September 26, 2023 • 46 mins
Charles ‘Beloved’ Kuykendoll is the founder at RNB House Party, a unique party experience where R&B and Gospel music are at the center, bringing the vibes, as well as the nostalgia. Just recently, RNB House Party was acquired by Blavity, Inc., which is also the parent company of AfroTech and its rebranded as Blavity House Party. Charles comes aboard as the General Manager of Community, charged with creating even more experiences for us to connect globally around music, networking, and more.
On this episode, Charles speaks with AfroTech's Will Lucas about starting RNB House Party, his new role at Blavity as GM of Community, and the future of Blavity House Party.
Follow Will Lucas on Instagram at @willlucas
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afro Tech is a global gathering where inclusive tech companies
meet innovators. It's the only tech event you.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Need all year.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Get ready for Afrotech twenty twenty three in Austin, Texas,
November first through the fifth.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We built a whole.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Temper you can use to help you get your employer
to sponsor your trip and enjoy experiences built for every
stage of your career. Whether you're a college student looking
for your next internship, or if you're work in a
venture capital looking for your next business to invest in,
and if you're looking for a co founder of a
people that'soin your team, there's no better place to be.
The massive corporate layoffs of twenty twenty two and twenty
twenty three have affected our community in a big way.
(00:32):
An Afrotech wants to help you get back on your
feet with skill development, making it easier to switch industries
if that's your route. In an afro tech, you'll make
connections to help you get your next opportunity. Visit afrotech
dot com Slash conference.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
To learn more.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'm Will Lucas and this as Black Tech, Green Money.
Charles Beloved cirtaindal is the founder at R and B
House Party a unique party experience where R and B
and gospel and music are at the center, bringing the
vibes as well as the nostalgia. Just recently, R and
B a House Party was acquired by Blavity, Inc. Which
is also the peering company Afrotech is rebranded as Blavity
(01:08):
House Party. Charles comes aboard as the general Manager Community
at Blavity, Charles was creating even more experiences for us
to connect globally around music, networking and more. Pre used
to joining Blavity, Charles was also a recruiter and had
leadership roles at companies like Facebook, Play Versus, and Stripe.
But by nightfall, he was back on the stage in
(01:30):
every corner of the globe curating R and B experiences.
After being laid off earlier this summer, Glavity CEO Morgan
Debond sent them a DM that basically said, you don't
have to live two separate lives. Come to Blavity.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yes, So in June of this year, just a knowing
what Blavity is, what has been built over time, you know,
it just felt like a blessing to even be considered
for an opportunity to come join you guys, in house,
but the novice thinking that I had to think that
(02:07):
it was only gonna be just for what I had
proven to do from like a talent acquisition space to
date and not the product that you know, we had
been building myself in Kareem over some years and have
partners successfully with blvity on for so many, so many years.
So when it became clear that the opportunity that was
(02:27):
being presented was an acquisition, I think.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
That it a blew my mind. But be put me and.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
My business partner in the space to say, not only
is this like incredible for us as founders and what
that looks like, but be like to be able to
join forces with this company, like this was the right company.
So it was really exciting and should Knight got it done?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Jada, because it's so interesting to me because you know,
coming to Blavity, like my experience like on day one,
like being in slack on this one black really slack,
it's super black, and you get the memes, you get
the jokes, like you get all the things, and you've
talked about having the code switch in your corporate career,
so like, what what has that experience been like knowing
(03:12):
that you can bring your full self. You can be
beloved over here.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah yeah, like and the intriguing party is beloved is
signed to bloviting.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Now I'm really my authentic self.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
But what was interesting to me to see now having
been a part of the company for going on a month,
what's the incredible infrastructure that has built the culture that.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Is built here.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
And I'm just a fan, like I'm in slack and
I'm even feeling like, hey.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Am im too corporate.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Meme And it's really because people are just like being
the authentic self. The level of depth of conversation that
I've even seen take place on political issues and things.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And I'm from.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
I'll go it's a place where hey, MJ said, Republicans
are democrats by shooting.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
That is that is my line of thinking.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
But to just see the depth of conversation that has
taken place in this organization, it's just been beautiful, Like
people feel heard.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It's just an incredible company Like.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
That is one of the things that I felt like
I knew, but I didn't really know.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Until I joined.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I understand And before we talk about the business, I
want to get into the beginning of your journey here,
because if anybody has seen you on stage, they can
tell that guy has directed a choir before. And you've
talked about this, and it makes me think, and I've
said this before on this podcast, my favorite quote from
Steve Jobs, which says, you can't connect the dots looking forward.
You can only connect the dots looking backward. And so
(04:47):
when you look back at your life, you can see, oh,
now I know why I did that, so I can
do this. And so can you talk about how that
journey from being a kid in the black church directing
the choir enables you to do what you do today.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
No, that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And you know I didn't realize and I won't say
that I won't be a pastor. People are on my
comments saying that that's inevitable future.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
My dad is a pastor. I'm leaving that all to him.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
But you know, directing the high school choir the entire time,
and then going to college primarily white institution, who had
a gospel choir and was able to like step in
and lead that choir for another four years.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I was heavy into like music production.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
And I thought I was gonna, you know, be a
famous I don't want to say singer because I know
people who could really sing. I'm not a famous background singer,
like I knew my space, and then I just let
all of that passion and music, that love for bringing
people together to the wayside, you know what I mean.
I just attend church, and the hecticness of our lives
(05:58):
didn't allow me to like continue being acquired director. But
who knew this medium of r and being music you
can still kind of like bring that level of ministry
and how people feel in the way that they feel
leaving church, which is to be uplifted, which is to
you know, be inspired, and that is all that we
were trying to do at the now. You know, formerly
(06:18):
I call myself the artist formally, and what we will
continue to do through Blaviting House party bring that level
of inclusiveness and that level of community. So I didn't
even know it that the church was grooming this opportunity
to kind of be in the seat of like a
community gatherer or community organizer.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
But I'm very thankful for that. And be on key,
don't come to correct.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Somebody's off in soprano section with the sopranos flat. So
so when I think about you know, there's a story
you told about having to learn how to host, because
it's one thing that's different about just being a hype
man on stage and yelling out a bunch of cool stuff,
but learning how to actually create a narrative of the night,
create movement to the party. Can you talk to me
(07:11):
about learning how to create these moments during a party?
