker 1: shelf space, to provide We can't survive without those things
17:17
Speaker 1: until we build our own. Our job is to bring
17:20
Speaker 1: the two together, leverage the dollars in the resources to
17:23
Speaker 1: provide that growth and development for everybody. Right. So it's
17:28
Speaker 1: not that we lean in one or the other. What
17:30
Speaker 1: I'm trying to articulate is that we're now in a place,
17:33
Speaker 1: and that is where we need to get our entire
17:35
Speaker 1: community in a place where we can stand on our
17:38
Speaker 1: own two feet. And now people come in. They don't
17:40
Speaker 1: come in because they feel they're doing us a favor.
17:43
Speaker 1: They come in because they now have to compete against us,
17:46
Speaker 1: as opposed to us not having the resources to compete
17:49
Speaker 1: and they not having the need feeling the need to
17:53
Speaker 1: make the investment.
17:54
Speaker 4: We reach back out to those businesses like a McDonald's,
17:57
Speaker 4: like a absolutely At and T, like a Delta that
18:00
Speaker 4: that said no, we don't want to be part of it.
18:02
Speaker 1: Do you reach back and say, hey, yeah, We'll be
18:06
Speaker 1: in continuous engagement with them. This is Look, I don't
18:10
Speaker 1: take this stuff personally, right, And I say to you
18:13
Speaker 1: guys all time, I don't have the luxury of being angry, right,
18:16
Speaker 1: I don't have the luxury of being disappointed. The only
18:20
Speaker 1: luxury that I have is the love and care that
18:23
Speaker 1: I have to give to my community and bringing the
18:25
Speaker 1: resources and my best thinking to it. Not always going
18:27
Speaker 1: to be the right way, but it's always going to
18:30
Speaker 1: come from that place. So we're going to continue to
18:32
Speaker 1: reach out with them. We're going to continue to provide
18:34
Speaker 1: them opportunity. We're going to continue to show them the data,
18:37
Speaker 1: the opportunity to scale because they need our community to grow, right,
18:41
Speaker 1: they need our community to grow. There's a whole host
18:44
Speaker 1: of reasons why people pull out they didn't support that
18:46
Speaker 1: doesn't matter to me, right. What matters to me is
18:49
Speaker 1: that we're able to do what we're doing, We're able
18:50
Speaker 1: to deliver the product that we're able to deliver, and
18:53
Speaker 1: that we have the resources to scale it, right, Because
18:56
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. I don't know of another place
18:59
Speaker 1: on this planet that you can go engage with those
19:04
Speaker 1: three four hundred thousand people that are there for those
19:07
Speaker 1: three four days, right and get the type of safety
19:12
Speaker 1: and protection. And that's the other thing is like what
19:16
Speaker 1: I saw a ton of this year, even more than ever.
19:18
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you guys are there SR too. The
19:21
Speaker 1: multi generational game is crazy.
19:23
Speaker 7: Absolutely, And when you talk about that in the concerts,
19:26
Speaker 7: right because there was like someone for each generation, Patti LaBelle,
19:30
Speaker 7: Cardi B.
19:31
Speaker 2: You know, every generation had someone that they wanted to see.
19:33
Speaker 2: That's I felt the second.
19:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well if you felt that the second night.
19:37
Speaker 1: The first night, you had everybody from Michelle Obama to Lotto.
19:41
Speaker 6: See, I didn't get Kalani Cardi B. We was just outside.
19:46
Speaker 3: That Friday night.
19:48
Speaker 2: That's all I need. You took me outside. What about though,
19:54
Speaker 2: because I know Cardi B. She did a live afterward.
19:57
Speaker 6: It was just talking about her performance, and she was saying,
19:59
Speaker 6: and she felt like the crowd coudn't hear, so she
20:01
Speaker 6: was screaming, where do our sound is?
