Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #235: CEO of AfroFuture on Doing Business in Ghana, Court Battle with Coachella, & African Opportunities

Transcript

EYL #235: CEO of AfroFuture on Doing Business in Ghana, Court Battle with Coachella, & African Opportunities · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
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  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
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  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
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  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
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  Speaker 1: Donald J.
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  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Christy nom the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
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  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the
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  Speaker 1: lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred thousand illegal
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, your
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: next you will be fined nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and deported.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: You will never return.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Do what's right. Leave now.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: All right, guys, welcome back. E y l We're back
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: home for a day. Would around the world. So this
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: is a very important episode for a variety of different reasons.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: If you follow you while you know that market. Monday
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: is on his world tour started in La Toronto, Canada, London, Chicago,
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: and we're going to end the year in Ghana.
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  Speaker 5: Very important to this.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, Ghana is one of these places that has gotten
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: a lot of recognition in the last couple of years
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  Speaker 4: for a variety of different things, but one of the
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: main reasons why they've gotten recognition is a festival my
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: graduates from my school being Forts back Drop, b Drop,
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: Mike Drop back Drop. It used to be called Afro Cella.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: It's changed its name to Afro Future. Yes, and it's
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  Speaker 4: real big. It's a culture music type vibe. It has,
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: I guess brought in over four billion dollars of tourism.
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  Speaker 6: That was in twenty nineteen. It definitely brought more and since.
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  Speaker 4: Then, okay, created over five thousand jobs.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 6: We hire on average about one thousand to two thousand
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  Speaker 6: people every year.
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  Speaker 4: And it's at the end of the summer. So it's
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  Speaker 4: a big festival. It's music music festival.
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  Speaker 6: Right, yeah, but it's a cultural festival. And for us
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  Speaker 6: it's like equal parts music, ego parts, fashion ego parts
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  Speaker 6: are eco part food and all those elements come together
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  Speaker 6: to kind of create the experience that we're trying to create.
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  Speaker 6: It's an immersion of culture all at once, and it
• 2:45
  Speaker 6: kind of takes all your senses at once. And I
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  Speaker 6: think that's why people keep coming back, because there's a
• 2:50
  Speaker 6: place where there's a safety, there is a beauty, and
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: you see yourself and all the people around you, and
• 2:56
  Speaker 6: you're really just having a good time. And I think
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: that's the beauty of what we've created.
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  Speaker 4: Abdul Kareem Abdullah, Sir, Founder of Afrochella currently called Afro Future.
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  Speaker 4: That's correct. But you are a native of the Bronx, yes, forever, yes, whatever.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: So your family, your family's from Ghana.
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  Speaker 5: Burnside to be specific.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: Ye, your family from Ghana. You're from the Bronx. But
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  Speaker 4: first and foremost, thank you for coming. Appreciate it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you.
• 3:26
  Speaker 6: Appreciate you familiar with these parts. I am familiar with
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: with white plans. You know, I actually got my prom
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: my prom suit when I was the block at the
• 3:35
  Speaker 6: gallery exactly.
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: Really, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rest in peace.
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: The casualty of malls. You malls all around the country closing.
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: They had some flying stuff that remember, I was going
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: to get the right suit to match the Mory's.
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  Speaker 4: You know, we were talking, we was talking, was talking
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: about about this, and he was saying that, you know,
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: he always had chip on his shoulder coming from Westchester
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: because everybody was like, what is upstate? Like nobody really
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: gave Westchester any credit. But I feel like the Bronx
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: at least knows where Westchester is. Absolutely Brooklyn. They think
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: Westchester is like Canada, next to all, but it was
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: right there.
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  Speaker 6: I grew up in. I grew up in the Bronx
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  Speaker 6: soas my family lived right thereas by Riverdale, so I
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  Speaker 6: know Youkas, I know the block. My brothers actually still
• 4:21
  Speaker 6: live on, so I'm very familiar Westchester.
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  Speaker 4: Appreciate I appreciate that absolutely. All right, So let's get
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: into this. So all right, you have a huge festival
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  Speaker 4: that you started, and then, like I said, the way
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  Speaker 4: for Ghana has just been crazy because the year return.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: We'll talk about that, and I think they have really
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: done the best job at promoting tourism for Black Americans
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: because people want to go back to Africa, but there's
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: never really been a roadmap of what to do, where
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: to go, and so it's just like you just got
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: a whole continent, and of course Egypt has always you
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: know stood out for a historical standpoint, but for like
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: a black experience, there was never any roadmap in Ghana.
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  Speaker 4: Kind of saw opportunity, I think, and really and then
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: you come in and that plays apart. So where's the
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: idea for the festival start?
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  Speaker 6: It starts some time in about twenty fifteen. My partner
• 5:17
  Speaker 6: Kenny Kenneth of JAPONS, he's in Ghana right now. He
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: lives in Ghana, and you know, he was fresh coming
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  Speaker 6: back from you know, moving from the United States. He
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: was in grad school and you know, he was finishing
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: up grad school and he had a couple of Chinese
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  Speaker 6: guys that was graduating with him, and they were all
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: talking about what they were doing after and you know,
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  Speaker 6: the Chinese guys like, well, we're moving to Ghana. And
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  Speaker 6: he was confused and he was like, how y'all moving
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: to Ghana. I'm from Ghana. We're moving back to Ghana.
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: So he ended up going to Ghana and that year
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: we were all in Ghana in December and year this
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  Speaker 6: is twenty fifteen. And you know, Europeans have always been
• 5:53
  Speaker 6: in Ghana, so if they're from London, Germany and France.
• 5:56
  Speaker 6: They've always been as early as six hour flight. It's
• 5:58
  Speaker 6: not that long of a experience, but we were there,
• 6:01
  Speaker 6: and we were like very few Americans were there, so
• 6:04
  Speaker 6: we always knew that there was an opportunity for us
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: to bring people back from America. We were already doing
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: parties here in the United States, just kind of like
• 6:12
  Speaker 6: celebrating African culture, so bringing artists having a perform giving
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  Speaker 6: an experience to people like me who are like first
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: generation that are growing up in the United States to
• 6:20
  Speaker 6: kind of connect to the music. And we was like,
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  Speaker 6: you know, it just didn't make sense that they weren't
• 6:25
  Speaker 6: enough Americans here seeing what the beauty was here. And
• 6:27
  Speaker 6: I also kind of grew up between cultures, right so
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  Speaker 6: at home to Africo American to be African and outside,
• 6:35
  Speaker 6: you know, in school, I was an African kid, like
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: in high school throughout junior high school. So it's really
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: just kind of like how do I make people see
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  Speaker 6: like it's really lit out here, you know, And my
• 6:45
  Speaker 6: team and I we just started recording these videos like
• 6:47
  Speaker 6: you know, the Africa they don't show you and really
• 6:50
  Speaker 6: just kind of like recording our experiences and people were like, yo,
• 6:52
  Speaker 6: that's that's Africa that's really gone at us. And you know,
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: eventually we started bringing you know, ten people, fifteen people,
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  Speaker 6: forty people, and eventually, you know, we wanted to throw
• 7:01
  Speaker 6: a party because you know, we're like, you know, we
• 7:04
  Speaker 6: throw parties in the city. We could do it in
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  Speaker 6: Ghana and it failed to use a promoter as a
• 7:08
  Speaker 6: promoter in the city in the city. Clubs, clubs, yeah,
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  Speaker 6: I did Stage forty eight. You know, a bunch of
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: the big clubs sold it out. We've done a bunch
• 7:16
  Speaker 6: of those Gramsey Theater. I've done a bunch of concerts
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  Speaker 6: here as well. Before you know, we went to Ghana
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  Speaker 6: to do that. You know, we threw the party. It failed,
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  Speaker 6: and I'm like, well, the beauty in the failure was
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: that there were young artists that were performing that I
• 7:30
  Speaker 6: thought were just kind of like excellent, and I just
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  Speaker 6: didn't understand why they were in mainstream because they were
• 7:35
  Speaker 6: that good. They were captivated. So I'm like, well, there's
• 7:38
  Speaker 6: something here. So we had to reassess in our meeting.
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  Speaker 6: I'm like, you know, I think the problem that we're
• 7:42
  Speaker 6: having is everybody's throwing a party. Everybody is just like
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  Speaker 6: really coming here to party, and most people would leave
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  Speaker 6: and they would say, oh they weren't Ganna, they weren't
• 7:51
  Speaker 6: gan It, but they never connected or you know, people
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: on the ground would say, well you diaspirins, ad come
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  Speaker 6: in for two weeks, spend all your money and then
• 7:59
  Speaker 6: leave and nothing impact is coming.
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  Speaker 4: So yeah, wageriens.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 6: So basically that's what that's the Twitter word for us.
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  Speaker 6: That's us. So that's all the black people that live
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  Speaker 6: outside of the yap after they eespor. So there was like,
• 8:10
  Speaker 6: you know, you come in, you spend your little bread,
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  Speaker 6: and you bounce and nothing is really impacting. And I'm like, well,
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  Speaker 6: we can create an experience where now we can like
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  Speaker 6: connect people who are doing amazing things, because if you
• 8:20
  Speaker 6: look around the world people in the day as we
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  Speaker 6: are doing amazing things, you know, from Ghana, from Nigeria,
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  Speaker 6: from all parts of Africa. And I just felt like
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  Speaker 6: it was a love loss for us to just kind
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  Speaker 6: of like come to Ghana party and then leave and
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  Speaker 6: not really bring back some of the greatness that we
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  Speaker 6: were learning abroad.
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  Speaker 7: So so prior to twenty fifteen, I mean you said
• 8:39
  Speaker 7: you had your from your parents are from Ghana. Had
• 8:42
  Speaker 7: you been going back to the continent. Have you visited
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  Speaker 7: or you just like twenty fifteen, this is brand new
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  Speaker 7: to me. Let's figure this thing out.
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  Speaker 6: No, So nineteen ninety five, my dad sent us back
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  Speaker 6: to Ghana. They called as deportees. My aunt was calling
• 8:55
  Speaker 6: us deportees because, like you know, it was like a punishment,
• 8:58
  Speaker 6: like you know, for your to send you back to Africa.
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: Every African kid that grew up in America or anywhere
• 9:03
  Speaker 6: else knew when your parents told you that you was
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: going to get sent back to Africa. It was like
• 9:07
  Speaker 6: a punishment. And so they sent us back on ninety five.
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  Speaker 6: I went to school there. I went to school there
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  Speaker 6: for seven and a half eight years.
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  Speaker 5: Oh a year.
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  Speaker 6: I thought, it's like doing a summer trip. No, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 6: I lived. I lived in Ghana. I live in Medina,
• 9:20
  Speaker 6: you know. I lived in North Carnation. So a lot
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  Speaker 6: of the relationships I have now in Ghana are built
• 9:25
  Speaker 6: based on the fact that I lived there and some
• 9:27
  Speaker 6: of the students, some of the people that my partners
• 9:29
  Speaker 6: were my friends in school, that we grew up together.
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  Speaker 6: Some of the people that I look up to, us
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: big brothers in the industry in the space of Ghana
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: are people that I've always looked up to unknown since
• 9:39
  Speaker 6: i was a kid, so I've had deep connections there.
• 9:42
  Speaker 6: I've seen what it's like to live there in luxury
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: but also not so much luxury. And I've also lived here,
• 9:49
  Speaker 6: so I've had best of both experiences. And I felt
• 9:52
  Speaker 6: like I could communicate. I can go to Ghana and
• 9:54
  Speaker 6: chilling Medina's on Goal, which is where my grandmother is from,
• 9:57
  Speaker 6: and I could be completely completely fine, or go to Nima,
• 10:00
  Speaker 6: you know, and be completely fine. Oh, go to the
• 10:02
  Speaker 6: Jubilee House where the presidents and I'm being completely uncomfortable,
• 10:06
  Speaker 6: or front back anywhere in the cry right. And I
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: love the fact that I could do that. In the Bronx.