To us, you found success where a lot of people
have tried. They just party promoters and it's a lit party,
but they've not been able to have the type of
success you've had.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So I really just replicated church. And there's an arc
to every church service. You have typically the beginning praise
and worship, and they set in the tune for like choir,
and then they're going up a notch, and then you
get to the sermon, which again is high, but.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
It's also low.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
But then they build up their sermon to end on
like a crescendo of shouting praise or an organ going
they're tithes and off a mixture. You know they're not
on a high too, and then they get out of there.
And so I was just over talking. When I first
started out, I did not understand how to translate this movement,
(08:03):
which is choir directing, where I didn't have the microphone
into where to pick my spots.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And then that was when it became.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Clear and I had hired previous hosts, and I just
felt like the vibe wasn't the same as when I
did it. And then I had even like brought in
artists and things, and I didn't in my opinion, the
artists had done very very well. But patrons will respond
on our page and say, hey, we prefer the party
with just you. Then that was a nice to have,
And I was like, wait a minute, Okay, we really
(08:33):
need to like lock in and understand what this experience
is for the people and continue and consistently deliver that.
So what that ultimately looked like was us building a
crescendo of moments, us taking you on a musical journey.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Not to not certain songs too early, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
It just build up to a point where we're doing
that sing along where we're on that nostalgic moment of
you and your tens, your twenties of Terrence J and
Rocks on one O six in Park, or if you
were older like me, you know what I mean, freeing
age one Park and all the songs that you have
memorized because we were all at home together, like bringing
you to that moment and then you know, get getting
(09:13):
you out of there on a high note, you know,
going gospel. So it was important to like learn what
that looked like and to understand that you could control
the vibe of the party without speaking. And that's when
it went back to that choir director mindset. So it
was like picking spots, let them do the talking.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I choose to like pick and choose.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Now it's about like forty five minutes that I'm really
trying to heavily be on the mic, But early on
it's like greeting people like your ushers. I go around
every party, you know, back when we were first starting out,
and even now we still do it.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
My wife and I.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
We meet everybody, we say thank you so much for
coming out, the same way you would at church, make
them feel welcomed at home. People don't ask me these questions,
so this is great. But secondarily, we used to do
it because we didn't want them to leave. Because if
you had like a group of four that didn't think
the party was going to be popping, and they left.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Stay Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
As a mechanism but now it's just you set you usher,
feeling the bob early on to get people to have
self facilitate the party.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I love that because you know, I'm one of those
people when I go to an event, like I'm looking
at the logistics if I'm looking at the tresses that's
holding the lights, and you know how they weren't in
the wires? Are the wires? Neat are they just ran
up there? And I was paying attention to you. I
was on stage last year afro Tech for the while
at Andrew Hill, and so I'm watching you on stage
and I'm paying attention to the level of excellence and
(10:39):
perfection that you were operating in. And there was as
an attendee, they wouldn't notice that a certain drop didn't
land when you wanted it to land. But I saw
you go off on the DJ. No shade to the DJ.
But I'm watching you like here's things and see things.
(10:59):
I'm watching you like, you know, getting ready to go
in because you you're noticing things. And this is gonna
lead to a question. I don't know what the question is,
but I just want you to speak to this, like
what are you seeing in or what are you feeling?
In the space that says, you know what, bro, you
gotta feel me because this is there's something about the
preacher like you got to know when the organ should drive,
(11:20):
and you got to know when the organ is supposed
to drive, and so he speak to this.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
So, you know, six or seven years into curating these spaces,
like it's to get to that point where you feel
highly likely that almost every person, almost like every single person,
almost every person in that event is going to have
a great time. That build up, you got to hit
the marks to get that build up, to build that nostalgia,
(11:48):
and so I'm extremely meticulous when it comes to that.
And when we think about the future of livet the
house party and the music festival, Like even that Afrotech
event that you're mentioning.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I lost my voice. I was supposed to host the
entire night.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
I couldn't, but it actually unlocked something that you know,
I hadn't leaned into heavily, which was like being an
executive producer.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I pretty much eped that event.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
And now along with the Blavity team, we're excited to
executive produce this festival for everybody that's locked into culture,
that's locked into the musicality, musicality and the diverse, you know,
plate of songs and artistry that we all have grown
to love. So that level of meticulousness that I was
(12:34):
bringing to R and B House Party, Like, it's a
level of meticulousness that Afrotech has with all of.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
The events in the Wilde event.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
There's level of meticulousness that you have with this podcast
in your posting on stage. So I think that we
really really fit well with each other to you know,
understand the needs and put the people at the forthfile.
It wasn't about my ego. It was about making sure
that we gave the people what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
When I was sorry, nobody was like you were going off,
But if you were on stage, you saw I saw it.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I saw it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I fell for him a little bit, I'm like, but yeah,
but he took it like a champ. He took it
like a chimp.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
He's just.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
And so one of the things, and I do encourage
everybody who is not listening to your podcast with Morgan
Debond on the Journey that you should go listen to
that podcast because you talk about some things. I'm not
going to step on those questions, but there are things
I want to follow on to. But you talked about
getting acquired and having to learn how to get acquired,
and most people, if you ever get acquired, it happens
(13:41):
once in your life, and so it's kind of one
of those things that you got to do right and
you're only going to do it one time ever, And
so how did you learn how to get acquired? So
you were asking the right questions, the right call outs
in the contract, were picking your interest in et cetera.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
So first I was respectful smart enough to know what
I did not know, and we put together that's me
and Kareem, my business partner for our house party c
or A team. Uh he has his NBA. I graduated,
but we were like no, no, no, no, no. You see
what's called a due diligence checklist and it was the
most robust, in depth but naked document I have ever
(14:22):
had to fill out my life.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Like you know.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I actually got a chance to meet Wasser, who is
the chief business officer here, maybe a week into being acquired.
He was like, hey, Charles, nice to meet you. I said, no,
it's not nice to meet you. You know everything my
social Security numbers give me. But that's the level of
depth that you had to go into. And so the
(14:49):
team that I put together, I'll give some per sistent people. No,
my account want played a huge role in the acquisition.