20:02
Speaker 1: She was happening, No, so part of it is and
20:06
Speaker 1: if you listen to what So, I'm not saying that
20:08
Speaker 1: there weren't sound issues, because over when you do a
20:11
Speaker 1: stadium of that size, right that the one thing we
20:14
Speaker 1: learned from last year is that you are going to
20:16
Speaker 1: have sound issues, especially as people bring in different tech
20:20
Speaker 1: packages to do their shows. Right. But what we did
20:24
Speaker 1: this year was we had people, multiple people there correcting
20:27
Speaker 1: quickly if something was going off course. So something was
20:30
Speaker 1: going on, of course they were correcting quickly. And in
20:32
Speaker 1: a stadium of that size, it's very different than arena.
20:35
Speaker 1: What she was saying was she hadn't done a venue
20:38
Speaker 1: of that size.
20:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember she said that, right, Yeah, And.
20:41
Speaker 1: If any artist that you talk to will tell you
20:44
Speaker 1: that when you do a venue of that size and
20:48
Speaker 1: a stadium where it's it's closing, you get all the
20:50
Speaker 1: echo on it, there's always an adjustment that they have
20:53
Speaker 1: to make. So what she was saying, well, she's not
20:55
Speaker 1: afraid of it anymore.
20:56
Speaker 2: She says she wants to come back, want to come back.
20:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're excited CARDI come back.
21:02
Speaker 2: And she did that. That was another thing to a
21:05
Speaker 2: lot of the artists who had like performances.
21:07
Speaker 6: They were also like in golf in like the community
21:10
Speaker 6: that I saw her then she had grow good. She
21:12
Speaker 6: was over there and she spoke on the.
21:13
Speaker 1: Stage beauty come Yeah.
21:15
Speaker 6: Like so the artist Kaylani was outside at Treehouse after
21:20
Speaker 6: she performed, and she talked about it on the stage
21:22
Speaker 6: like there was a connection to the outside of the
21:24
Speaker 6: community as it always is. With that being said, I
21:27
Speaker 6: know that your contracts up in September, right, is it
21:30
Speaker 6: going to stay in New Orleans?
21:31
Speaker 2: Is that? Is it a possibility?
21:33
Speaker 1: Where we look, New Orleans is a special city. It
21:36
Speaker 1: is the birthplace of the Essence Festival. Right, We've got
21:39
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do with the city and
21:41
Speaker 1: with the state, and we're going to do that work.
21:43
Speaker 1: The idea is, let's do the work. Let's like it
21:47
Speaker 1: is so special there, right, let's do Let's do the work.
21:50
Speaker 1: So we're going to do the work. We're not afraid
21:52
Speaker 1: of the work. Yeah, I read that.
21:53
Speaker 5: Y'all are trying to negotiate a new long term deal
21:55
Speaker 5: with the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana.
21:57
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, yeah, No, I mean the for us
22:02
Speaker 1: because of what it is again, it's we're never gonna
22:06
Speaker 1: be able to compete against a live nation. That's not
22:09
Speaker 1: what we're here for. Right, We're never our Age or
22:13
Speaker 1: any of those guys. But what we are going to
22:15
Speaker 1: do is to create the best product for black people
22:18
Speaker 1: on the planet, right, And that's and that's and that's
22:21
Speaker 1: where we're focused. So we're going to focus on partnerships
22:24
Speaker 1: that enable that. Right. New Orleans is one of those
22:26
Speaker 1: places that enables that. And we're where we're we're we're fully,
22:30
Speaker 1: fully focused on making sure that we can get a
22:34
Speaker 1: long term agreement because it takes us. We don't we
22:37
Speaker 1: can't plan this thing. Again, it's not it's not like
22:39
Speaker 1: it's a concert and you get five people together and
22:42
Speaker 1: you take them on tour, right, or it's a tour
22:44
Speaker 1: that right, it's not that. It is a deep rooted
22:48
Speaker 1: sense of community that we need to create and that
22:51
Speaker 1: takes long term planning. We need to right now be
22:53
Speaker 1: planning out twenty twenty eight, twenty twenty nine, so we
22:57
Speaker 1: don't have the problems that we had in twenty twenty five. Right,
23:01
Speaker 1: So for us, it is important that we have a
23:04
Speaker 1: long term relationship with a city. We've already had that
23:07
Speaker 1: long term relationship with New Orleans, and we're hoping to
23:10
Speaker 1: continue that and we're going to do the work to
23:12
Speaker 1: continue that.