• 10:10
  Speaker 6: I could go to La, I mean, I could be
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: good in La. I could go to you know, anywhere.
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: And you know, I used to be afraid to go
• 10:15
  Speaker 6: to Brooklyn, but now I'm in Brooklyn all the time.
• 10:17
  Speaker 6: So it's like, you know, being able to kind of
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: understand the cultures separately but together. It was something that
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: has been an asset to us in building so what
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: we built.
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: I want to ask about the festival before then let's
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: go through this. You're born in America, where Yeah, were
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: you born eighty eight, You're born in eighty eight. In
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: ninety five, you go to Africa, Ghana for seven years, yep.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: So that's like what like third grade something like that.
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, second second grade, scond grade up until like I
• 10:48
  Speaker 6: came back when I was in eighth grade.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: So you go from second grade to eighth grade, which
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: effectively is like where you're actually growing up. So you're
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: growing up in Ghana, come back in for high school
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: in New York, YEP.
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: Went to Walton High School, high school for teaching professions
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: in Walton Hide the high school inside of the so
• 11:09
  Speaker 6: you know, we wore uniforms crazy. But you know, even
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: like transitioning between coming back from Ghana to go to school,
• 11:16
  Speaker 6: it was a culture shock because I hear students talking
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: back to.
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: Teachers That's what I was doing. So it's like, all right,
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: you like French Mantana. He he moved to the Bronx
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: from Morocco, Africa, but he just was in there for
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: twelve years and they moved. So it's it's not as
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: you were in America in the Bronx, went to Ghana
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: and came back to the Bronx. How was that for
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: you as far as a culture, Shock is concerned and
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: we have another friend from Nigeria and he was saying,
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: like in Nigeria, that's real popular. Like parents make sure
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: that their kids go back to their country for a
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: couple of years just they don't want them to lose
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: the culture. And they don't even live with them, like
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: they'll send them with an art or.
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: I lived with my grandmother and my uncle. So I
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: lived with my uncle the first couple of years and
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: then with my grandmother, which was an experience. My uncle
• 12:08
  Speaker 6: hustled in Japan as in he left Ghana to go
• 12:10
  Speaker 6: to Japan to learn how to make money. So he
• 12:14
  Speaker 6: moved back to Ghana to start his own businesses. And
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: but it was very different in that because I'm not
• 12:20
  Speaker 6: with my parents, I don't really know him as an
• 12:22
  Speaker 6: uncle like that. I just met him when I moved
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: into his house. You know, we're living in a house
• 12:28
  Speaker 6: that is in Medina's own goal. It's very different than
• 12:32
  Speaker 6: the people we go to school with, who are all
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: living in like luxury. So my dad kind of in
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: his mind he did that purposefully because he wanted us
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: to be able to have that balance at the time.
• 12:41
  Speaker 6: I'm not gonna lie didn't like it. I just it
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: was just kind of like I didn't understand why they
• 12:44
  Speaker 6: would leave us here. You know, every once in a while,
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: like they'll make us feel happy by like shipping us
• 12:49
  Speaker 6: a bunch of boxes of cereal or like powdered milk.
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: You know, you know, you know, it just kind of
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: made you take an appreciation for like being able to
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: go to a corner store and get like a gallon
• 12:59
  Speaker 6: of milk or get a bag of chips, or a quarter soda,
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: the quarter of water or something like that. Back then,
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: so whenever we would get to come back for the
• 13:06
  Speaker 6: summertime with the best times right because then you get
• 13:09
  Speaker 6: to go back to Ghana and go to school and
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: show them all the new kicks, showed them all the
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: new gear, tell them like all the new music that's
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: going on out. Yeah, you're the man when you when
• 13:17
  Speaker 6: you have that, I guess proximity to abroad in Ghana
• 13:21
  Speaker 6: during those times, you were the man. Like you know
• 13:24
  Speaker 6: what I mean, it was it was very very unpopular.
• 13:26
  Speaker 6: I think the Internet has kind of changed that because
• 13:28
  Speaker 6: now they could see everything as we see it. But
• 13:30
  Speaker 6: back then, you know, you were the man because you
• 13:32
  Speaker 6: kind of brought them culture that they didn't really have
• 13:35
  Speaker 6: access to. So yeah, it was interesting. So and I
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: think we came right around nine to eleven, we moved
• 13:40
  Speaker 6: back to the US, and my pops was like, you know,
• 13:43
  Speaker 6: do you guys want to stay? Like yeah, like you know,
• 13:47
  Speaker 6: and you know, we stayed, and it was it was
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: a culture shop because going to school, like I knew
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: about the clothes, like, you know, my brother would let
• 13:54
  Speaker 6: me hold his Jordan's I'll never forget.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 13:57
  Speaker 6: That's the reason why to to this day, I'm still
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: trying to find the cool grade elevens because my dad,
• 14:01
  Speaker 6: my brother would let me rock the I know, but
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: it's cool. The threes are my favorite, so you know
• 14:08
  Speaker 6: our rockers, you know. And you know, the thing that
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: connected all of us was hip hop. Like you know,
• 14:13
  Speaker 6: at the time, I think Jada Kiss and Beanie Seagulls
• 14:16
  Speaker 6: was was going and my brother was like always putting
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: us on to like the music, letting us know what's
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: going on. So you know, that was the one thing
• 14:24
  Speaker 6: I could connect with them on because you know, we
• 14:27
  Speaker 6: were talk to be demeor like to teachers, like you
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: couldn't talk back to a teacher, You couldn't look at
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: him in an eye because you were afraid that you
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: would get beat and I was in Ghana, they would beat.
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: It was so back. Yeah, people were just cursing that teachers.
• 14:39
  Speaker 7: I was on I've seen I was on the end
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: of that look at like you're talking to the teacher
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: like like you know what I mean.
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: So it was it was an interesting you know culture,
• 14:49
  Speaker 6: culture shock at the time because I wasn't used to
• 14:51
  Speaker 6: that for a very long time. I couldn't understand how
• 14:54
  Speaker 6: people were talking to teachers like that at the time.
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: How quickly did you adapt to that?
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: Uh? You know, I never talked I think one time
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: in high school. But that's that was out of anger, man,
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: somebody trying to play me, you know, you know throwing paper,
• 15:08
  Speaker 6: those are those are the things that's like the only
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: five ever had in high school and you know that.
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: But outside of that, like you know, it was it
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: was dangerous then because it was a lot of gangs.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: And did you did you have issues like embracing your
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: African because like you said, now, it's a vibe as
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: far as afrobeats has really you know, it's made it cool.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: But back then, you know, kids is ignorant and cruel
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: and just people just ignorant in general. So I see,
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: I've personally seen like African kids getting teased like you
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, and it's it's looking back on it,
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: that's something that's very miss It's unfortunate, but I've seen
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: it happen and in any group of people, right, that's
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: just happens. Like so, I guess sometimes you either like
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: drill down on just like becoming you just have a
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: pack of people, or sometimes you just try to assimilate
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: and you try to get away from who you are.
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: Nah, I couldn't do that. My parents had a restaurant.
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: It was really well known that this is a restaurant.
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: When I came back from Ghana, I had an accent,
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: it was thick, like you know what I mean. But
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: you know it was just jokes, right, So if somebody
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: joked on me, I joked on them like I'm African
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: but I'm flying. You like those kinds of things work
• 16:15
  Speaker 6: back then like you know what I'm saying, but you
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. It would just be like quick
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: jokes and then eventually you know kids are shallow and
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: that they didn't really joke on you. If it was
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: fly like or if you had like a little bit
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: of money or something like that. It was like the
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: one thing that that let them know. And then also
• 16:31
  Speaker 6: like I had to have a very big family in
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: the Bronx, like you know what I mean. I have
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: seven brothers, eight brothers, mad cousins like you know what
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: I mean. So it wasn't something that people I wasn't
• 16:41
  Speaker 6: an outcast. I wasn't something that like I don't remember
• 16:45
  Speaker 6: ever getting picked on, like you know, because you know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: my big brother will come on maybe once in the
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: eighth grade. You know, I got picked came up to
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: don't forget Yeah, so you don't forget that, like you
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. But like I always had people
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: in my community that was like always gonna hold it down.
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: And I knew the blocks like right on Burnside Avenue,
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: that's our neighborhood, Like people knew like my whole family.
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: Nobody really messed with my Dominicans up there. All of
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: them know like who my pops is and who my block,
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: like my brothers are, my family is. They don't really
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: Cedric Avenue, you know right there at Bertha of hip Hop,
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: you know, right by Walton, you know, we grew up there,
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: so my cousins were there, and they were in the
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: neighborhood for a long time. Nobody really messed with us, like,
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: you know, so it was really just about being able
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: to get from high school to home, right, So being
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: able to five passed that four.
• 17:31
  Speaker 7: People really don't understand that, being like, and it's something
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: I had to learn, right.
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: So we went to school out here.
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: But like when I started teaching it and I started coaching,
• 17:38
  Speaker 7: I'm so used to being transported to and from like.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: Like a game, by a school bus.
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: Until I realized I gotta take the five train, yep,
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: and I gotta take two train, and I gotta take
• 17:48
  Speaker 7: the bus. And it's like you're susceptible to everything. But
• 17:50
  Speaker 7: then you forget, like the kid who's getting on the
• 17:52
  Speaker 7: bus at ten years old, or the training, he's susceptible
• 17:55
  Speaker 7: to everything too. So like that being in New York City,
• 17:57
  Speaker 7: like those things you don't even think. You're just kind
• 17:59
  Speaker 7: of like all right, part of life.
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: I didn't realize it was trauma until I got to Syracuse,
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: because yeah, Syracuse, like you would go through the metal
• 18:07
  Speaker 6: textors to go to school, yep. You know, there was
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: a time, I didn't even go to the second floor
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: because DDP was there.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: Like you know what I'm saying.
• 18:13
  Speaker 6: It was it was just like if you were black,
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: you was you know, anything could happen. Or the non
• 18:18
  Speaker 6: bus or the twenty two bus. You know, people coming
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: from Kennedy, right from Kennedy. Then you meeting with people
• 18:25
  Speaker 6: going from Walton on the four train, come with people
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: from Evander. It was just like so many different ways
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: that it was dangerous that you know, it was an
• 18:34
  Speaker 6: interesting time, but you know, thankfully, like you know, for me,
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: I was always a pretty good student. But also like
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: because I had my family, you know, I didn't really
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: have that many problems. I knew people in Roosevelt, I
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: knew people in all of these schools that like will
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: always hold it down for me and a family, So
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: we never had much worries, you know what I mean.
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: You know, my dad told us how to defend ourselves
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: as well in the block as well, So we was
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: always good. But it was definitely a culture shop because
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: it was something I didn't have to worry about in Ghana.
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: Like you know, in Ghana, all I had to worry
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: about was going to school. The driver come pick us up,
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: take us home, the food we made for us. You know,
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: maybe they aren our clothes for us, to wash our
• 19:11
  Speaker 6: clothes for us on the weekend. I didn't have to
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: wear about any of that when I came to back
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: to America. It was just kind of like reality about,
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: you know, knowing how to protect yourself in that time.
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: I think New York is completely different than it was
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: when I was going up in high school from you know,
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: from my perspective now, maybe I'm just kind of in
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: what way, I just don't think it's as deep, you know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: I remember it was. I just remember like it's more dangerous, no,
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: but I just I remember like it was a thing
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: to not wear red.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, the gang thing. The gang thing. That was
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: early stages of the game. So that was like heavy.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: They were still like triping off of colors. Not like
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: that now, but it's still still.
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: I remember like being afraid to get a book fifty
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: like you know, that was that was that was a
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: real feel right, So and I feel like I don't
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: necessarily know that that is a thing that I'm like
• 20:02
  Speaker 6: afraid to do. Like I don't know a block in
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: New York City that I'm afraid to walk on back
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: then it was like, yo, I don't know about going there.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: But she was also a kid though too.