My lawyer, my my counsel played a huge role in
the acquisition in terms of breadlining and getting and explaining
all of the legal terms from all the different contracting components.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
And then I had an.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Acquisition consultant who was able to do research on like
what this acquisition looks like, what comps look like, and
all of that for us to be able to properly
valuate what we thought the brand was worth on the
asset was worth. And then obviously we had conversations with
Poverty about where they thought the asset was worked in
Lower air Landed and then coming to the middle of
(15:29):
how we both can walk away from this fielding real
good about moving forward.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So you mentioned, you know, when you first started to
brost these conversations, like your business was kind of all over,
like your documents were everywhere. Things were not because you
weren't planning to be acquired. You weren't building a business
to be acquired. Talbot talk about the bridge between having
stuff all over the place to having it in a
format that you can actually deliver it.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Yeah, so the term is called data will and shout
out to my account USAIO, a big copple of account.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
He might have listed his name, but you could look
at Mosiah.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
He had been preaching to me about a data room
for multiple years. But being CEO slash host, which are
two completely different whole side has me on the road
literally seventy percent of every weekend, I will and CEO
side the planning of the events. Like I'm very very
(16:25):
much in the weeds. From the experience standpoint as well.
That type of stuff, I don't really care. But when
it came to, you know, a company doing their due
diligence on you, I wish I would have cared when
he told me to care two years ago, and had
that stuff in order, and had all of our partners outline,
and had all of our you know, P and L
(16:48):
in order gross versus net and all of that. What
I really cared about, what my business partner really cared about,
was our net profit because that was what we were
able to take home our business partners. But gross top line,
that is a very important metric for companies, and we
were oftentimes not you know, leaning into doing things that
we're going to help us at the top line, but
(17:10):
doing things that we're going to, you know, help us
from a net profit perspective.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
So just really.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Understanding that balance with something that we needed to do,
and we just had to get our business in order.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
There the very quickly.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
The bill took place very quick, but we were both
motivated to make it happen. But I would just say
to somebody who was even starting out their entrepreneurial journey,
had get your ROC now, get your business credit card.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Now, don't file.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Your taxes as an individual, like have your entity separate
from your person.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It was a mess four or five years ago.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Then it got better after I paid the government a
lot of money, but it still wasn't to the level
that it needed to be for like an acquisition.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
So I would just say, take care of your business.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, you are very much R and B House Party,
and therefore you are very much Blackvity House Party like
you're It's kind of like the acquisition of a personal brand.
Because you talked about when you were building R and
B House Party befre that people were going to the
party because they wanted to know if you were there,
and so when you're being acquired. You know, I've talked
(18:15):
to so many founders who are who will talk about
the dismay of being a when you're the when you're
the face of it, how hard that is to sell
it because you're a human being. Can you talk about
and you still have other things? I mean, you've got
you know for better best podcast that you're still a
personal brand and so can you talk about the pathway
for very much a personality driven brand in an acquisition
(18:41):
type of landscape.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah, so I think that in an acquisition landscape, the
personal brand it's actually worked in my favor. And it
worked in my favor because you know, Blavity Morgan executive
team could see me fitting into the culture. This was
just going to be I said, purchase agreement hard stop,
thank you for what you did before. Now we take
(19:05):
it to the next level independent of view. You know,
that is what could have been the call out if
the personality or the person didn't fit with the overall
company's brand value. So I'm just appreciative and grateful that
they saw, you know, who I was, you know, in
my previous roles as a leader in tech across recruiting
and the partnerships.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
They saw that as a value add to an organization.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
How I operated as a CEO to manage my business
and secure brand partnerships and you know, to mortgage point say,
one of the hardest work of people that she's met,
which is a compliment, but you know, a second nature
to me because I really really cared, cared about all
the things that I did in tech to enable people
to get jobs. I cared about every experience that we
(19:49):
curated with the R and B House Party, and so
it made a lot of sense to bring the person
with the brand. And I'm just really excited about what
the future looks like. You know, now being under the umbrella,
I feel like there's an army, you know, what happens,
all aligned to create these experiences for people, versus just me,
my business partner and the great, great, great team that
(20:11):
helped build R and.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
B House Party or what it was, and now being
the director of Community of Blavity. So there had to
be conversations around, Okay, there's there could be one day
where Charles is not the guy out there on stage
one day, So how do you continue to build this
thing so where you're still a so where you can
build in the in the interim, like this is based
(20:33):
on Charles Beloved, you know, coming along, but there's there's
a day two years, five years, twenty years away that
it's not going to be Charles.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
Yeah, and that makes that makes a lot of sense.
And it's already not Charles. This is Glavity House Party.
And that even you know, to some degree, had to
be an ego cham Like, this is not Charles's baby anymore.
This is Glavity House Party. We're opening up the demographic
of you know, people that fall under what we're looking
for from our experiences.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
From an inclusive standpoint.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
It was a silo community that we were trying to
really attract. Now we've opened that up and we think
that with the things that we're able to do, everybody
can benefit and have a great time at the experiences
that we ultimately curate. But in this seat now it's
general maiged community. It's really all about the community. It's
about the community of DJs that exist that we can
(21:29):
amplify through the things that we do. It's the community
of hosts who have so many different styles that can
add value to the events that we care about to do.
It is the community of music and the diversity of
music have been gone and done events and Ghana. You
gotta me feel like I'm preaching. I told you'll can
build it up, you know what I mean. I'm an
Afro peace the great game. My wife is you know,
(21:52):
from Antigua and Jamaica, what type of music do they love?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Soca and all that.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
I'm anovilist, But to celebrate all of those cultures in
the constructs of what's to come, you know what I mean.
But still having that r and beat, you know, that's
my bread and butt of that gospel.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, that's my bread and But we want to open
it up.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
And so I'm excited that in this role, you know,
we will have the opportunity to ultimately create new avenues
and highlight other people. It is no longer the beloved show,
and I'm really excited about what that.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Could look like.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
There's this quote I found that I'm going to read back,
and it's something you said a couple of years ago,
and it made sense because speaking to what we're talking
about today, and you said, the biggest challenge that I've
had to overcome was fear. I think a lot of us,
myself included approach problems with a high level of caution.