23:13
Speaker 5: How does it feel too? I don't want I guess
23:16
Speaker 5: bounce back would be the word. Like, after all the
23:18
Speaker 5: back last year, we see it from tween twenty five,
23:20
Speaker 5: but to see people say, no, it was a big
23:22
Speaker 5: improvement for twenty twenty six.
23:23
Speaker 1: I was reading actual reviews.
23:25
Speaker 5: On nola dot com and they were saying, how like
23:27
Speaker 5: it was much better than last year?
23:29
Speaker 1: How did that feel to you? Look, I'm I'm extremely
23:34
Speaker 1: grateful for my team, right, the team that put and
23:38
Speaker 1: the next time we do this, I want to bring
23:40
Speaker 1: them all. I want to bring them all along. Right.
23:42
Speaker 1: What we've had to do over the past year year
23:44
Speaker 1: and a half is to make sure that people had
23:48
Speaker 1: the space and the head space to focus on delivering
23:52
Speaker 1: the product. And I think they did an extraordinary job
23:55
Speaker 1: with that. Right, this idea or this notion of of
24:05
Speaker 1: bounce back or not, In my mind, it's you know,
24:08
Speaker 1: as ll CUJ says, don't call it a comeback, right.
24:13
Speaker 1: What we did was we listened to the areas that
24:20
Speaker 1: made us better, and we took that feedback right, and
24:23
Speaker 1: we executed it like hell right. And that's what we
24:26
Speaker 1: do is we execute right. We took that feedback and
24:29
Speaker 1: we executed it. We also had a lot of feedback
24:33
Speaker 1: that was non constructive, right, so we had to we
24:36
Speaker 1: had to filter that out the execution. So the strategy
24:40
Speaker 1: wasn't any different this year versus last year. What was
24:45
Speaker 1: different is the execution, right, and so we're going to
24:48
Speaker 1: continue to continue to lean into that. But it feels
24:51
Speaker 1: I feel great for my team, right. I feel great
24:53
Speaker 1: for my team. My team, they have an extraordinary amount
24:57
Speaker 1: to be proud of, right, and I am extreme proud
25:00
Speaker 1: of them. For me personally, it feels good to be
25:04
Speaker 1: able to say to my team, y'all did this right,
25:07
Speaker 1: because they actually they did it. And the other thing
25:10
Speaker 1: that they should be extremely proud of is nobody else
25:14
Speaker 1: on the planet can do this right. So it's not
25:17
Speaker 1: like we haven't had people try to emulate or copy
25:20
Speaker 1: what we do. It's not that it's that nobody has
25:23
Speaker 1: been able to do it, and they do it, and
25:26
Speaker 1: they do it year in and year out, and a
25:28
Speaker 1: lot of times it's a thankless role that they play, right,
25:31
Speaker 1: It's like they do all of that to get cust
25:32
Speaker 1: out right, and then and then it's like, but now
25:36
Speaker 1: the love comes in, and I say, I was sharing
25:39
Speaker 1: this with somebody else earlier, and the week is you know,
25:44
Speaker 1: black people can hate hard, but they love even harder, right,
25:49
Speaker 1: and you got to love them more than they hate themselves.
25:52
Speaker 1: Sometimes you do, right, And so that that's what it is.
25:55
Speaker 1: But we feel Look, we're excited about twenty twenty seven.
25:58
Speaker 1: Planning is is in motion and all of these things
26:02
Speaker 1: that all of these strategic things that we've been doing
26:04
Speaker 1: are not starting to come to life. You know, I
26:07
Speaker 1: brought for you guys. I don't know if you saw
26:09
Speaker 1: this around festival, but this is the reimagined Essence book right,
26:18
Speaker 1: took us five years to get here, Double side, double
26:21
Speaker 1: issue Katanji Brown Jackson, who's carrying us on her back
26:24
Speaker 1: right now, and then all our curators Wow, oh dope,
26:28
Speaker 1: right right, I'll go to how good is that? And
26:31
Speaker 1: the idea? Yeah? Yeah, no, we went hard, dude, we
26:37
Speaker 1: went hard. She did she did film FIRS.