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: That's what I'm saying. Your environment, that's all you know.
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: It's like said eight block radius. We don't leave here,
• 20:16
  Speaker 7: and if we do, we better be on God if
• 20:18
  Speaker 7: we leave here.
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: Absolutely, So, I mean it was interesting. I think that
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: all of that just kind of made me who I am,
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: and and all of that has seeped through in the
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: way I've developed the business and how I'm thoughtful about
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: how we invite people, how we extend our relationships to
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: like two different people that we collaborate with and have
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: them come back to Donna, because it's really just to
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: kind of show them that there's a completely new world
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: where you can just kind of like walk freely. For me,
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: one of my joys is like walking and Gona and
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: seeing my friends that are now from gond to just
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: walk in the streets, just be and I love that
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: for them.
• 20:51
  Speaker 7: You said that, I mean, obviously you've created a successful business,
• 20:54
  Speaker 7: but it's not the business that your dad had, right,
• 20:57
  Speaker 7: so the restaurant business. Was there any like pressure that
• 21:01
  Speaker 7: this was going to be passed down to you? And
• 21:02
  Speaker 7: you didn't go in that direction, like what were some
• 21:04
  Speaker 7: of the lessons that you learned watching your dad in
• 21:06
  Speaker 7: the business, and you know that succession plan.
• 21:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I always wanted to go to medical school. So
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: when I graduated from QS, it was like, all right,
• 21:13
  Speaker 6: I want to get a master's and probably get some
• 21:15
  Speaker 6: research support and then you know, I'm going to go
• 21:18
  Speaker 6: to medical school. And then my pops was like, well
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: I'm not paying. And I'm like, you're not paying, like
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: I've always gone to school, Like what do you mean?
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: He was like, yeah, but you could, you know, come
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: and work in a restaurant, take it over. You know,
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: I make more than doctors. Like that was his thing, right,
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: that I make more than doctor? How much you make
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: as a doctor? I tell him, like, well I make
• 21:34
  Speaker 6: more than that, Like you know, it was his thing
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: about saying like he makes more than like we should
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: just own our own business. It didn't make sense, and
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: you know that's what we clashed because I just didn't
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: understand at that time. All I wanted to do was
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: be a doctor. So he kicked me out. He kicked
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: me out of his crib. Yeah, I think I was
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: twenty two, Like you know how I think twenty two
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: He's like, you're a grown man now, you know you
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: got three months. I'm like three months. I'm like, I
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: had cool, no problem. It took me like four five.
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: But that's when I end up moving to Queens. I
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: think you used to be a millio's financial.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: Ad me a million oh from the fraternity. That's my brother,
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: believe Sparks.
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: He was actually he was actually my roommate when I
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: moved out actually back then. So yeah, there's pressure always
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: to kind of take over the business. I mean I
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: cook as well him and I. That's way we bond
• 22:28
  Speaker 6: because you know, in my family, like the men always
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: cooked Thanksgiving as far back as I know, we make
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: Sunday breakfast, you know, for my family. So it was
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: like he wanted me to do that, and you know,
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: I just needed to kind of like find my way
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: to it or find my way around doing what I
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: wanted to do at the time. And I think just
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: kind of even moving out was like the best decision
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: for our relationship.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: So let's fast forward this situation back to the festival.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: So the first thing you do is not successful, correct,
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: You throw a party in Ghana and it doesn't work out. Yeah,
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: what makes you want to restructure and go forward, and
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: when do you actually become successful with the festival.
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: There was no purpose behind the party at the time
• 23:09
  Speaker 6: when we threw it. It was just really just to
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: kind of like throw a turn up just because. And
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: I think that I realized that very quickly, right, you know.
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: And you know, one thing, I because I did clinical
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: research for a long time, So failure doesn't mean, you know,
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: it doesn't mean that you can't like grow and learn
• 23:27
  Speaker 6: lessons from it. You know, even in research, when the
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: research fails, they write a paper about it. And I
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: think that for me it was just kind of like understanding, like, look,
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: we didn't have a full understanding of what we were
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: trying to do. There was no purpose behind it. And
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: in that I also saw a purpose because I saw
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: that there were young artists that were doing amazing work
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: that also performed. Even though they weren't that many people there,
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: they were willing to perform and they killed it with
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: so much energy. I thought that they did needed to
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: be something for them around the same time. You know,
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: it's coincidental, I think the way things work for me.
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: When I came back, my dad was looking to open
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: up his restaurant in Harlem, So we have a second
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: location in Harlem, and he's like, you know, I've always
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: had the taxi drivers because he opened in the early eighties,
• 24:12
  Speaker 6: you know, so taxi drivers at the time, a lot
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: of them didn't have their wives in America. So they
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: will come and they'll buy a bulk and they will
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: have some for their fridge. It's like, I've always had
• 24:19
  Speaker 6: that community. But we want to get some of the
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: young crowd that are now looking to eat African food,
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: looking to tragic off and things of that nature. So
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: what can you do? You throw parties, like can you
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: bring some of the energy here? So I wanted to
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: do a food festival. That's how the proposals started to
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: come into my head for what will become Afria Chilling
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: later on that for future and you know, I kind
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: of married all of those. It took me about two
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: and a half years, three years to kind of just
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: kind of perfect it into what will become the festival.
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: And by the time I started doing the research, I
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: just couldn't afford it in America. I was like, yo, this,
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: I'm not going into that already OQS money, I'm not
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: doing that. So you know, I talk to my partner
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: about it. It was like, you know, let's try and Ghana.
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: Everybody's coming and this could be opportunity for us to
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: bring people back, you know. And then you know, I
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: told them like that, I have always had a venue
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: in my mind in Ghana that I wanted to use,
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: and it's called the Akra Polo Club. It's a very
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: distinguished venue, like real wretch akrah our old money. They
• 25:19
  Speaker 6: tend to congregate there, but it's a very beautiful when
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: you land in Ghana. It's one of the first things
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: you see as you're coming in and it's so beautiful.
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: So I was like, I want it there, and literally
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: he was like, you want it there?
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: Cool.
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: He called me back in two hours it's booked and
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: I was like April twenty seventeen and then we had
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: like about seven to eight months to plan. Will become
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: the first one.
• 25:40
  Speaker 7: The inspiration from others drives us forward. Their resilience pushes
• 25:44
  Speaker 7: us to excel, and their path navigates the way towards freedom.
• 25:48
  Speaker 7: Ford is proud to celebrate Black History not just this month,
• 25:52
  Speaker 7: but year round. They're committed to being the fuel for change,
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  Speaker 7: supporting Ford Fund program centered around economic, educational, and empowerment
• 26:00
  Speaker 7: opportunities for our communities to continue creating the future. Learn
• 26:05
  Speaker 7: more at fordfund dot org. Built Ford Proud and.
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: It was pretty successful. At the time, we didn't we're
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: not throwing a festival, so we were just trying to
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: throw a party, you know, we could get our minds
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: around a day party festival. We knew that we wanted
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: the elements of activation. I don't know if you guys
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: remember twenty seventeen there was that issue in Libya where
• 26:26
  Speaker 6: they had enslaved people. So after he died, they had
• 26:32
  Speaker 6: like slavery with black people in Libya. So we had
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: this non artist's name is Okunta and Ghana. We did
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: an installation, so that was our first ever installation from
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: that festival. And then we have vendors. We knew that
• 26:47
  Speaker 6: if we could stimulate the local businesses or individuals who
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: wanted to start business and Ghana to vend and create opportunities,
• 26:53
  Speaker 6: that that would also help us bring out the people.
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: We had thirty vendors that year. Jamison was the only
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: partner that was to take a someone. We were brand new.
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: Nobody really believed in what we were trying to do,
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: so we really had to put our own money up.
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: So we put our own money up and we were
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: shooting for twenty five hundred people, but we ended up
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: doing forty six hundred people.
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: How cast intensive is this right?
• 27:13
  Speaker 7: And you said it was April you came up with it,
• 27:16
  Speaker 7: obviously you got seven months. What's happening in between seven months?
• 27:19
  Speaker 7: You're like, is it you and your partner finding the
• 27:21
  Speaker 7: sponsors going back and forth to Ghana or a cry
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: specifically like what's happening?
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So at the time, I wasn't going back and
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: forth to GNA. So the one thing I did know
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: from research was like my project management skills, So how
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: to like say, all right, this is the date that
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: we started, this is the date that we're ending. Now
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: let's figure out everything in the middle to kind of
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: project managing it. At that time, I was the one
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: going out looking for sponsorship, but I didn't understand the
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: language of sponsors. So all I knew was that I
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: have this event, can you put your logo, I'll put
• 27:48
  Speaker 6: your logo here, put your logo here. But I didn't
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: realize that, you know, it was about mutual beneficial relationships.
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: How to kind of bring out the value and their
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: priorities versus the values and our priorities. So I didn't
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: understand that. Yeah, so we was like feeling. We didn't
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: understand why we were feeling because we were selling tickets.
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: But the one thing that we had that was on
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: our side was that we were really good at We
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: had some marketing ideas that we knew was Shock the
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: Shock Ghana. Like, we put up a billboard for the event,
• 28:15
  Speaker 6: and people were like, who are these guys? Like, why'all
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: think y'all could put up a billboard, like you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: and then the name was afro Cella, so they, you know,
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: they roasted us all over the gram, all over Twitter,
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: so that what they say, you know, like who you
• 28:28
  Speaker 6: guys thinking afro Cella is cochella? You know, they said
• 28:31
  Speaker 6: a whole bunch of stuff like that at the time,
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: and you know, were just like, you know, we know
• 28:37
  Speaker 6: what we're doing when we put the name together Afroachella.
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: Really we were trying to like communicate echoes of African
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: sound because you know, the chella just is a real
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: for us. It's a Latin word for sounds, so we
• 28:49
  Speaker 6: were trying to say African sounds. But it didn't really
• 28:52
  Speaker 6: connect with people like that. They thought something else. So
• 28:55
  Speaker 6: they were roasting us on Twitter like twit black Twitter,
• 28:59
  Speaker 6: Donna's America Gone on Twitter was was was unrelentingt to us,
• 29:06
  Speaker 6: you know, but honestly it made us better because it
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: kept us on our toes right. And when we put
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: up the billboard all of that, the momentum came. People
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: would tell us they're not going, They're not going, And
• 29:17
  Speaker 6: then we sold I think three thousand tickets and I'm like, yo,
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: I don't think we got the space. We need to
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: stop selling tickets.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Where you selling tickets in Ghana or people from America.
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: We were selling tickets all over, so we were surprised
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: that year we still had about thirty percent of people
• 29:29
  Speaker 6: coming in from America, America, afric from Africa.
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: From Africa is the talent involved though.
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: It was just like at the time, we had some
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: talent that are now some of the biggest out of Donna.
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: So we had King Promise, we had Quasi Arthur, Christy
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: Arthur want to be to Award. King Promise has done
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: a bunch of songs with kids. He's doing his thing.
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: And we had this one young lady who was very
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: promising at the time. Her name was Ebony. We were
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: her last show. She actually passed a year after, but
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: she was dance so reggae artists and she was like
• 30:01
  Speaker 6: really at the top of her game. She was our
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: biggest asset. But we all we used all rising stars, right,
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: so we knew that these people were going to be
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: the next up, but we could afford them because we
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: didn't really have the budget at the time to kind
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: of get some of the big acts. And I think
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: in hindsight that might have been our biggest, our biggest win,
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: because it kind of took away the focus from just
• 30:22
  Speaker 6: the talent that on the stage to kind of the
• 30:24
  Speaker 6: experience and people loved it. And you know, people have
• 30:27
  Speaker 6: traveled for just that one day in twenty seventeen. We
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: have a video on our phone. I said, now, I
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: traveled here for one day, all the way from Denmark
• 30:35
  Speaker 6: for one day just to come to this, and I
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: thought that was very, very beautiful to see that people
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: believed in what we were doing. So we ended up
• 30:43
  Speaker 6: stopped ticket sales because we were afraid that we were
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: going to oversell and we weren't going to be able
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: to deliver. But my partners and I went back and forth,
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: but we ended up capping at forty six hundred people
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: on the first year, and we had so many ideas
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: that we didn't get to execute how much with the
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: ticket prices.