When you overcome that fear and try something new, you
(22:45):
get a whole new perspective and a whole different set
of learnings and options become available because you tried. But
if you just never actually step out on faith and
actually do something where you already know what not doing
looks like. So overcoming fear is something very very hard
to do. That's something you said, Yeah, yeah, you said that. Wow,
(23:08):
So you said that, and so I want to I
want to bring that that quote up under the guise
of getting acquired, because there's you know, when you're building
a company, particularly a lifestyle thing, to whereas you you
may have some of your homies, some of your people
that grew up with you working with you, and then
somebody wants it. You're like, there's a part of you,
this side that wants the bag. Yeah, but there's also
(23:29):
a part that's like romantic about the thing that you built.
You're like, this is my baby. And so that fear
that what is that internal dialogue like where you're like, yeah,
I like the number you presented me with, but how
am I going to let go of this thing?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
So to that end, it was important that I actually
heavily leaned on where that initial quote came from, which is,
you know, the birth of R and B House party
and the fear that came of doing something new, or
the fear that came with the career change from working
in finance to you know, taking an agency recruiter job
that paid me less than my internships when I was
(24:10):
you know, five years into my career. I leaned on that,
and it was if we look at the brand five
years from now, and I look at my career five
years from now, I know what this path looks like.
I mean, tech was laid off that there were another roles.
There were other opportunities that could come. You get you know,
your marginal increase in salary, you get a higher level
(24:32):
that equity package increasing slightly. But then there was like
this other path of being a P and L owner,
being general manager community, doing things that are literally the
most authentic to the twenty four hour charles of the
entire day and learning under the tutelage of a Morgan
Debond and a small White and you know, being on
the back end of afrotech that I love as a product,
(24:55):
Like what does five years of that look so personally
hate when people say it wasn't about the money that
let me.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Be clear, I would fix my mouth to say that.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
But the value pop for me for us to be
able to get to the finish line was the money,
honestly with secondary for me, what me and my business
partner were extremely after was knowing like, hey, there's some
point we're not gonna be able to do this experience
in the way that it was, and that means it's
either gonna phase out, that means that we're gonna have
(25:31):
to shift it. But there was a shift that was
going to need to ultimately take place. And what better
way for that to have taken place than an opportunity
for our community to be able to get this experience
on a ten X level of a music festival and
then secondarily from a career side, the role was just
literally from day one, the minute that you mentioned it,
(25:52):
where I saw as the next step for my life,
my career that the role was a yes.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
From the first call, it was getting through all the
other people.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
So talk to me about you said, this deal happened quick,
So talk to me like, what, like what the milestones
look like when you're putting from that first DM to
the day where you both signed off.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
What does that? What do those mile markers look like?
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Yeah, so initially you know the conversation. Then it was like, Okay,
we're going to figure this out. I'll introduce you to
my cheap business off for Sir watsap, and then he
sent the due diligence checklist. So I was like quite
quite quiet on social for a while, but because I
was literally putting in twenty four hour days to get
all of that stuff together. So it took about a
(26:36):
week of many sleepless nights on my accountant, myself, my
business partner are consultant to figure out all the documents
that needed to be in place to be able to
present back so that Blobary could then do their due
diligence to see if this was something that they did
actually want, and so went through that the NBA and
(26:57):
then from that point we were able to trying to
transition into actually determining what the value of the asset
was and negotiations. Negotiations took a while because this was
quite the complex deal A because it was going to
include an employment contract for me, meaning that there was
not going to be Charles doing his tech job, and
(27:17):
then this on the side.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
This was now going to be my full time role.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
I have a lot of things happening as Charles Beloved
the influencer, and then there was a separation that needed
to take place between Charles Beloved the talent and Charles
Beloved the host of R and B House Party, in
which I used R and B House Party interchangeably with
myself since I went to every event under the construct
of the now Blobbery House Party.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
My role is to produce it.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
But not necessarily be talent at it, and so we
had to like segment those two and then price out
what that looked like and then that I said, outside
of me being a talent. So it was extremely complex
to make all these different pieces make sense. That part
probably took an additional week and a half, but we
(28:04):
were I mean, Morgan was working twenty four seven. Whys
was working twenty four seven because I would take me
a few days to come back, and I'm sure she
was like, what's taking someone with texting men just like, bro,
what's up? And I'm trying to get advice. We're creating
this document. And then once we actually got to it,
the actual negotiations happened there very fast because we were
(28:27):
both motivated. She understood what the value prop of you know,
I was trying to get for myself and my shareholder Kareem,
as well as.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
You know, understanding what the future needed to look like for.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Us to still be incentivized to build this into what
we think it has potential to be. Then everything worked out,
but we just had to be silent because we had
to do it. It was suppress release. So I was
actually like, they're working already, no one knew.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
She was like, Charles, please do not go out other
people until oppress rely. So then when I was able
to happen, it was an exciting day.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
One more piece though, is that you know, I think
we undervalued or didn't really put enough stock into what
people would think about this collaboration coming together. I thought
it was a great call, not just personally, but for
the brand and for the people and for you know,
(29:23):
the people that we serve, which is our patrons.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
But it was a lot of positive feedback about a.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Black owned entity acquiring another black entity, about what collaboration
looks like. Promoters thinking of saying, hey, there's a new
pathway that we didn't even know existed for the things
that we're building from people to I mean, it blew
my mind how positive people felt about im. Obviously, I'm
sure some people that was like, no, horrible idea, and
(29:49):
I get that, but you know, we're excited for the
opportunity to try and.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Prove that this was the right call. As people were saying.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Afro Tech is a global gathering where inclusive tech companies
meet innovat It's the only tech event you.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Need all year.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Get ready for Afrotech twenty twenty three in Austin, Texas,
November first through the fifth. We built a whole temper
you can use to help you get your employer to
sponsor your trip and enjoy experiences built for every stage
your career. Whether you're a college student looking for your
next internship, or if you work in Avention Capital looking
for your next business to invest in, and if you're
looking for a co founder or people that's join your team,
there's no better place to be. The massive corporate layoffs
(30:24):
of twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three have affected
our community in a big way. An afro Tech wants
to help you get back on your feet with skill development,
making it easier to switch industries.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
If that's your route.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
In an afrotech, you'll make connections to help you get
your next opportunity. Visit afrotech dot com slash conference to
learn more. Is you've used the phrase here on that
you know Blavity boughten asset and you've not said Blavity
bought a company. Can you talk about the difference between
buying the assets and buying a company, which Blavity didn't do.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
So when Morgan and Shama business as all over the place,
we had two LLC's that kind of I want to
say co manage the brand of R and B House Party.