26:41
Speaker 3: There you go, now, she did good. She did the
26:43
Speaker 3: film festival and the film thing about her.
26:44
Speaker 4: They did a pitch fest where somebody got to pitch
26:47
Speaker 4: a movie and they picked I guess five people how
26:50
Speaker 4: they pick it, and they said, we'll pick one person
26:52
Speaker 4: out the audience, and the one person out the audience
26:55
Speaker 4: is the person that actually.
26:56
Speaker 1: Got the deal.
26:58
Speaker 3: So it was it was pretty dope.
27:00
Speaker 1: I thought.
27:01
Speaker 3: I thought that was dope.
27:01
Speaker 2: So and something for everybody. Film festivals, you know, books, books.
27:08
Speaker 7: Authors, you know, concerts, there's something for literally everyone.
27:13
Speaker 1: Everybody and for every age group, right. And and that's
27:16
Speaker 1: been part of the challenge that we've been we've been
27:19
Speaker 1: up against is there are many people who wanted to
27:24
Speaker 1: remain right for our generation or the generation before us,
27:30
Speaker 1: And the reality of it is, we can't think that
27:33
Speaker 1: way right, because where do like I look at and like,
27:36
Speaker 1: then where would my kids go right? And if my
27:39
Speaker 1: kids don't get to experience this right, or or or
27:43
Speaker 1: somebody else's grandkids don't get to experience this, they never
27:47
Speaker 1: get to get that feeling of scaled black love right
27:51
Speaker 1: and scale black unity right, and they don't get to
27:54
Speaker 1: learn how to behave right. So that's the other thing
27:57
Speaker 1: so that I don't know if you guys saw the
27:59
Speaker 1: dug the double dutch you want to go to so
28:03
Speaker 1: like you know, you're you're a kid in from you know,
28:07
Speaker 1: pick a city, Chicago, and you come with your mom
28:10
Speaker 1: and your grandmother and this is what your mom and
28:13
Speaker 1: grandmother grew up doing. And now you get to double
28:16
Speaker 1: dutch in front of thirty thousand people and get to like,
28:19
Speaker 1: what kind of confidence booster is that? What kind of
28:22
Speaker 1: passing down tradition is that? Like? Where where else are
28:25
Speaker 1: you gonna? Where else are you going to get that?
28:27
Speaker 4: So the woman is actually she was pregnant. She she
28:29
Speaker 4: used to come to She used to teach the kids
28:30
Speaker 4: in my car show. That's that's my first metage. We
28:32
Speaker 4: would hire her to come today, but I don't think
28:34
Speaker 4: about it. Even if you don't know how to do
28:36
Speaker 4: it double dutch, they teach you right then.
28:37
Speaker 3: And that learned. I learned how to double dutch at
28:40
Speaker 3: my car show. They teach men.
28:41
Speaker 5: If the kids older, you should have Laura and Geena views.
28:46
Speaker 5: I'm serious, like they too, right.
28:48
Speaker 2: You don't know why did you dated? So the first day.
28:52
Speaker 1: She's just too busy managing the stage.
28:53
Speaker 6: I tell you that crushed on that stage a real job,
28:57
Speaker 6: a real job, and.
28:58
Speaker 1: It's a lot of pressure.
28:59
Speaker 6: It's a lot of physical like because you're physically there
29:02
Speaker 6: then you're interacting with people or whatever. That first day
29:04
Speaker 6: I was like, I'm gonna make it over there, but
29:05
Speaker 6: by the end of the day my feet was hurting
29:06
Speaker 6: too bad.
29:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.