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: I think the.
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: Ticket prices then was like forty dollars, forty dollars. I
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: think forty dollars was VDP and I think twenty five
• 31:05
  Speaker 6: dollars or something like that. I don't, I don't, I
• 31:06
  Speaker 6: don't really remember. That's a long time ago. Actually, I
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: shouldn't know that. I'm gonna go for I got I
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: gotta go research that. But I think it was like
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: forty dollars maximum. We weren't trying to charge too much,
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: you know, we had Jamison supporting us, and it was successful.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: It was good.
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: We were able to close it no issues, and we
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: knew we had something and we knew we had ideas
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: that we wanted to execute. So the next year we expanded.
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: We went to a stadium, and then we got roasted
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: again because we had used a venue called Elwak Stadium
• 31:35
  Speaker 6: that was a rundown park that people went to go train,
• 31:38
  Speaker 6: play soccer on, or run around, but nobody really did
• 31:41
  Speaker 6: events there. It was a stadium, but we had a
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: vision that we could recreate this to make this look
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: something completely different. We got roasted again, But it was
• 31:51
  Speaker 6: a great year in twenty eighteen because we went from
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: forty six hundred to twelve thousand, five hundred people and
• 31:57
  Speaker 6: we had bigger artists that year. We had stone Boy,
• 32:00
  Speaker 6: who is right now going around a circuit just signed
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: a deaf jam, doing amazing work. He was a headliner
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: that year. We also always have like an old school
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: legacy act people that our parents probably saw but none
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: of us saw it, and performing, so we wanted to
• 32:16
  Speaker 6: kind of bring all of that element. That was also
• 32:18
  Speaker 6: the first year that a lot of black Hollywood started
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: to come to the events, So we had Jackieyaina, we
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: had Boris Kujo and his wife and some of the others.
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: Ebro I think was there in twenty eighteen as well
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: for our first big one, So we went from forty
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: five hundred forty six hundred to twelve thousand, five hundred.
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: I don't think we were even prepare for that scale
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: as far as the team, as far as just that structure,
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: or even understanding how to manage the festival.
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: How was the marketing right? Because you went that that
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: takes a lot.
• 32:49
  Speaker 7: You go from Fourenty to twelve, almost thirteen thousand and
• 32:52
  Speaker 7: now you're getting I guess you're getting black Americans. I
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: guess the Lebretans to come. What's the marketing or is
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: It was just like people. It was word of mouth.
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it was word of mouth, and it was like
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: you could feel the energy in the city. You knew
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: you had to go there. We didn't have any paid
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: dollars behind any marketing at that time. We didn't have
• 33:10
  Speaker 6: any really marketing experience. We didn't have a marketing person.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: Really.
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: What our model was like a payer forward method. You know,
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: if you went more often than not, you brought like
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: two more people with you, and that kind of helped
• 33:22
  Speaker 6: us grow very organically. And everyone that couldn't go the
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: first year had that so much fun that they wanted
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: to come the second year. And then twenty eighteen obviously
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: it went viral. It hit trade room and everybody saw
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: all the celebs dancing with you know, with Pope folks.
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: And that year some more Americans came in and their
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: post went viral because people couldn't understand how like these
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: people were just having such a great time. It was
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: that year that Ghana announced the year of return in
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: twenty eighteen, and that would be twenty nineteen.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: The year of return. People that don't know what that is.
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so the year return marked four hundred years since
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: the first ever slave ships moved from Jamestown across to Jamestown,
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: Virginia and Ghana.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: It's called Jamestown Jamestown, a crow Jamestown and craw. Is
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: that is that for a reason? No, it's going from
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: Jamestown Jamestown. Is that just a coincidence or is that.
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: It's not a coincidence. I think it was named by
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: the fort. The fort that was.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: Being like they purposely like, this is Jamestown here and
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: it's going to Jamestown here. Correct, the same.
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: Correct, the same fort travel batter the same to be
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: called the same thing exactly. Maybe that might be the case,
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: but I gotta get back to it now. I don't know,
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: but I would say that that was four hundred years
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: since that first ever migration, the first lag has ever
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: left Ghana, like the sixteen sixteen nineteen project, right, So
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: Ghana proclaimed that four hundred years as the year of return.
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: When you go to Ghana and you visit the slave castles,
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: you'll see this door of no return, and it was
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: the last door that slaves went through to be able
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: to kind of see their lives in Ghana. That was
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: the last time when you went through that gate, you
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: were just going into slaver why you were never coming back.
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: So the idea was for us to kind of open
• 35:02
  Speaker 6: the door for people to return. And what they did was,
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: I guess one of the first ever slaves that moved
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: from Ghana, individuals that became slaves that were enslaved that
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: moved from Ghana was returned through the door and was
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: buried in the castle and they marked it as he
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: ever turned. So Ghana started using as opportunity to invite
• 35:24
  Speaker 6: descendants of enslaved people to come back to Ghana and
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: be able to kind of seek residency, to be able
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: to engage with the people, and to open up really
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: dialogue between the diaspora and Ghana specifically, and honestly that
• 35:37
  Speaker 6: has opened the door for many other countries to also
• 35:39
  Speaker 6: visit to invite people back as well. It was an
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: amazing experience because you will walk down the block and
• 35:46
  Speaker 6: you will see somebody that you had no idea whatever
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: be in Ghana. An example of that is my partner
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: Kenny was outside the festival and he ran into the
• 35:54
  Speaker 6: third grade teacher and she asked him what was he doing.
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: He's like, well, this is my event. That me that
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: was beautiful people that I never imagined in my life
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: that I went to high school with, that came to Ghana,
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: that would be in Ghana shocked me because I just
• 36:11
  Speaker 6: never ever thought that they would be in Ghana, or
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: enjoy Ghana or even consider it. So it was an
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: amazing year because that year alone, Ghana gave over a
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: million of visas out and granted a million plus visas.
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: And to put that in context, Ghana normally too about
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: one hundred and fifty thousand a year, so to do
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: a million visas and that year was a very big
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: deal and sixteen percent of that was because of our
• 36:37
  Speaker 6: festival as well.
• 36:38
  Speaker 7: So there's a part there that kind of gets overlooked.
• 36:41
  Speaker 7: It's like, you guys know you have something special. Yeah,
• 36:44
  Speaker 7: but the government must know you have something special as well.
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: At what point do they say, we need to figure
• 36:49
  Speaker 7: out who these guys are, we need to work with them,
• 36:51
  Speaker 7: let's work together, because I know at some point you
• 36:53
  Speaker 7: become like the ambassador of tourism.
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So it became in twenty nineteen was the first
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: year we had a partnership official partnership with Gano Tourism
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: Authority that granted us opportunities to open up these own arrivals,
• 37:07
  Speaker 6: gave us opportunities to kind of push through policies things
• 37:13
  Speaker 6: that nature to kind of reduce the kind of issues
• 37:15
  Speaker 6: that people were facing and get into Ghana, whether it
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: was you know, immigration issues, whether it was like you know,
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: you had to have vaccine cards, those kind of things
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: we were able to kind of like clear so people
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: could not have too many issues or barriers to coming
• 37:30
  Speaker 6: into the country as well. Those kind of things were
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: some of the things we were able to do in
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: the first year. They're also able to help us logistically
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: around the country to kind of reduce the amount of
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: issues that we were facing with maybe hotel bookings or
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: like police escorts or military escorts where necessary, even the venue.
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: There's a military venue that we use as well, so
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: just kind of navigating that and making sure we have
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: all the permits with some of the things that they
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: were able to help us. In twenty twenty one, we
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: actually became good with baskets to Ghana and then we
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: were challenged to bring what twenty thousand people to Donna
• 38:06
  Speaker 6: for our festival, and we were able to do that
• 38:08
  Speaker 6: and accomplish that. So as of right now, I'm still
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: a good willing basket.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: So all right, so you go. And this is similar
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: to cause we do a festival calling Best Fest.
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: So the first year we did it, we have like
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: four thousand people. In the second year we have fourteen
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: thousand people, and now we're looking at twenty thousand for
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: this year, the third year. So we know about scaling
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: the festival and we know about how challenging it is.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: So let's take this apart booking talent. That's not easy. No,
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: talk about that. Talk about booking and talent and the
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: rioters and paying on artists and variety of different things
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: are coming into that.
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: So some of the things that we have in place
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: in Ghana that is a big asset to us is
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: the infrastructure around us. So my partner Kenny manages an
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: entire media studio with TV radio, all of that in
• 39:02
  Speaker 6: Ghana and we have that. Another partner of ours, BB
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: and Z Live, is a creative studio. They also have
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: TV station, radio station, newspaper print as well. So as
• 39:14
  Speaker 6: far as the structure in a record label. So at
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: the time BB and Z was managing Yea as well,
• 39:22
  Speaker 6: and they also did tours for Lauren Hill. So actually
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: in twenty eighteen, Laura Hill did our first opening party
• 39:27
  Speaker 6: for the festival in twenty eighteen, so that that was
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: Miss Lauren Hill. She she she really showed love, but
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: she was on time. She was on time. She's like
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: a big friend of her family. Like in Ghana. Our
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: partner Alvin does a lot of work with her around
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: bringing an African artists to America and work with her.
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: So she did a tour Deasper calling first time. A
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: lot of the artists like mister Easy Stone Boy and
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: some of these were on the stage. So she always
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: showed love to us. So these things that we have
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: in place allowed us to be able to do a
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: lot of things a lot easier. So we've had the
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: same booker since twenty seventeen. Her name is Kadija. She
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: works for a record label now, but she has relationships
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: with almost all the artists at least in West Africa,
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: and that allows us to be able to kind of
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: talk to talent and say, hey, look this is what
• 40:13
  Speaker 6: we need. The structure of agencies are now coming to
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: Africa where some artists are signing with agencies like CAAW.
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: I mean things that nature, but on the content. When
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: you're on the content that it's like, I don't need
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: to go and talk to WSA Europe. I could talk
• 40:26
  Speaker 6: to the manager that lives up the block. So she
• 40:29
  Speaker 6: has done an amazing job at making sure that we've
• 40:31
  Speaker 6: been able to get any artists we want as long
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: as our budget suffice this money.
• 40:36
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• 41:28
  Speaker 6: And pretty much that's how we've been doing that now.
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: You see in Africa, getting the talent to agree to perform.
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: Is one job.
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: The negative job to perform get them to before late.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Like we'll discuss a hell she's a legend, but obviously
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: she's had issues with being late to shows, but people
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: don't like that's a nightmare for a promoter or somebody
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: doing Like you think somebody's coming on an eighth, you
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: don't come on to eleven, and then people's getting restless
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: and they like, I want my money back. So you've
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: had issues with artists being late though, right.
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: I've had issues not necessarily late, but more so Yeah,
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: I guess you could call it late, but more so
• 42:08
  Speaker 6: like difficult to deal with, as in maybe we can't
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: get their biometric pages to book their flights in time,
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: or maybe last minute they want to you know, they
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: feel like they are a bigger artist now they want
• 42:18
  Speaker 6: more money, or maybe the rider is just like, you know,
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: just ridiculous, or maybe they signed a contract and they
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: want to chrain. We've had situations where an artist signed
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: a contract we paid, they asked for one hundred percent
• 42:33
  Speaker 6: of the money up front, which is something we never do.
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: But for this particular artist, we knew he was going
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: to be the next one. We're like, you know what,
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: we'll pay you one hundred percent out of other fee.