It's made a little bit more difficult. So we have
the Quest LLC, which Kareem and I started, and we use.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
That as the housing for R and B House Party.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
I also have Charles Kirkandaal LLC, which ultimately we pivoted
R and B House Party two. But I was operating
all of my individual Charles Beloved things out of that LLC.
So the money without her, you know, spilling my dirty
laundry was all mixed in because I had influencer stuff,
brand partnerships, I had hosting stuff, stuff, and R and
(31:39):
B house party revenue all going into you know, the
same LLC, So that would have been a purchase of
the company.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Charles kirkandaal LLC. She said, I don't want that be.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Very clear, but the asset purchase agreement was like the
logo purchasing, the licensing, the e mail list serve, purchasing
our website domain. So just all things that were R
and B house party specific that could be transferred of
ownership is well. Ultimately the APA asset purchase agreement was purchasing.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
No, I love that.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
The elephant in the room is how you guys are friends,
you know, and so how do you go to the
negotiating table against somebody that you know previous pre pregnancy,
like you might have a drink with and you know
what I mean, and so you know, how do you
do that?
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Yeah, it was it was very tough. I know I
had a lot of frustrated days. I'm sure she had
a number of frustrated days. And you know, working with
friends is always like what's the word, A touchy, touchy
topic girl, and maybe even discussing something that you should
not do. I actually disagree with that for a number
(32:54):
of reasons. But primarily I think that doing business with
your friends when you both have interry and how moral
compass and you know how.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
A shared vision is the greatest.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Kareem is my business partner and also my best friend,
and we have operated great and sure we get frustrated
with each other. That makes sense, and so on my
operatings with Morgan. It wasn't like this is the first
thing that we ever did together. We have four years
of partnering with Blivity and R and B House Party
as entities, also seeing success with the collaborations, but also
(33:27):
going through the growing pains of the yes is the
nose the disappointment. And so I think from my own
personal purview, Morgan has always had my best interests at part.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Now in this deal she had blobdy.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Art, But I couldnot lose sight of that every single
thing that we have done as business entities, as Blivity
and as R and B House Party has benefited me exponentially.
So I knew the collaboration would work and just understanding like, hey,
it was never Charles Morgan thing. It was a business
thing and a business thing, and that was how we
(34:04):
were able to get to the table and work together.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
But our moving forward relationship.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
I have worked with all the personalities you could possibly
think of, and Morgan is a phenomenal CEO. I'm excited
to learn so much from her and the other executives
in this organization. But we keep the friendship separate. We
get frustrated with each other more. I'm gonna tell you
an example. Morgan asked the R and B House party,
or to say, block the ass RMB House party, to
(34:30):
produce happy hours in the pandemic at three different times
across three different locations.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
And I listen what I need to three pm, LA,
five pm Chicago, six pm New York, exact same time,
same video needed to play in three different me I said,
she's nuts, that's crazy now.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
So I referenced that, like she's a.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Visionary, I believe in doing the work and to that
we're gonna be able to make anything.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Of benefit in the community.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
And so, you know, I've heard these stories of tech
companies particularly but companies in general, when they get acquired,
they call these big all hands meetings, get everybody in
the room so everybody can hear, the whole staff can hear,
and then there's questions about what okay, what happens to
us based on you know, this us selling to this
other thing. What happens to the team that you built?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, that's great that you asked that.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
And so from an ownership perspective, you know, I was
an owner along with my wife and then Kareem equity
owner and started a sweat equity and earned the opportunity
to be the partner of R and B House Party
and just a strong business mind Michigan NBA owner of
a you know, a Chip fil A.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
He's just phenomenal guy. And I couldn't have gotten to
this point without them.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
So I want to say that now R and B
House Party is the DJs, is the team that has
just helped us get to this point. And so while
they were not a part of the acquisition in terms
of like becoming employees of Livity, I think the opportunities
for them with me in this community role are endless.
You know, the number of events that we could do,
(36:12):
the visibility of those events go ten next. So when
you think about, you know, having the stage of twenty
three hundred people at Drew Hill versus having the stage
of ten thousand plus, I'm gonna say plus at the
Music festival, we're able to further amplify their work. The photographers, Hey,
you you only doing the seventeen events a year that
(36:32):
you know I can do on the weekends. Now you
can do thatfro text you can you know what I mean.
So it's just way more opportunity for me to be
able to bring them along in this seat without it
getting to a stop data just saying hey, I no
longer want to do this, this is the end. Like,
the opportunities for the team are endless, and to amplify
the amazing things that they were doing for R and
(36:53):
B House Party, now they could do it for the
Liberty House Party and maybe even for all these other
brands that we're going to bring in to be a
part of this system and community.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
If you hadn't lost your job, would you have considered
an acquisition?
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yes, absolutely, I absolutely would have considered the acquisition I did.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
I do not know that I.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Would have wanted to do the full time thing, because
everyone asked me, they were like, Okay, we see the
trajectory of R and B.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
This is the Lord pushing you to do R and
B House Party full time.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
And every time somebody said that, I said, absolutely not
because I love what my role was at my previous company.
I loved the career that I had in tech. So
this was very unique for me to be able to
steal essentially do that, but on the other side, not
the client side, but on the afrotech side, to create
(37:48):
these experiences, to assist in getting people jobs and creating
the spaces for all of that to take place.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
That's what I love.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
It did not feel like work to me, and so
I still get that aspect, plus being able to do
the efense stuff for R and B or now Black
House Party. And so when I tell you, it was
the fine alignment for this to have been the opportunity
for this to have been the company, because if it
were another company that was interested, I probably would have
(38:16):
been open to selling that I said, but not like
working there full time.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I wanted to work here. It was very clear. I
was like, well, a month more, what we're doing outside?
Speaker 4 (38:27):
You actually posted a photo from old last acrotechnic video
because I actually took.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
The photo of all of you all yeah, yeah, yes,
and I had Phonemos sitting there. I have Phon because
I'm still why I wasn't in the photo. I'm not
a black employee. I was the one that ye have
those my homies.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Out here out here. I'm excited, and so I think
this is a good time to being to bring up
Queen Charen because the partnership there. You guys have talked
about this on your you know, for better or best,
and I think it's important and there's something here because
you know, I wouldn't be at Blavity afro Tech if
it wasn't for my wife. And so when I went
(39:08):
to my second afro Tech, I took my wife with
me because.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
I'm like, you've got to see this thing.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
And at the end of it, she's like, wonderful, great,
all the things. You should not come back unless you're
on stage, and I'm like, how am I going to
get on that stage? And so, to make a long
story short, I'm like, all right, but challenge accepted. That's
what she said. I'm gonna figure it out. So I
put a picture of that, that last afrotech on my
vision board, and every day I woke up and I
(39:37):
saw the thing on my dresser and I said, by
the time they opened up speaker proposals, I'm gonna apply.