29:07
Speaker 6: Second day, I was supposed to just go enjoy the festival,
29:09
Speaker 6: but I ended up being on the HBCU pan because
29:12
Speaker 6: they needed me to jump in and then by the
29:14
Speaker 6: time we finished that everything was packed up.
29:16
Speaker 2: I didn't get the double dutch. I was really trying.
29:18
Speaker 6: Wow, Like people was coming over to me, like do
29:19
Speaker 6: you see the double dutch? Because every time I'm somewhere
29:22
Speaker 6: and I can double Dutch, we try to do it.
29:24
Speaker 1: So so two things. One is make sure you schedule
29:26
Speaker 1: yourself next year for double dutching. And two all the
29:30
Speaker 1: comments are saying we need.
29:31
Speaker 4: You there every year, so thank you.
29:36
Speaker 2: You know what, you're a hater. I looked up. You
29:42
Speaker 2: know what, if you don't got nothing nice to say,
29:43
Speaker 2: don't say it.
29:46
Speaker 6: Then you're gonna say don't nobody be talking about how
29:49
Speaker 6: you can't pronounce some essays.
29:50
Speaker 2: But you know what I mean, that's crazy.
29:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it was, it was. I mean, it's
29:55
Speaker 1: it's what it's supposed to be for us. And then
29:58
Speaker 1: as you look at that magazine, you see the difference. Right,
30:01
Speaker 1: So we're we're we're we're transitioning from a your typical
30:06
Speaker 1: magazine on the newsstand to long form content, right that
30:11
Speaker 1: you'll only find in the magazine. So we're not putting
30:14
Speaker 1: this online, right, it's it's it's and we're going hard
30:18
Speaker 1: into serving our subscribers, right, because that's the other place
30:21
Speaker 1: I think that we've we sort of dropped the ball
30:24
Speaker 1: over the past few years is not being not deeply
30:26
Speaker 1: serving our subscribers. So in this, in this you know, bigger,
30:31
Speaker 1: bigger book, better paper thanks to our partnership with Piece Bureau,
30:37
Speaker 1: incredible like like just gorgeous photography, right, like original photography,
30:44
Speaker 1: and that the team just did an extraordinary job of
30:47
Speaker 1: of reimagining this book. So go ahead and subscribe to
30:50
Speaker 1: essence you get You're getting something that's even more unique
30:53
Speaker 1: than you ever had before. This is now something that
30:56
Speaker 1: you can put back on your coffee table with pride,
30:58
Speaker 1: you can put on your addresser with pride, you can share,
31:00
Speaker 1: you can gift with pride, right, and so that's that's
31:03
Speaker 1: that's where this is all headed. And we're going to
31:05
Speaker 1: do the same thing. Continue to do the same thing.
31:07
Speaker 1: That's it on the lawn and then we'll pass it
31:09
Speaker 1: down here so you can see you can see quality
31:12
Speaker 1: and uh in journalism. Come back now.
31:16
Speaker 5: I hate to put any type of damper on this
31:18
Speaker 5: because what you did was great for Esthen's Festival the Ship.
31:21
Speaker 5: But there was a little controversy right before the festival
31:23
Speaker 5: because the former CEO, Caroline Wango farre a defamation lawsuit
31:27
Speaker 5: against Sundance Sundown Media and Technology Group in Essence Leadership,
31:31
Speaker 5: a legging that y'all use her escapegoat following the holly
31:35
Speaker 5: controversial two thousands, twenty five Essence Festival of Culture.
31:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you say to that? Well, look, we
31:41
Speaker 1: we've responded, and as you guys know, when you're dealing
31:43
Speaker 1: with something legal, there's limited things that you can say, right,
31:46
Speaker 1: So so we responded, right. We believe that we've done
31:51
Speaker 1: everything we could to protect Caroline. We were very clear
31:55
Speaker 1: very early. In fact, I came on here after the
31:59
Speaker 1: after the festival last year and said that she had
32:01
Speaker 1: nothing to do with I remember it. So we've been
32:04
Speaker 1: we've been very very clear on that, and we'll we'll
32:08
Speaker 1: go through the process, but we've been very clear. We
32:11
Speaker 1: from the morning after I did an interview, I said
32:14
Speaker 1: it was the morning after, two mornings after, and made
32:17
Speaker 1: it clear that she had nothing to do with it,
32:19
Speaker 1: and and did the same when I came here maybe
32:23
Speaker 1: the following week, So we were very public about it.