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: And then, you know, at the time it was just
• 42:43
  Speaker 6: five flights. We're like, all right, cool, we could do
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: five flights, it's not that bad. And then, you know,
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: closer to the show, he's like, yeah, you know, I
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: know I said five flights, but you know, if you
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: guys can give me the money. No, actually, can you
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: guys get us a private jet? And we're like, no,
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: we're probably not going to get your private jet. We
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: agreed to five flights. It's like, well, can you guys
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: give us the money then we'll cover the rest on
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: a private jet. It was like, well, it's too late
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: because we buy a flight some bulk, so there's no
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: way we could get you this get your private jet.
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: So in those situations it get dicey because you never
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: know whether the artist is going to show or not
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: are they going to get on the flight? You know,
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: I think that those are some of the difficulties that
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: we have faced as far as talents are concerned. You know,
• 43:25
  Speaker 6: in Africa, also in Ghana just went through a very
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: big inflation process, like where one dollar went up to
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: about fifteen ghand of cities for a reference, when we
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: started the festival in twenty seventeen, one dollar was three
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: Ghana cities and even in twenty nineteen one dollar was
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: about maybe four ghan of cities at maximum. So in
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: twenty twenty two, for one dollar to be at twelve thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: you can imagine like the cost of everything just kind
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: of went crazy across the board. So it was it
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: was very difficult for us to kind of like navigate
• 44:02
  Speaker 6: flights and all of that stuff as well. So when
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: artists are charging what they're charging now, right, last year
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: we had burna Boy, so you can already know what
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: he called y last year. Yeah, burna Boy last year?
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: How was he charged a lot of money? I don't know,
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: it's close. It's close, I mean, you know, it's close,
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: like it's very close to that. The year before we
• 44:22
  Speaker 6: have whiz Kid so you you know, like these rates
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: are not like cheap, They're not cheap. And it's like
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: fifteen twenty thirty artists on on on the billow some
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: of them, some of them show love. So we have
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: very good relationships with a lot of artists, but you
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: know a lot of artists because now you have like
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: a live nation that's going to give you thirty shows.
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, it's you're not incentivized to
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: kind of say you know what, like you know what
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: I mean, you.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: Know what festivals, festivals messed up.
• 44:51
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• 46:43
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Donald J.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: are here illegally your next you will be fine nearly
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported, you will
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: never return.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: But if you register using our CBP home app and
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. Do
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: what's right. Leave now.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: Do we book artists for a variety of different things.
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: In my opinion, and I've been doing some market research
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: on this, festivals have messed up pricing for artists because
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: now there's only artists there on many festivals in America
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about, like, yeah, the only Europe too. Yeah,
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: there's many fALS that all these artists are getting paid
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: crazy amount of money, more money than they traditionally should
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: get or they even deserve to be completely honest with
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: you about and now that that's over inflating their overinflating
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: the market.
• 48:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah. So it's like it's really about competition.
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 48:20
  Speaker 6: So if I if you are really worked three hundred,
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: but you know this guy over here is costing you
• 48:26
  Speaker 6: seven hundred, it is giving you seven hundred, You're going
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: to want to take that seven hundred. It doesn't matter
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: what relationship you have with me. You're going to come
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: back and say, Yo, I know you offering three hundred,
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: that's my rape, but this guy's offering me seven hundred.
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: I got to take that.
• 48:37
  Speaker 6: And a lot of that. We were dealing with a
• 48:39
  Speaker 6: lot of that, right because as we open up the market,
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: some of the things we learned in twenty seventeen, we
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: create a swat analysis, like you know, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: We always knew that because we didn't have a crazy
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: big investment, We never raised this was my money and
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: my partner's money and our teams money. Right, we knew
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: that somebody with bigger pockets open up the market could
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: come in and like really take over our market, or
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: try to at least, So for us, it was about
• 49:05
  Speaker 6: the strategy was about having deep roots in the community
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: so that even if they did come in, we could survive.
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: And we've survived with that. But when there are multiple
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: things happening at the same time, what ended up happening
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: is this competition for cost, right because if and that's
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: you know in Ghana also that just doesn't just talk
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: about artists, it talks about equipment, right, So if you
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: have a camera person that like owns x amount of
• 49:31
  Speaker 6: cameras and there are multiple events, then they're going to
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: be able to start a bit of war. As you know,
• 49:36
  Speaker 6: this is because there's only very few you know, people
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: who can do the expertise.
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: A flyer in Ghana can cost you anywhere between seventy
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: five dollars and one hundred dollars for.
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: A fly For a flyer with that hundred dollars is
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: the equivalent of ten.
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: Dollars, No, one hundred dollars a US dollars for a
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: proper flyer. Now out here you can get a forty
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: dollars fifty dollars because there's so many people you can
• 49:58
  Speaker 6: go to, but there are very few who can do
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: at the quality that we needed to in guard us.
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: So because of that, it costs more.
• 50:04
  Speaker 7: So they're real quick because now I'm thinking about the cost,
• 50:06
  Speaker 7: and like, obviously one of the things that could combat
• 50:08
  Speaker 7: that cost to alleviate the court is sponsorship. And so
• 50:12
  Speaker 7: before in twenty seventeen, you didn't have the LEA said
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: you didn't have the language, So I'm assuming that that's
• 50:19
  Speaker 7: something that you had to learn when you guys went down.
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: You thought about strength and weaknesses.
• 50:22
  Speaker 7: So what is some of the language and getting sponsorship
• 50:25
  Speaker 7: because it's not easy, right, like, especially when you want
• 50:27
  Speaker 7: to have a large scale event and you've seen scaling
• 50:29
  Speaker 7: throughout the years, how do we now approach sponsors and
• 50:33
  Speaker 7: use the properate language to say this is going to
• 50:35
  Speaker 7: help your brand as well?
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I would say the first So look at sponsors
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: are easier for us to get because obviously we had
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: people there, so it was easy for them to kind
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: of come in and activate. In twenty nineteen, we had
• 50:47
  Speaker 6: twenty eighteen, we had like a few other smaller brands
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: that came on and gave us some money. In twenty
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: nineteen is when we had the biggest sponsors, right. We
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: had Twitter. Twitter was the first major sponsors that we had.
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: We had a hashtag emoji. They came built an activation.
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: They sent individuals down to kind of create content with us.
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: It was a year before they opened up their office
• 51:08
  Speaker 6: in Ghana and they marked us as one of the
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: reasons as a partner, and it was their first ever
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: activation on the continent. By that time, we had understood
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: what we had. We understood the data. We understood where
• 51:18
  Speaker 6: they were coming from, their age range, the depending capacity.
• 51:21
  Speaker 6: We understood their buying habits, things that they liked. We
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: had feet surveys from them about what was good, what
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: was bad, what opportunities were that we could attendees the attendees.
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: So now I can go and sit to a sponsor
• 51:36
  Speaker 6: and just not tell them I have an event. I
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: can tell them, well, I have thirty percent our men
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: from this age and sixty percent of women from this age.
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: They like this. They're like dogs, they like this, you know.
• 51:46
  Speaker 6: So you know, if you have a company that's interested
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: in this kind of market how can we work together.
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: You know, at the time, we knew Twitter eventually was
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: going to open an office in Ghana, so we know, look,
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: this is an opportunity for us to work together to
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: kind of create an experience right here. We also had
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: Uber that year that was also launching in Ghana, so
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: we were able to kind of use their platform to
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: kind of communicate to people, but also get people to
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: just kind of reduce the amount of cars they were
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: taking by taking Ubers and creating an opportunity there. So
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: we at the time we knew how to like utilize
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: our space and optimize it to kind of bring more
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: partners into the space, and we've grown ever since. Last
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: year was the first year we actually had a partnership
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: team to kind of build a partnership program that just
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: really kind of understands like how to parse out every
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: single aspect of our festival ground, from the barricades to
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: the entrances, to the exits, to the staging, to the
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: different screens in the space, to the bars, to like
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: every single piece of the space that we have that
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: we can monetize. We look to try and monetize and
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: that gave sponsors more opportunities. And then we also realized
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: that because it was Africa and a lot of them
• 52:57
  Speaker 6: didn't have offices in Africa, it was very difficult for
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: them to market. So the work that we were doing,
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: we're being a trust broker. At the same time, we
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: were being an influencer because we're bringing them to the market.
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: And then at the same time we would be in
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: an agency because we were the first one like kind
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: of bringing.
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: Them to the space.
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: So we had to create more events around the festival
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: to give them multiple touch points so that they can
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: like optimize their institution. One of the things that I
• 53:22
  Speaker 6: learned is that, yeah, you may be working with Twitter,
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: but there's Twitter marketing, there's Twitter for you know, for
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: a podcast. This is just an example of Twitter for
• 53:30
  Speaker 6: cartoons Twitter. So understanding that although there's one company, there
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: are multiple businesses within the company that have different budgets,
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: and understanding how to like optimize all of those parts
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: of the company to come together to support you in
• 53:43
  Speaker 6: order to be able to maximize the dollars that are
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: coming in. With some of the things that we had
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: to learn and we didn't know upfront, and you know, luckily,
• 53:52
  Speaker 6: a bit of partnership is also like who you know
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: as well? Like right, you can't you know you can
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: co email a company sometimes you may get a responsible
• 53:59
  Speaker 6: For the most part, the people that were in there
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: that I also believed in what we were doing made
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: it very easy for us to kind of like understand
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: how to position ourselves to to to get the best
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: support from that from the companies.
• 54:11
  Speaker 7: So the other part right like now you've got sponsorships
• 54:14
  Speaker 7: but accommodations, yeah, right, so like are you reaching out
• 54:17
  Speaker 7: to the local like hotels and obviously the air airlines?
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: Like how do how do you get partnerships? And then
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: but who do you speak to? How did that process go? Yeah?
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: With the hotels, it was a lot. It was a
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: lot easier, but not so much. In Ghana, we have
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: the Kimpinsk, which is the hotel that everybody wants to
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: stay at. You know, hopefully we got that book for
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: you guys right now.
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: There's no hopefully, ye we need we.
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: Need that book for you guys right now, y'all need
• 54:44
  Speaker 6: to be at the Kopinsk. Uh. The moving pick is
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: the next step, right, and then there are boutique hotels
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: like the Quality's the one to Oxford, those kind of
• 54:54
  Speaker 6: hotels are nice as well, but you know, really everybody
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: that somebody wants to stay at these top hotel so
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: really going there you have to have money to put down.
• 55:03
  Speaker 6: So if you're getting forty fifty rooms, you have to
• 55:05
  Speaker 6: be able to pay it upfront and be able to
• 55:07
  Speaker 6: cover that cost of front. So we were doing that.
• 55:10
  Speaker 6: We would do blocks, so we would work with different
• 55:12
  Speaker 6: travel agencies to do blocks to try and block it off.
• 55:15
  Speaker 6: Like I know Essence Festival when they do it, they
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: block off the entire New Orleans so you can't really
• 55:19
  Speaker 6: come in there. So the goal is to get to
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: a place where we can block off the whole thing
• 55:22
  Speaker 6: and really kind of be able to put more toll
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: gates for us to be able to optimize the money
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: that we're bringing in. Because we know, like every single
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: person that comes into Gana spends about twenty six hundred
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: and fifty dollars on average. So if you multiply that
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: by the amount of people, Let's just say last year
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: we did thirty thousand, that's a lot of money. But
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: I'm not getting all of that money. So how do
• 55:43
  Speaker 6: we kind of create more toll bridges to be able
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: to get more of that? Is where we're living in
• 55:47
  Speaker 6: to kind of figure out how to make this more
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: of a business. So whether it's verticaling things like creating
• 55:53
  Speaker 6: more jobs. So we know that last year we knew
• 55:58
  Speaker 6: we needed cleaning, created a cleaning service so that they
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: can clean our space, so that we can pay them
• 56:03
  Speaker 6: at a rate that made sense, but we can also
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: keep some of the money back as opposed to outsource
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: into an agency, or whether it's creating, like owning my
• 56:14
  Speaker 6: own equipment. Right, so this year I'm buying all my
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: stages and everything like that as well, so that I
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: don't I can reduce that cost. I know that my
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: biggest expense is the talent, which is a constant is
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: always gonna go up, and then there's a production cost,
• 56:26
  Speaker 6: which it is not it's not necessarily a it's a
• 56:30
  Speaker 6: constant as well. But if I own most of the equipment,
• 56:33
  Speaker 6: I can reduce that off of my books so that
• 56:35
  Speaker 6: you know, and I can rent it out and I
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: can make I can make some money from it as well.