When they put up the speaker proposals. I actually got
an email and said, hey, we actually want you to
run it, and so I wouldn't have had the vision
if my wife hadn't called that out. And you talked
about your journey like your wife saw it, and she
(39:58):
saw R and B House Party and you before you
saw it, and therefore you're here now doing Blavity house party.
So can you talk about the importance of that partnership
and what it brought out of you.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah, So I would just say a having a partner,
whether that is through marriage or friendship, that's able to
see your blind spots, because it was a blind spot
for me to know that I could monetize my energy.
And that's literally what R and B House Party was
was a monetization of the energy that I bring into
the world. And I was going to other people's events,
(40:33):
literally going viral on Snapchat and whatever medium was popping
at that time, like this guy's in the circle dance
that through it all, kicking heads and all of that.
And she's like, you're going to these other people's events
and making a popping. The promoter's like, are you coming?
You know what I'm saying, Making sure you're in the
building because the parties on another level. When you're in
the building, you need to create your own and so
(40:56):
that blind spot and being able to listen to it,
being able to have a part of that say, hey,
we're willing to put up our money, you know what
I mean. Like obviously the first time we did it,
you know, we just got five dollars ahead. But when
it came to touring, when it came to expansion, it
was out of our personal savings account. We saving for
we saving for homes where you know, having kids and
(41:19):
having a partner that really truly believed in what it was.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
That she had built with me was key.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
And when we get to you know, the partnerships with
our protech and things of that nature, it was like, hey,
she put the battery in my back to be able
to take risks and be comfortable with risks.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
She works every day. She's genuinely a queen. She's a boss.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
Even when I was let go on a random, you know,
Wednesday in June, I didn't think about, thank God, about us,
you know, losing our house or anything. This wanting to
go to work every day, she getting paved. Let me
just figure it out. I didn't have to worry, and
so that's just truly, truly, truly a blessing. And without
her none of this is possible. Well, I can't travel
(42:00):
seventeen weekends twenty weekends out the year without someone taking
care of managing our children and managing our household. And
she does that on top of her job. So I
spoil her as best I possibly can. She says, this
money is.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Part of this. I'm not going now far now, wal.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
But so I want to end this talking about where
Blavity House Party is going. But I'm going to preface
it with something you've said before, and I love it
because our generation has not had its own time, Joiner,
And I think that's a beautiful thing that you've had
that vision for yourself. Like you know, I want to
(42:42):
get bigger than just parties. I want to do cruises.
I want to do concert series, all these things, and
this provides that jet fuel. So where is Blavity House
Party going?
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:54):
And where's the community of Glavity going too?
Speaker 4 (42:56):
Absolutely, you know, the goals of blab the house party
is to celebrate culture and connect communities. And that nission
statement that has yet to roll out publicly, what you
always see soon is because that is the ultimate goal.
It's not about us, it's really about we. And there
are you know a lot of festivals events on the market,
(43:17):
and they're all phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I go to them.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
But we're excited to kind of step into that space
as well and bring something new with the different value proposition,
a unique market positioning to this space and this space
for everybody. And so what we're trying to do is
again that musical diversity that makes everybody feel inclusive, that
celebrates all the different you know, makeups and backgrounds of
(43:43):
a community. I've always from a recruitment perspective and that's
like my subject.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Out of expertise.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
They say, hey, it's diversity of ethnicity, but it's diversity
of thought.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
I'm from the Shah, you're from toll House. Talk to me,
you know what.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
And we have soul got different minds even under this
ecosystem of having some familiarity.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
And so it's just excited to be able to build for.
Speaker 4 (44:08):
That and across these tent pole moments that we have
grown to love and enjoy. NBA All Star Games, we're
talking about sports, Grammys, We're talking about music potentially our boss,
We're talking about art, and fashion. We're able to curate
this experience that is about you, that is about inclusiveness
(44:29):
and the ecosystem that's already created things that you know,
this broad demographic is excited about. So we're excited to
just keep it about the community, about the people, and
create this music festival and then this road map of
times that we can have touch points and just have
self facilitated.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Black Tech Green Money is a production to Blavity afro
Tech on the Black Effect podcast network at Night Heart
Medium and it's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas,
with additional production support by Sarah Ergin and Rose mc lucas.
Special thank you to Michael Davis, Vanessa Suruno, and Maya Mouldrew.
Learn more about my Guess and other tech distructors an
(45:21):
innovators at afrotech dot com. Enjoying Black Tech Green Money.
Share this with somebody, Go get your money.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
He's in love.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Afro Tech is a global gathering where inclusive tech companies
meet innovators. It's the only tech event you.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Need all year.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Get ready for afro Tech twenty twenty three in Austin, Texas.
No ven refers through the fifth We built a whole
temper you can use to help you get your employer
to sponsor your trip and enjoy experiences built for every
stage of your career. Whether you're a college student looking
for your next internship, or if you work in avention
capital looking for your next business to invest in, and
if you're looking for a co founder of people that's
join your team, there's no better place to be. The
(46:04):
massive corporate layoffs of twenty twenty two and twenty twenty
three have affected our community in a big way. An
afrotech wants to help you get back on your feet
with skill development, making it easier to switch industries if
that's your route. In an afrotech, you'll make connections to
help you get your next opportunity. Visit afrotech dot com
slash conference to learn more.
Afro Tech is a global gathering where inclusive tech companies
meet innovators. It's the only tech event you.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Need all year.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Get ready for Afrotech twenty twenty three in Austin, Texas,
November first through the fifth.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We built a whole.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Temper you can use to help you get your employer
to sponsor your trip and enjoy experiences built for every
stage of your career. Whether you're a college student looking
for your next internship, or if you're work in a
venture capital looking for your next business to invest in,
and if you're looking for a co founder of a
people that'soin your team, there's no better place to be.