32:27
Speaker 1: We were grateful to Caroline for the work that she
32:29
Speaker 1: did while she was while she was with us, and
32:32
Speaker 1: we wish her all the best, but we definitely did
32:35
Speaker 1: not do anything to jeopardize her in any way. And
32:40
Speaker 1: that's just not how we function, right. So if anybody,
32:43
Speaker 1: I come and I take the heat, right, So that's that,
32:46
Speaker 1: that's the answer to that, and I think that'll that'll
32:48
Speaker 1: clear itself.
32:49
Speaker 4: Up absolutely all right, Well, we appreciate you for joining us,
32:52
Speaker 4: and I also want to say I'm surprised that he's
32:54
Speaker 4: outside like he's doing so much when he at festival.
32:57
Speaker 4: Rich Rich is out there moving stuff around, shaking and
33:00
Speaker 4: moving out that which is would surprisingly see you out
33:01
Speaker 4: there doing.
33:02
Speaker 2: This, Yeah, and a good fabric should be having on.
33:06
Speaker 6: That was that was probably pretty surprising, y'all, just very
33:08
Speaker 6: hands on with it, which I think you have to
33:09
Speaker 6: be for it to be as successful as it's been.
33:11
Speaker 2: But congratulations, no.
33:13
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. But as that, as I keep saying,
33:15
Speaker 1: is like that for us is training ground, right, So
33:18
Speaker 1: those almost you know, however many you know, close to
33:22
Speaker 1: a thousand people that are working the festival. That's for
33:26
Speaker 1: them training all those people. You see, they have production companies,
33:29
Speaker 1: they have talent agencies they have, right, and that's that's
33:33
Speaker 1: training ground. And so my job is, you know, my
33:35
Speaker 1: title is the head intern. My job is to go
33:37
Speaker 1: around and make sure everybody has what they need. And
33:40
Speaker 1: then I wouldn't know what the issues are if I
33:42
Speaker 1: didn't if I didn't do that, right. And so we've
33:44
Speaker 1: got it. We're building that culture into the organization. Is
33:49
Speaker 1: these people are coming here, they're expecting something from us.
33:51
Speaker 1: We have to deliver it. And part of delivering it
33:53
Speaker 1: is being is being present. Right. So so yeah, so
33:57
Speaker 1: we have it. We're gonna keep doing it.
33:58
Speaker 5: And I think the multi generational thing is great idea
34:00
Speaker 5: because you got to continue to introduce Essence Festival to
34:03
Speaker 5: a new generation. When Cardi B says I want to
34:05
Speaker 5: come back, yeah that matters to her generation.
34:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really really matters. But the multi generational thing,
34:14
Speaker 1: and I get the clashing right. So when you go
34:18
Speaker 1: there and you experience what you just experienced, it's like, oh,
34:21
Speaker 1: this is for me, right, And then you come back
34:25
Speaker 1: and then there's like, oh, but there's all these other
34:27
Speaker 1: people here. Our children need to see how we behave
34:37
Speaker 1: right in the environments when we're together, and we need
34:41
Speaker 1: to teach them how to behave right. We need to
34:44
Speaker 1: listen to their music and other to understand the things
34:47
Speaker 1: that our children aren't able to say to our parents.
34:51
Speaker 1: They're being said in that music, right, So you can't
34:54
Speaker 1: just shut it off and run the things that they're emulating.
34:57
Speaker 1: They're emulating those things because they're seeing it and they're
35:00
Speaker 1: learning from it. If we're not engaged with it, we
35:03
Speaker 1: can't provide them the support, right, And they're definitely not
35:06
Speaker 1: getting that support when they go out into the world. Right.