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: So those are some of the things that I'm like,
• 56:40
  Speaker 6: we're thinking about just to kind of be able to
• 56:42
  Speaker 6: kind of make it better, but also like also raising
• 56:46
  Speaker 6: if you go out in New York it could be
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: like ten different clubs popping at one time, and Ghana
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: is not quite like that yet. You know, everybody kind
• 56:54
  Speaker 6: of like migrates to the same place. So we're all
• 56:56
  Speaker 6: at twists. All right, cool, we leave twist. We're all
• 56:58
  Speaker 6: gonna go to the front back. Okay, everbody's going from
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: going to ace to the sunrises. You know pretty much.
• 57:04
  Speaker 6: That's literally how it is. So having all of these
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: venues stand on their own is another thing. And you
• 57:09
  Speaker 6: do that by bringing more people in the market. And
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: you know, so we need the government to do that obviously,
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: because the more money people have, the more they probably
• 57:16
  Speaker 6: are going to put into the economy.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: So as far as your data, it's extremely important. And
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: like you said, for sponsors, let's drill down on this,
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: like when you do when you're solicitating sponsors, they want
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: to know like what information. So you had mentioned like
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: you know, as far as where the people are coming from,
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: you know, the money that they're spending, not just like okay,
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: I got their email and got their phone number, Like
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: the percentage that are men, the percentage that are women,
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: the age range, how do you find out that information?
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: So I we did surveys on our on our website.
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: So whenever you fill out to board buy a ticket,
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: these information you filled out it was required information.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: It's required or yeah, we applied.
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: We require people to let us know like who was
• 58:02
  Speaker 6: coming into the country that was under our purview, right,
• 58:05
  Speaker 6: you don't you know we don't. Obviously the information is
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: blinded and you know we can't share it, and you
• 58:10
  Speaker 6: know it's all in our like our lawyer has all
• 58:13
  Speaker 6: the language in there when you when you buy a ticket,
• 58:15
  Speaker 6: but that information is given to us. It also is
• 58:18
  Speaker 6: given to us through the medic data of our socials,
• 58:21
  Speaker 6: so we're able to come compare it, and then our
• 58:23
  Speaker 6: website also is able to kind of like if you
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: look at the back of the square space, you'll be
• 58:27
  Speaker 6: able to kind of tell where all people are coming
• 58:28
  Speaker 6: up and what they're doing in that space as well.
• 58:32
  Speaker 6: So now if you look at the analytics on your
• 58:35
  Speaker 6: social pathform, you'll be able to kind of see like
• 58:38
  Speaker 6: who's following you and like like how much money they
• 58:41
  Speaker 6: make and things of that nature. So all of that
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: information is there for you. Now is about how you
• 58:45
  Speaker 6: use it to kind of make sense, right, because if
• 58:48
  Speaker 6: you look at the analytics behind your Instagram for instance,
• 58:50
  Speaker 6: it will tell you really how to like market to
• 58:52
  Speaker 6: your audience, when's the best time to market to your audience.
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: So all of those things are some of the things
• 58:56
  Speaker 6: that we've optimized to kind of make make make it
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: make sense. I knew that women were our biggest customer,
• 59:01
  Speaker 6: so last year we know we needed to put a
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: beauty experience in there, so we got fenty Beauty to
• 59:06
  Speaker 6: come in. With the percentage of women versus men I
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: think sixty percent. I think that's one of the main
• 59:11
  Speaker 6: reason why a lot of people love it. There's nothing
• 59:14
  Speaker 6: there's not there's no shortage of women that are coming
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: into the Guna during that time.
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: How do you mention the economic impact, Well.
• 59:21
  Speaker 6: The economic impact is there. We have testimonials. There's somebody
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: who said, you know, because you know, when we announced
• 59:27
  Speaker 6: that last year will be the last one, there were
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: a lot of people that were kind of like sad
• 59:32
  Speaker 6: because we can tell that somebody was like, I made
• 59:34
  Speaker 6: a hundred thousand over airbnbs and just the years that
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: they existed, Right, you can tell by more venues are opening, right,
• 59:41
  Speaker 6: there's so many new venues since twenty seventeen up until now,
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: so that's one way for us to be able to tell.
• 59:47
  Speaker 6: We can tell by the amount of people that are
• 59:48
  Speaker 6: coming into a country. If sixteen percent of people are
• 59:50
  Speaker 6: coming in for tourism, right, that's and each of them
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: are spending two thousand, six hundred and fifty. If you
• 59:56
  Speaker 6: multiply sixteen percent of let's say a million, which is
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: the aount of people that came in twenty seventeen, and
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: you multiply that by two twenty six fifty, which is
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: the average spend that gotten the government report has given us,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: that's a couple couple like a couple couple million, a
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: couple of hundred million, right, So it's like we're bringing
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 6: in a lot of people into the country and each
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 6: one is spending x amount on average, and if they're
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 6: spending x amount, that's how you know that the impact
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: that you're having on the community. And we wanted to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: know that because we wanted to be able to go
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: and say, hey, our event alone is bringing in this
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 6: amount of people, what can you do? And some of
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: it we tested as well. When we announced that we
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: weren't going, we got a lot of calls from the
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 6: government to sit down and talk about how this is
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 6: you know, supporting tourism. Another thing is we've seen that
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 6: a lot more brands are willing to come into the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: space because of us and through us to come in.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 6: You know, we started off with Twitter, but we've worked
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 6: with Amazon, I'm sorry, We've worked with excuse me now, Amazon.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: We've worked with.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 6: Meta, We've worked with Instagram, We've worked with Tonecore, Sony Music,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 6: We've worked with Audio Mac. Audio Mac for instance, you know,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 6: credits us as one of the main reasons why they've
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 6: been able to grow their audience in Ghana and across
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 6: West Africa as well. We've done a lot of work
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 6: with them, so our relationship building and the partners that
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: we've built our clear examples of how we can, like
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 6: you know, acknowledge how much we've done. For instance, when
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 6: we started in twenty eighteen, Spotify was not even looking
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 6: at West Africa as an option of a place for
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: them to come in. And it's interesting because Spotify had
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: one of the best playlists in afrobeats ever because they
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: had a guy there named Tunde who understood the music
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: and he broke it down into different genres of African music.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 6: So that I'm my pianos the African fusion, the ar
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: Zoom tool music. He broke it down that way and
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 6: he was driving it so well, but they end up
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: closing out his whole department. Two three years later, Spotify
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: does the activation in Ghana, which is interesting to me.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 6: So that tells us about the impact as well that
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: we've that we've been able to do, and also our
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: numbers keep growing. You've never had a downpour out like
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 6: you know, a downward try of you know, of attendees.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 6: Last year we did thirty thousand, twenty much this year.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 6: This year, well, we're hoping to go forty thou twenty
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 6: thousand this day, you know, over over two days. But
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: last year we did thirty thousand over two days. The
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 6: year before that was the pandemic year. We worked with
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: Ghanda's government to write the rules to open up you know,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: you know, events for everyone in the contract, and we
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: did ten thousand and five and that was because of
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 6: a government limit.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: So twenty thousand each day? Is that? With that? Is
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: it twenty thousand because it's the same people each day,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: all right?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, but you kind of by individuals.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: That come in.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so if you had forty thousands, I'm just doing
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 7: the math, right, If you have forty thousand people at
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 7: that average spend, that's over one hundred million.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: If the government said in twenty seventeen they brought in
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 7: a million people came in it was sixteen percent of
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 7: your audience and they did that, that's like four hundred million.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 6: Wait explaining that to be so like I.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 7: Said, it was a million people that came into Ghana, Yeah,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 7: in twenty nineteen, So sixteen percent of the people that
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 7: came into one hundred and sixty thousand people, if they
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 7: all spend twenty six to fifty, it's like that's four hundred.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: That's correct, But that's for the whole country, for the country.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 6: They came to Ghana because of the festival, didn't mean
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 6: they all came right right, right.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 5: So the I mean these numbers, it was an astronomical.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: They're astronomical, but you know it's just like it's spread
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: out right right because I don't own the hotels exactly,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: I don't own the flights. I don't own it. So yes,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: people are spending this, So we know we're creating this economics,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 6: and how do we now become a part of the ecosystem.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 6: How do we make it so by creating services and
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: vertical and things by also working with the hotels to
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 6: kind of strike deals where maybe I get rates that
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 6: can I can give out reallyod type situations. We're looking
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 6: into like charter and planes right because Delsa is going crazy.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 6: So if I can do charter flights where we reduce
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 6: the costs for people and we could still make some
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 6: funds off of it, you know, to challenge Delta to
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 6: come down because people maybe won't take that. Those are
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 6: options for us as well. Optimizing. One of the things
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: that I love about you guys platform is how much
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: you've optimized social like your YouTube and things that nature.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 6: We haven't done that yet. You know, our focus, like
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: if you want to see what we do, you have
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 6: to be there, and I think that's part of it.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 6: But we know that we can generate more by like
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 6: doing more social selling content. We actually have a film
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 6: coming out with Meta that was a three D film
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 6: shot of the performances and the experience in Ghana. So
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 6: those are things that we want to do more of.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 7: Move One of the things that you left the last
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 7: impact is you said the jobs, and so you create
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 7: over five thousand jobs, so that helps the economy too.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: So absolutely, what type of jobs are you creating and
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 7: are those jobs sustainable after we leave December? Like, are
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 7: these people staying with these jobs throughout the years of
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 7: twelve months of a year.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 6: No, a portion of them are. So most of these
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 6: are production jobs. You know, people who are building, they
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 6: probably work for three months three months, so seasonal jobs.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 6: We are trying to get it where we can build
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: a system of like a temp agency if you may, right.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: So right now, when I come and I'm looking for
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 6: somebody to build, the space is very limited amount of people.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: So creating a temp agency where now we can actually
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 6: outsource the services and provide services to people is the
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 6: next level for us. Because we've been paying out so much,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 6: we need to reeld some of that in. So by
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 6: owning the equipment now we can you know, actually train
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: our individuals, get trainers so that now we can also
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: not provide service, but not only in Ghana but like
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 6: across West Africa and possibly other bides.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 7: Yeah, when you own the equipment, now you can create
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 7: more content. I was watching Snowfall. They had an episode
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 7: where he went to Ghana, yeah, and I was just like, look,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 7: how beautiful they've captured this. So now, like you can
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 7: literally create a production studio based on the equipment you
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 7: know exactly.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: A lot of people are doing that right now, so
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 6: I know you just Elbow is looking to open up
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 6: a production studios. Tyler Perry has talked about it a
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: few others. But yeah, we we've been doing it and
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 6: we're going to continue to do it, and we want
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 6: to do it. I think there's so much stories to tell,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: so I think there's even more space for more people
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 6: to come in. I think the best way to do
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 6: is to come in and collaborate with people on the ground,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 6: like you're just doing and some of the others are
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 6: doing as well, just kind of working with people on
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 6: the ground to build out opportunities. And that's some of
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 6: the work we're doing.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: So talk about like you know, attracting corporate sponsors, the
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: process of doing that, put together a deck, what should
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: be in a deck, and all of that type of
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: corporate reach. Like do you do it yourself? You have
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: an agency that doesn't for you.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 6: No, I do it myself. I've built most of all
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 6: of our decks by myself. Every single piece of writing
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 6: you see you on a website or on our decks,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: I wrote it with my bare hands, right, So my
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 6: thing is like, you want the deck to look like
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 6: something that anybody can look at it and understand your brand,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 6: like if they have any questions, it should be about process,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: not necessarily what is right? How do we make this happen?