The massive corporate layoffs of twenty twenty two and twenty
twenty three have affected our community in a big way.
(00:32):
An Afrotech wants to help you get back on your
feet with skill development, making it easier to switch industries
if that's your route. In an afro tech, you'll make
connections to help you get your next opportunity. Visit afrotech
dot com Slash conference.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
To learn more.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'm Will Lucas and this as Black Tech, Green Money.
Charles Beloved cirtaindal is the founder at R and B
House Party a unique party experience where R and B
and gospel and music are at the center, bringing the
vibes as well as the nostalgia. Just recently, R and
B a House Party was acquired by Blavity, Inc. Which
is also the peering company Afrotech is rebranded as Blavity
(01:08):
House Party. Charles comes aboard as the general Manager Community
at Blavity, Charles was creating even more experiences for us
to connect globally around music, networking and more. Pre used
to joining Blavity, Charles was also a recruiter and had
leadership roles at companies like Facebook, Play Versus, and Stripe.
But by nightfall, he was back on the stage in
(01:30):
every corner of the globe curating R and B experiences.
After being laid off earlier this summer, Glavity CEO Morgan
Debond sent them a DM that basically said, you don't
have to live two separate lives. Come to Blavity.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yes, So in June of this year, just a knowing
what Blavity is, what has been built over time, you know,
it just felt like a blessing to even be considered
for an opportunity to come join you guys, in house,
but the novice thinking that I had to think that
(02:07):
it was only gonna be just for what I had
proven to do from like a talent acquisition space to
date and not the product that you know, we had
been building myself in Kareem over some years and have
partners successfully with blvity on for so many, so many years.
So when it became clear that the opportunity that was
(02:27):
being presented was an acquisition, I think.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
That it a blew my mind. But be put me and.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
My business partner in the space to say, not only
is this like incredible for us as founders and what
that looks like, but be like to be able to
join forces with this company, like this was the right company.
So it was really exciting and should Knight got it done?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Jada, because it's so interesting to me because you know,
coming to Blavity, like my experience like on day one,
like being in slack on this one black really slack,
it's super black, and you get the memes, you get
the jokes, like you get all the things, and you've
talked about having the code switch in your corporate career,
so like, what what has that experience been like knowing
(03:12):
that you can bring your full self. You can be
beloved over here.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah yeah, like and the intriguing party is beloved is
signed to bloviting.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Now I'm really my authentic self.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
But what was interesting to me to see now having
been a part of the company for going on a month,
what's the incredible infrastructure that has built the culture that.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Is built here.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
And I'm just a fan, like I'm in slack and
I'm even feeling like, hey.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Am im too corporate.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Meme And it's really because people are just like being
the authentic self. The level of depth of conversation that
I've even seen take place on political issues and things.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And I'm from.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
I'll go it's a place where hey, MJ said, Republicans
are democrats by shooting.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
That is that is my line of thinking.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
But to just see the depth of conversation that has
taken place in this organization, it's just been beautiful, Like
people feel heard.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It's just an incredible company Like.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
That is one of the things that I felt like
I knew, but I didn't really know.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Until I joined.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I understand And before we talk about the business, I
want to get into the beginning of your journey here,
because if anybody has seen you on stage, they can
tell that guy has directed a choir before. And you've
talked about this, and it makes me think, and I've
said this before on this podcast, my favorite quote from
Steve Jobs, which says, you can't connect the dots looking forward.
You can only connect the dots looking backward. And so
(04:47):
when you look back at your life, you can see, oh,
now I know why I did that, so I can
do this. And so can you talk about how that
journey from being a kid in the black church directing
the choir enables you to do what you do today.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
No, that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And you know I didn't realize and I won't say
that I won't be a pastor. People are on my
comments saying that that's inevitable future.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
My dad is a pastor. I'm leaving that all to him.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
But you know, directing the high school choir the entire time,
and then going to college primarily white institution, who had
a gospel choir and was able to like step in
and lead that choir for another four years.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I was heavy into like music production.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
And I thought I was gonna, you know, be a
famous I don't want to say singer because I know
people who could really sing. I'm not a famous background singer,
like I knew my space, and then I just let
all of that passion and music, that love for bringing
people together to the wayside, you know what I mean.
I just attend church, and the hecticness of our lives
(05:58):
didn't allow me to like continue being acquired director. But
who knew this medium of r and being music you
can still kind of like bring that level of ministry
and how people feel in the way that they feel
leaving church, which is to be uplifted, which is to
you know, be inspired, and that is all that we
were trying to do at the now. You know, formerly
(06:18):
I call myself the artist formally, and what we will
continue to do through Blaviting House party bring that level
of inclusiveness and that level of community. So I didn't
even know it that the church was grooming this opportunity
to kind of be in the seat of like a
community gatherer or community organizer.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
But I'm very thankful for that. And be on key,
don't come to correct.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Somebody's off in soprano section with the sopranos flat. So
so when I think about you know, there's a story
you told about having to learn how to host, because
it's one thing that's different about just being a hype
man on stage and yelling out a bunch of cool stuff,
but learning how to actually create a narrative of the night,
create movement to the party. Can you talk to me
(07:11):
about learning how to create these moments during a party?
To us, you found success where a lot of people
have tried. They just party promoters and it's a lit party,
but they've not been able to have the type of
success you've had.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So I really just replicated church. And there's an arc
to every church service. You have typically the beginning praise
and worship, and they set in the tune for like choir,
and then they're going up a notch, and then you
get to the sermon, which again is high, but.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
It's also low.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
But then they build up their sermon to end on
like a crescendo of shouting praise or an organ going
they're tithes and off a mixture. You know they're not
on a high too, and then they get out of there.
And so I was just over talking. When I first
started out, I did not understand how to translate this movement,
(08:03):
which is choir directing, where I didn't have the microphone
into where to pick my spots.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And then that was when it became.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Clear and I had hired previous hosts, and I just
felt like the vibe wasn't the same as when I
did it. And then I had even like brought in
artists and things, and I didn't in my opinion, the
artists had done very very well. But patrons will respond
on our page and say, hey, we prefer the party
with just you. Then that was a nice to have,
And I was like, wait a minute, Okay, we really
(08:33):
need to like lock in and understand what this experience
is for the people and continue and consistently deliver that.