35:09
Speaker 1: So that's what Essence Festival is about. It's like, come in,
35:12
Speaker 1: all generations, from all walks of life. We are going
35:15
Speaker 1: to support you here. You're going to see how to
35:17
Speaker 1: behave You're going to learn how to engage with each other.
35:20
Speaker 1: You're going to feel the love. And when you go
35:22
Speaker 1: back home when things are dire, right, you will know
35:26
Speaker 1: that there are people that love you out in this world, right,
35:28
Speaker 1: and they will know that there are people out there
35:30
Speaker 1: who are going to seek you, who are going to
35:32
Speaker 1: seek your best interest, and that you don't have to
35:34
Speaker 1: go find solace in other communities. Your own community is
35:38
Speaker 1: good enough for you. But if you're not seeing that,
35:41
Speaker 1: and if that's not being reinforced, then you're not going
35:45
Speaker 1: to understand it when you see it out in the world,
35:47
Speaker 1: and you're not going to be able to go find it.
35:49
Speaker 1: And I think that, more than anything else, diminishes us
35:52
Speaker 1: as a community. I believe firmly, and I can't say
35:56
Speaker 1: that there's any scientific fact to this, but I believe
36:00
Speaker 1: that we are a communal people, right. We do better
36:03
Speaker 1: when we are in community. I don't believe that we're individualistic.
36:07
Speaker 1: We live in a society that does everything to individualize us, right.
36:11
Speaker 1: And I don't mean that you're not an individual as
36:13
Speaker 1: a human being. I mean as a group of people.
36:17
Speaker 1: I think our strength comes from community. Our strength always
36:19
Speaker 1: has from community. How did our ancestors survive in this
36:22
Speaker 1: country through slavery? It was by them bonding together, right,
36:26
Speaker 1: It was by them having faith in each other and
36:30
Speaker 1: taking on the pain each other's pains and taking on
36:33
Speaker 1: each other's victories. If we now think that we're post
36:36
Speaker 1: that and we're living in a world where I don't
36:39
Speaker 1: need you or you don't need me, or they've lied
36:41
Speaker 1: to us because guess what, they live in community too, right,
36:46
Speaker 1: and they building community. We were the ones that we
36:49
Speaker 1: were being told that we shouldn't partner with each other.
36:51
Speaker 1: You can't do business with your family, you can't do
36:54
Speaker 1: business with black people, You can't do this, you can't
36:57
Speaker 1: do this, you can't do that. When you go to Essence,
36:59
Speaker 1: you realize that you can right over a thousand people
37:04
Speaker 1: working to serve each other on an everyday basis, right, Like,
37:08
Speaker 1: where do you see that? Right? Working together? Companies that
37:12
Speaker 1: compete against each other all year come the Essence to
37:15
Speaker 1: work together to put on this, to put on this show.
37:19
Speaker 1: Where else are you going to see that? Right? So
37:21
Speaker 1: it's not just what you experience as a guest, it's
37:24
Speaker 1: also the infrastructure that we're building in the people that
37:27
Speaker 1: we're training up so that they can do that as well.
37:29
Speaker 1: So I thank you, guys, and thank you to my
37:31
Speaker 1: team you guys.
37:32
Speaker 6: Real quick, One last thing that I wanted to compliment
37:34
Speaker 6: y'all on the media room that y'all had when I
37:37
Speaker 6: went over there. I love the fact that all the
37:38
Speaker 6: media outlets were outlets I had never heard of before.
37:41
Speaker 6: They were new, they were young, a lot of them
37:43
Speaker 6: were independent, and they're trying to figure it out, and
37:45
Speaker 6: that y'all gave them the opportunity because I remember when
37:47
Speaker 6: I used to just be doing things on YouTube and
37:48
Speaker 6: social media. I would get denied for festivals because I
37:51
Speaker 6: wasn't a part of a platform, and y'all had them
37:53
Speaker 6: all set up. Y'all were helped, y'all had handlers for
37:56
Speaker 6: them bringing talent over. I thought that was so dope
37:58
Speaker 6: that y'all were supporting them in that way.
37:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well again, so thank you for noticing that
38:02
Speaker 1: those are the things that people don't see, right, And
38:05
Speaker 1: those are the things that people don't don't fully appreciate.
38:09
Speaker 1: Because you, as a media personality, or you as a
38:12
Speaker 1: person that's started trying to start a media company, where
38:15
Speaker 1: do you go get your big story, where do you
38:18
Speaker 1: go get your big interview? You don't, right, nobody gives
38:22
Speaker 1: you that opportunity. So if we don't have a place
38:25
Speaker 1: where you can get that opportunity, then how are you
38:28
Speaker 1: going to develop? Who's gonna who's going to see your talent? Right,
38:32
Speaker 1: That's why we don't we look at it. We're a platform.
38:34
Speaker 1: We're platforming everybody, right, come here, you get on it.
38:38
Speaker 1: And we did the same thing with with with podcasts.
38:40
Speaker 1: I don't know if you any didn't even go up there.
38:42
Speaker 3: I didn't.
38:44
Speaker 2: Next year, I'm going to actually take the second day
38:46
Speaker 2: and like a lot of.
38:48
Speaker 1: Stuff, not the people already spoke, you worked there, everything.
38:53
Speaker 2: I do. I want to see it. Like it was
38:55
Speaker 2: so much that I was.
38:56
Speaker 1: Like, Dad, should have your podcast out there the ladies.
38:59
Speaker 6: That's actually how we started this conversation. So next year
39:02
Speaker 6: we'll make sure that happens.
39:03
Speaker 1: You should have you had. You know, Daniel Brooks did her,
39:07
Speaker 1: I think she launched her, launched Our Live did her,
39:11
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama and then you know the other one hundred
39:15
Speaker 1: and fifty or so podcasters that that did it. Right.
39:18
Speaker 1: It was it's like there was like four studios set
39:21
Speaker 1: up just like this, right, and you go in and
39:24
Speaker 1: you create your content, and you take your content and
39:27
Speaker 1: you go home and you go you go do it.
39:29
Speaker 1: And then what we will do is we will use
39:31
Speaker 1: our infrastructure to say, here's all the inventory that came
39:33
Speaker 1: out of it. Let's go talk to our partners to
39:36
Speaker 1: see about who wants to advertise here. Because that's the
39:38
Speaker 1: other thing is, you guys, the individual podcasters don't have
39:42
Speaker 1: the infrastructure to go do that, and they may not
39:44
Speaker 1: be big enough to get on another system, right, but
39:48
Speaker 1: on our system, anybody can get on, right. And then
39:50
Speaker 1: and then we developed them, so it was it's it's
39:53
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do. Thank you for noticing it.
39:55
Speaker 1: And that that same thing was the same thing at
39:57
Speaker 1: the at the book at the book Festival, young writers,
40:01
Speaker 1: giving them opportunities, giving them getting them book deals right,
40:04
Speaker 1: same thing at the Film Festival with the micro drama
40:08
Speaker 1: competition as well as the film competition. Is now you
40:11
Speaker 1: got another five or six people that are actually going
40:14
Speaker 1: to get movies out next year that would have never
40:16
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to do that. And you know, in
40:19
Speaker 1: our partnership with Heartbeat. So my point is this is
40:23
Speaker 1: the place where everything you see in front of you
40:27
Speaker 1: is supported by something underneath you that's driving black economics, right,
40:31
Speaker 1: and that's that's the whole focus of it. So you know,
40:34
Speaker 1: but I want to assure people the lines will be
40:37
Speaker 1: fixed next year. If the lines aren't fixed next year,
40:40
Speaker 1: y'all can come for me right with. The lines will
40:43
Speaker 1: be fixed. Rich.
40:43
Speaker 3: We appreciate you for joining us. Rich Dennis. It's the
40:46
Speaker 3: Breakfast Club. Good morning.
40:47
Speaker 1: Appreciate you guys man. Thank you. Every day clicks up
40:53
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club. You don't finish the y'all done it.