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 6: Not necessarily what is and it should speak to you.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 6: It's like your resume. You may are what you've done,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 6: the numbers, what the numbers are saying? Why does it
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 6: benefit them? What can they do when they come there?
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 6: How do they see themselves in your activation? So we've
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 6: grown from just a festival. Over two days at the festival,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 6: there's so many different opportunities. You can have a photo moment,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 6: you can have a activation where people can interact. So
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 6: we've done activations with for instance, YouTube where we built
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: a shorts program. YouTube was launching a short form program
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 6: which is like you know, the TikTok the reels, and
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: they were launching in Ghana. So we work with them
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 6: to build a forty by forty playground where people can
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 6: go in there and create content. At the time, Ghana
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 6: was not a priority market for YouTube, but through a activation,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: YouTube reassessed and realize Ghana is a priority market that
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 6: day alone, we were able to create one thousand plus
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 6: reels i mean well shorts for YouTube in Ghana, so
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 6: that's one type of activation you can have. We also
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 6: worked with YouTube Uber last year there was a young
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 6: man who use scrap metal to create a car, like
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 6: an actual car that you can drive on a road.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 6: So Uber wanted to highlight that and use that as
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 6: an activation on the ground to be able to give
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 6: people discount of tickets. So that's a display activation. Or
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 6: we can do more immersive activations like we did with
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 6: Twitter where people could scan their barcodes on their wristband
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: and that could send a tweet or do things like
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: that to kind of engage with the community. Or last
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 6: year we work with YouTube began to create National Joe
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 6: Off Day, right, So there are different several and that
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 6: was a digital activation. So we do a combination of
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 6: digital activation, in person activations, panel discussions, and we've expanded
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 6: our portfolio to be able to do all of these
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 6: things outside of the festival. We also have the Average Expo,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 6: which is an opportunity for us to kind of have
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 6: discussions about real life as in you are interested in
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 6: agriculture and Ghana, all right, cool? These are experts that
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: understand it. Let's engage them. You're intersted in the food industry,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 6: Let's engage them your industry and finances. Let's talk to them.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 6: They're industed in the music business. Let's have a panel
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 6: discussions with that. And we've done that with tone Core,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 6: with YouTube corut Global, We've done collaborations with Topicals, which
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 6: is a new brand that she raised ten million dollars
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 6: last year she was in Ghana. We did it with
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 6: Modern I think it's Modern Girls. You know, they created
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 6: a you know, uh, she's a young girl who started
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 6: teaching about finances in the pandemic. Tiffany Jay does great
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: work as well, So we've invited some of these people.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 6: A lot of our work is also built on collaboration.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 6: So bringing an R and B house party to Ghana
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 6: and having them do a party with Polo Beach is
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 6: something that was really good at building community as well.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 6: So now these are all exciting opportunities for partners. Right,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 6: So if a partner has partner with R and B
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 6: house party, for instance, in America, and I told him, look,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: you know, they're gonna come to Ghana and we're gonna
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 6: do activation, do activation at the festival and have the
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 6: after part of the R and B house party. It
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 6: makes sense for them, right because it's something that's familiar.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: They can do it out here, they can do it
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 6: out there. So creating those multiple touch points are some
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 6: of the key things for a partner because then they
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 6: get to stretch their dollar, which makes them look good
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 6: to their company as well. But also we always deliver
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 6: on the activation. So fenty came into Tadhana, they did
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 6: the activation. They sold way more than they spent on
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 6: the activation. That's at their positive for them.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: To what's their activation look like.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 6: So Fency we built a twenty x twenty space for
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: them which was like a beauty bar that people can
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 6: go get their makeup done, consult with makeup artists, and
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 6: they use that as an opportunity to kind of also
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 6: do makeup for some of the artists as well. So
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 6: now they're getting touch points backstage where talent is getting
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: done with makeup. They're can associate their brand with the talent.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 6: They're also getting content from the from the individuals who
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 6: are going into their space and taking pictures and posting
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 6: it by fenty Beauty at aver Eachella, and also they're
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 6: getting to sell products, so they've made money all the
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 6: way around for them to kind for it to make
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 6: sense for fenty beauty. So I know a brand like
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 6: that is going to come back, right. All the brands
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 6: that we've worked with have always come back. Meta came back.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 6: Twitter has come back up until Elon took over. You know,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 6: Instagram has come back. You know, we anticipate fan come
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 6: back and we anticipate more beauty brands, and our goal
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 6: is to be able to just kind of keep opening up,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 6: for it to just be not just the festival as
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 6: the focal point, but there's so many pieces around it
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 6: that make it a real mecca for the diaspora when
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 6: they come back to Ghana. So if you want to party,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 6: you have that opportunity. If you want to educate yourself,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 6: you have the opportunity. If you want to relax, you
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: have the opportunity. One of the things that I'm really
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 6: excited about is there was a young man's name was
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 6: Russian and he started a company called Poetry Me and
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 6: he reached out to me last year through one of
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 6: my boys, Neville, and Know I was like, Ah, let's
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 6: do a poetry event would be really cool. It's something
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 6: different across you know, everybody clubs, let's do something that
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 6: people would just and it was amazing. Jiv performed like
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 6: you know, so for that to be the experience and
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 6: for it to sell out in that way his first
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: event and gone, I thought that was beautiful. We also
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 6: did event with Black Health Connects, So what they did
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 6: was they set up a mixer for black health professionals
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: across the diaspora, and I thought that was beautiful as well.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 6: So we're looking to do more things like that, meetups, conversations,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: panel discussions, idea exchanges. The hope is for there to
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 6: be maybe a couple of investment groups that come out
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 6: of this so that they can go and help us
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 6: build you know, whether we're building schools, whether we building communities.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 6: I think those are all great opportunities for people back
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 6: here as well.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 7: Are you seeing that as a by product of the event,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 7: Like we have corporate coming in for the event, but
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 7: do you see the diaspora investing back in across Yes.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 6: As a result, Yes, I've seen people who have gotten
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 6: their citizenship, their residency who actually working from there, who
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 6: have started businesses. You know, whether it's important shade butter
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 6: or selling baskets or you know, buying property and being
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 6: be in it. People are doing a whole bunch of things,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: you know, whether they're starting clubs, open up a restaurant.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 6: I've seen a lot of that happen in the past
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 6: couple of years, and frankly, it makes me very happy.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 6: One of the first things people do is probably set
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 6: up a tour group because you know, if I come
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 6: when you're now comping twenty people, and you know, it's
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 6: a business, and I think it's a really good one.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 6: But there's so many other things that people can do.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 6: I haven't seen anybody adventure into agriculture, which I think
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 6: is like one of the biggest things that needs to
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 6: be done. And it's and it's evident because almost all
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 6: the candidates that are running for a president now talking
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 6: about agriculture. You know, we have one of the biggest
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 6: pineapple forms in Ghana, and I know, you know, we
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 6: know the owner. They ship to all of Europe. Like
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 6: you know, I didn't know that Europeans were eating ghani
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 6: and bananas. I didn't know that, but they are. You know,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 6: Ghana mixed the second exports the second amount of cocoa,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 6: you know, and recently you know, the president is like,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 6: you know, we're going to try and refine our own
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 6: coco right here in Ghana. So, you know, there's so
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 6: many different things that are just underutilized. Like for instance,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 6: my partner inputs chicken and fish, Like you know, I
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 6: was like, you know, why don't we have a chicken
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 6: farm right here to be able to produce chicken to
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 6: feed people in Ghana. So I think those are things
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 6: that just there's so many different opportunities that exist not
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: only in Ghana but across the continent that I think
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 6: that as we continue to get to know each other,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 6: the more that they asked for in the continent, that
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 6: you know that collaboration is going to be key and
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 6: and and growing africas Africa's Africa is the youngest continent
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 6: and will be for the foreseeable future. So all of
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: the opportunities going there right all of the governments are
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 6: fighting over space, you know, whether there's the Chinese or Russians.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: The Americans now are getting into the mix. You know,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: you know, black people need to get into the mix.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: So how do you market now? You market the event.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 6: A lot of our marketing goes to a lot of
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 6: group group sales group. Sales is one of our biggest ones.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 6: We do a lot. It does. It does a lot
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 6: of wonders for US. We run a lot of ads
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 6: on socials, across YouTube, across Facebook, across our Instagram. We
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 6: do a lot of placements and different on different websites
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 6: as well, billboards around the continent. We activate in different cities,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 6: like we have activation coming up in La with PVO.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 6: PVO is a partner of ours. We've been partnering for
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 6: a couple of years. They are young men that's side
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 6: an organization called Positi Vibes only to celebrate you know,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 6: mental health awareness and they do that through their programming,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 6: so we partner with them. We're doing We're going to
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 6: be African with PVO, so hopefully who have you there
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 6: as well? You know we're doing collaborations with Africaan. That's
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 6: another way. A lot of our activations in the US
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 6: is one of those. We're doing Kodivoir April thirtieth, we
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 6: have France June eighteenth. We're going to be in London
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 6: in June as well. We have South Africa September, Kenya
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 6: and November. So by activating all these spaces, it optimizes
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 6: the amount of people they are able to come. We
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 6: also have Germany at the end of August, so that
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 6: allows us to be able to kind of connect with communities.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 6: Last year was the first year I went to Germany
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 6: for hype Fest, and that brought in so many Germans
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 6: into Ghana, and we want to continue doing that. By
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 6: activating and celebrating in these spaces, we're building our audience.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 6: I'm sure you guys are seeing the same thing. By
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 6: activating in different cities, you're seeing more people come into
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 6: your space, and literally it's working for us. It's been
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 6: working for us, and we're looking to do that, and
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 6: we're also looking for other traditional ways to do it,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 6: whether it's like placements on podcasts, whether it's through medium
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 6: drops and appearances. Apparently Hulu has allowing you to do
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 6: advertisements on Hulu now for a fee, So we're looking
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 6: into those kind of opportunities as well to kind of
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 6: grow the audience but also keep it organic. I think
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: one of the beauties about our festival is you don't
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 6: feel lost. Although it's big and it's a stadium and
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: it takes a lot of work walking to get around,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 6: it still feels like a small community of people, and
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 6: I think that that's what people love and I don't
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 6: ever want to lose that by just kind of making
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 6: it so big that people can't even see each other.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: The beauty is like you can turn left and you
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 6: see Charlemagne or your guitar right and you can see
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 6: what was in the Saint John. Like that's the beauty
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 6: of being in that space and everybody is comfortable and
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 6: nobody feels attacked or or bother.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 5: Charlamagne was at the Nigeria or the Strip club.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 6: In the first one. Yeah, Silver Fox is actually pretty big,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 6: is dope?
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 7: Do you see the festival expanding not only in a
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 7: crowd but in other countries on the continent where it's
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 7: like people want to have a similar type situation for
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 7: their for their country. You said South Africa, you have activations, Nigeria, Morocco,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 7: like appreciate it.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, We've gotten a lot of invitations from different tourism
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 6: authorities like Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda to come in senegog
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 6: to come in and like recreate what we've been able
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 6: to create in Ghana, but we never like what I
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 6: don't want to do is like say I'm going to
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 6: have a festival in South Africa the way I have
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 6: it in Ghana. I don't want to do that. My
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 6: whole goal is to be able to partner with somebody
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 6: down there and they can own it and we can
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 6: own a piece of it, because I think that in
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 6: going into Africa, we have to have a different mindset
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 6: than we've had here, right, we have to have more
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 6: of a community mindset. I think that's the beauty about
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 6: living in Africa. It's about the community we all eat.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 6: There's more of us by working together. So for us,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 6: it's about community buildings. So if we go to South Africa,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 6: we're looking to work with a partner in South Africa.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 6: We all work with a partner in South Africa. The
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 6: same thing in Kenya. So I don't need to own
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 6: it because I can't tell a Kenyan story the way
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 6: I can tell a Ghanian story, but they can't. So
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 6: how do I give them the resources that I've learned
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 6: in Ghana to be able to kind of help them
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 6: recreate this and then they can own it and then
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 6: we are part of it. That's the model that we've
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 6: always thought for ourselves, and that's what we want to do,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 6: and that's why we're creating new services to be able
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 6: to do that.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 7: To talk about the philanthropic of Apple Future, I know
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 7: you know you guys have given back money to health
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 7: and border initiatives throughout the country, So talk about that other.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 6: So I'm a brother five ue Siment Fraternity Incorporated, and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 6: part of my mantra is always to give back right
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: cultural service for humanity. And I've always thought that if
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 6: somebody's going to give back, it's not enough to just
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 6: try and trip them into giving back money. You have
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 6: to give them incentivized. I've always done that through whether
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 6: it's parties, like you know, you throw a party, buy
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 6: a ticket, I'll use I'll give them on your behalf,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 6: like you've always given back. My partner and I both brothers,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 6: So we're like, you know what, this is what we're
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 6: going to do. We're going to invite people to participate
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 6: in some of the givebacks that we're doing, but we
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 6: are also going to use ticket sales and give out
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 6: five percent of the ticket sales to whatever charity calls
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 6: that we're looking to to support. The year one, we
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 6: work with water Aid, which is our company that is
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: all over the world actually, but basically they reduced limits
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 6: lack of access to water and build toilets for people.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 6: They're still people who are using non traditional toilets that
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 6: you could flush, you know, either the lack of water
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 6: or their toilet in a hole. So we're building that out.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 6: We built out so we've donated to them, but then
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 6: we adopted the school. We worked with Twitter to remodel
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 6: the school. We built the new ceiling, new floors, fed
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 6: them for a year. We did that for a couple
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 6: of years, and then recently we've been actually just taking
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 6: that action on the road, so whether it's doing a
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 6: thousand meals and giving it out in the community or
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 6: giving out school supplies. Last year we partnered with Madachi Foundation,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 6: which is one of my good bros, actually created a
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 6: foundation that provides sneakers to students. He found people in
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 6: his community in Ghana their barrier to going to school
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 6: was they didn't have shoes, so they had to walk
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 6: to go to school. So he wanted to be able
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 6: to bring sneakers back to Ghana so that he can
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 6: provide them with shoes to wear on their way to
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 6: school and some of that. That's some of the work
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 6: we work with him to kind of create a like
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 6: in Ghana when the year was over. It wasn't like
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 6: just a cut day. It was like we call it
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 6: our day and it was a special day because it's
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 6: funny because the things that we care about is weird.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 6: It was our day. But you would all bringing like
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 6: your best meals and that's how you compete it out here.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 6: You know, you were your sneakers, you be your best
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 6: fit because you had a dress down there or something
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 6: like that. In Ghana, the last day was our day.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 6: It was like you basically have a feast, like everybody
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 6: brings their food and shows off. I got the best
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 6: snacks something like that. So we recreated that experience for
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 6: kids and gave them sneakers, face painting, engaging them, playing
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 6: with them, you know, giving them, you know, breathing to them,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 6: enthus that nature. And this gives our audience and attendees
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 6: an opportunity to really engage with the local with the
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 6: local community, see what's what's important to them. So we
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 6: want to give people a three sixty experience. When you
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 6: come to Ghana, you're going to see a high life,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 6: right but depending if you're coming with American dollar or
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 6: British pound or euros, you're going to stay in the
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 6: nice places you're going to eat at, the nice places,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 6: you're going to go to, the nice parties, But we
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 6: don't want you to lose out on understanding what the
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 6: entire experience is like, how the people on the ground
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 6: are living, what is what is it like to borrow?
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 6: What does it like to try the food? What does
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 6: you know? How does poverty look? You know what I'm saying.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 6: What are opportunities? You know if they're schools, things that
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 6: nature exchange program, those are things that we're looking at
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 6: trying to figure out how to how to create. But
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 6: it gives other people opportunity to see to idea for
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 6: themselves how they can give back, will support. So those
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 6: are something things we do.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: So talk about changing the name.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so you know for a long time, obviously everybody
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 6: knows we will sue by Coachella, and that was one
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 6: of the major driver reasons why we accelerate the change
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 6: to the name. But also we were also growing beyond
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 6: just being Afriachella. What we anticipate we have for future
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 6: is recreating a new world for the diaspora in reality
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 6: where we connect and have our space to congregate and
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 6: be able to build together. The expo the museum and
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 6: some of the experiences we're creating around the experiences what
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 6: we consider the future. If you look at all of
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 6: these business conferences that are happening some at Harvard, Georgetown, MIT, Stanford,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 6: all over the place, but they're talking about Africa outside
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 6: of Africa US just at the conference happened in DC.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 6: Outside of Africa. Our opportunity is to be able to
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 6: bring bring that energy back to the continent. We never
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 6: want to activate the festival self outside of the continent.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 6: Our whole goal is to get more people to come
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 6: back to the continent. So we consider what we're doing
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 6: and what we are going to be doing for the
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 6: next couple of years, the future and after future just made.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: So what happened with the lawsuit? Did you settle?
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah, we settled, We settled out. They had points, we
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 6: had points, We had a mark in Ghana, they had
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 6: a marque here, and we were just trying to figure
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 6: out what was what was the best option for us, uh,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 6: you know, and after a while, because you know, it
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 6: just was more expensive than it needed to be uh,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 6: and it was just easier for us to just kind
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 6: of like come to an agreement to kind of like
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 6: leave each other alone, and and that required us to
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 6: also change our name as well, and we were we
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 6: were amenable to it as well.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 7: After future it is so how long after the event
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 7: is finished before you start preparing for.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 5: The next one.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 6: Immediately as soon as the event is finished, we do
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 6: a post mortem with the whole team just to kind
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 6: of figure out, you know, what are the opportunities for growth,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 6: what went well, what do we like where we want
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 6: to keep I think as far as the structure of
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 6: the event, we just got to the perfect structure that
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 6: we like as far as how people are going to
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 6: navigate through the space, so that takes a lot off
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 6: of our plate. But each year comes to a new
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 6: child that we have to face, you know. Twenty seventeen
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 6: was we just didn't have money. Twenty eighteen was just
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 6: kind of navigating a new space. Twenty nineteen was scaling
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 6: way beyond where the team was at. Twenty twenty was
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 6: the pandemic, twenty twenty one was our first major artist
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 6: like west Kid, right, and last year was two days.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 6: So now we've gotten to our I guess, final form
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 6: of what the festival was going to look like, and
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 6: now it's just about making sure it kind of grows
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 6: organically as it stands.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: Did you announce the lineup yet for this year?
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 6: No, No, we're looking to do that at the end
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 6: of April or Africa Day. Yeah, I mean yeah, Africa
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 6: Day is when we were looking to announce that. We
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 6: actually never used to announce the lineup until like the
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 6: last month because we didn't want people to just buy
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 6: tickets just for the artists. We wanted people to buy
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 6: tickets for the experience. But recently we've been like announcing
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 6: all of it together to kind of, you know, give
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 6: people ample time to be able to prepare to buy
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 6: the tickets because the ticket prices are too high, too
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 6: high for no reason.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: Well, been a pleasure, definitely got to connect when we
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: come out there.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 6: For sure, for sure, we're going to make sure you
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 6: have a good time. We're gonna take out as a fox.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 6: We're gonna take that to a fox. We're gonna take
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 6: out a twist and make sure you're good out there.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 6: I mean, the one thing that I could, you know,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 6: I used to never promise about. I could promise you
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 6: a good time in Ghana if you are open to
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 6: really just kind of experiencing new things, trying new things,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 6: meeting people and just kind of talking to people. You
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 6: have an amazing experience, like you know, nobody is really
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 6: there to bother you, to haggle you, to hassle you. Yeah,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 6: people are going to ask you for some money. You know,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 6: you look like you have money. People are definitely going
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 6: to ask you for some money. But I think you
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 6: can experience that anywhere around the world. But I think
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 6: the beauty about the people in Ghana and what drives
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 6: me is that everybody seems happy, right. They don't have
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 6: to have much to be happy. And that kind of
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 6: drew me to the content. It kind of made me
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 6: understand like I was making good money here. I had
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 6: a good job. You know, I had an apartment, I
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 6: had everything I wanted. But you know, sometimes you could
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 6: just come home, get off the train and be frustrated.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 6: But there they didn't have much, and I would go
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 6: there and they were just so happy in some cases,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 6: and I thought that that there's a beauty in that.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 6: There's a beauty and just kind of like people being happy.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 6: And I think it has a lot to do with
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 6: the experience of just kind of seeing everyone around you
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 6: and enjoying them and everything that go into the beauty
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 6: and the struggle, I guess for some people. But also
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 6: on the flip side, there are people that are doing
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 6: pretty well, like they don't ever have to come to America,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 6: like they can get on a plane, come here, buy
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 6: clothes and go right back the next day, like you know,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 6: you know, and you know the disparity. There's beauty in it,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 6: but there's also struggle in it. And I think that
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 6: as more black people come into the space, it's going
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 6: to change. It's changed so much over the past seven years,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 6: so I look forward to seeing how much it's going
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 6: to change in the next ten because it's definitely changing
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 6: for the positive. People are questioning things, people are pushing
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 6: government to do things, people are creating content, people are connecting.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 6: So it's beautiful. So I'm looking forward to hosting you, Ghana.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 7: I'm it, I know, the good Will ambassador of tourism.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 7: So I'm looking forward to being Russ. You're gonna be fine,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 7: and Ghana. Ain't got worried about nothing.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 6: Anything you need like you know, pretty much a phone
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 6: call away or a discussion like you know, from visas
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 6: to whatever you need, cars, anything you need.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 5: I'm excited. I'm excited for sure, thank you.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 4: All right, gosh, there you have it all right.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 5: We just got to say this right, best Jolla Rice
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 5: is in Nigeria? Is it Ghana? Man?
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 6: That's Ghana all day easily. Yeah, come to a crowd
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 6: restaurant right here in New York. We got we got,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 6: we got the best your Off Rice. We wanted twice twice.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 6: Actually got to invite y'all. We have a favor a
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 6: crowd restaurant. Both of them. We are Burnside Avenue and
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 6: Davidson and then we have on twenty sixty five Adam
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 6: playing Power Boulevard. Both both the restaurant that's one seventh
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 6: seventh the street Adam Clay and Power between.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 7: That's crazy. The Thanksgiving, I promise you. That's two years ago.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 5: I was like, we're not cooking this yet, and that's
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 5: what we went. Oh that's amazing.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 6: I'm glad. I don't be like that too.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 6: We actually we do this this thing called Battle Joel
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 6: Off right here in New York City. So it's like
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 6: a basketball game and a competition with je Off Rice
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 6: and you know, Accry the restaurant on both of them.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 6: So I definitely hope you'll pull up and I definitely
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 6: want to invite you to the event too.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 4: It's gonna be good. Yeah, definitely, definitely gotta come to
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 4: the restaurant. And what's the website, the social media and
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 4: all that.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 6: Absolutely so you can find us online at afro Future,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 6: on Twitter, on Instagram, on TikTok LinkedIn any of those
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 6: were there. Afrofuture dot com was also our website, so
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 6: looking forward to hosting Yadia as well.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I appreciate it, man, that's dope you have any
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 5: I'm already been patriot.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 6: With Yeah, I'm glad that you enjoyed.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 5: Love is love, y'all.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: My graduates from my school being forced bad drop.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: Drop an illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: President Donald J.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: The United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: Attempted illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels ever
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: recorded and over one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: If you are here illegally, your next you will be
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: fine nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: You will never return.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: Do what's right. Leave now.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,