So what that ultimately looked like was us building a
crescendo of moments, us taking you on a musical journey.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Not to not certain songs too early, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
It just build up to a point where we're doing
that sing along where we're on that nostalgic moment of
you and your tens, your twenties of Terrence J and
Rocks on one O six in Park, or if you
were older like me, you know what I mean, freeing
age one Park and all the songs that you have
memorized because we were all at home together, like bringing
you to that moment and then you know, get getting
(09:13):
you out of there on a high note, you know,
going gospel. So it was important to like learn what
that looked like and to understand that you could control
the vibe of the party without speaking. And that's when
it went back to that choir director mindset. So it
was like picking spots, let them do the talking.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I choose to like pick and choose.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Now it's about like forty five minutes that I'm really
trying to heavily be on the mic, But early on
it's like greeting people like your ushers. I go around
every party, you know, back when we were first starting out,
and even now we still do it.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
My wife and I.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
We meet everybody, we say thank you so much for
coming out, the same way you would at church, make
them feel welcomed at home. People don't ask me these questions,
so this is great. But secondarily, we used to do
it because we didn't want them to leave. Because if
you had like a group of four that didn't think
the party was going to be popping, and they left.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Stay Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
As a mechanism but now it's just you set you usher,
feeling the bob early on to get people to have
self facilitate the party.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I love that because you know, I'm one of those
people when I go to an event, like I'm looking
at the logistics if I'm looking at the tresses that's
holding the lights, and you know how they weren't in
the wires? Are the wires? Neat are they just ran
up there? And I was paying attention to you. I
was on stage last year afro Tech for the while
at Andrew Hill, and so I'm watching you on stage
and I'm paying attention to the level of excellence and
(10:39):
perfection that you were operating in. And there was as
an attendee, they wouldn't notice that a certain drop didn't
land when you wanted it to land. But I saw
you go off on the DJ. No shade to the DJ.
But I'm watching you like here's things and see things.
(10:59):
I'm watching you like, you know, getting ready to go
in because you you're noticing things. And this is gonna
lead to a question. I don't know what the question is,
but I just want you to speak to this, like
what are you seeing in or what are you feeling?
In the space that says, you know what, bro, you
gotta feel me because this is there's something about the
preacher like you got to know when the organ should drive,
(11:20):
and you got to know when the organ is supposed
to drive, and so he speak to this.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
So, you know, six or seven years into curating these spaces,
like it's to get to that point where you feel
highly likely that almost every person, almost like every single person,
almost every person in that event is going to have
a great time. That build up, you got to hit
the marks to get that build up, to build that nostalgia,
(11:48):
and so I'm extremely meticulous when it comes to that.
And when we think about the future of livet the
house party and the music festival, Like even that Afrotech
event that you're mentioning.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I lost my voice. I was supposed to host the
entire night.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
I couldn't, but it actually unlocked something that you know,
I hadn't leaned into heavily, which was like being an
executive producer.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I pretty much eped that event.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
And now along with the Blavity team, we're excited to
executive produce this festival for everybody that's locked into culture,
that's locked into the musicality, musicality and the diverse, you know,
plate of songs and artistry that we all have grown
to love. So that level of meticulousness that I was
(12:34):
bringing to R and B House Party, Like, it's a
level of meticulousness that Afrotech has with all of.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
The events in the Wilde event.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
There's level of meticulousness that you have with this podcast
in your posting on stage. So I think that we
really really fit well with each other to you know,
understand the needs and put the people at the forthfile.
It wasn't about my ego. It was about making sure
that we gave the people what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
When I was sorry, nobody was like you were going off,
But if you were on stage, you saw I saw it.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I saw it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I fell for him a little bit, I'm like, but yeah,
but he took it like a champ. He took it
like a chimp.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
He's just.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
And so one of the things, and I do encourage
everybody who is not listening to your podcast with Morgan
Debond on the Journey that you should go listen to
that podcast because you talk about some things. I'm not
going to step on those questions, but there are things
I want to follow on to. But you talked about
getting acquired and having to learn how to get acquired,
and most people, if you ever get acquired, it happens
(13:41):
once in your life, and so it's kind of one
of those things that you got to do right and
you're only going to do it one time ever, And
so how did you learn how to get acquired? So
you were asking the right questions, the right call outs
in the contract, were picking your interest in et cetera.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
So first I was respectful smart enough to know what
I did not know, and we put together that's me
and Kareem, my business partner for our house party c
or A team. Uh he has his NBA. I graduated,
but we were like no, no, no, no, no. You see
what's called a due diligence checklist and it was the
most robust, in depth but naked document I have ever
(14:22):
had to fill out my life.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Like you know.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I actually got a chance to meet Wasser, who is
the chief business officer here, maybe a week into being acquired.
He was like, hey, Charles, nice to meet you. I said, no,
it's not nice to meet you. You know everything my
social Security numbers give me. But that's the level of
depth that you had to go into. And so the
(14:49):
team that I put together, I'll give some per sistent people. No,
my account want played a huge role in the acquisition.
My lawyer, my my counsel played a huge role in
the acquisition in terms of breadlining and getting and explaining
all of the legal terms from all the different contracting components.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
And then I had an.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Acquisition consultant who was able to do research on like
what this acquisition looks like, what comps look like, and
all of that for us to be able to properly
valuate what we thought the brand was worth on the
asset was worth. And then obviously we had conversations with
Poverty about where they thought the asset was worked in
Lower air Landed and then coming to the middle of
(15:29):
how we both can walk away from this fielding real
good about moving forward.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So you mentioned, you know, when you first started to
brost these conversations, like your business was kind of all over,
like your documents were everywhere. Things were not because you
weren't planning to be acquired. You weren't building a business
to be acquired. Talbot talk about the bridge between having
stuff all over the place to having it in a
format that you can actually deliver it.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Yeah, so the term is called data will and shout
out to my account USAIO, a big copple of account.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
He might have listed his name, but you could look
at Mosiah.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
He had been preaching to me about a data room
for multiple years. But being CEO slash host, which are
two completely different whole side has me on the road
literally seventy percent of every weekend, I will and CEO
side the planning of the events. Like I'm very very
(16:25):
much in the weeds. From the experience standpoint as well.
That type of stuff, I don't really care. But when
it came to, you know, a company doing their due
diligence on you, I wish I would have cared when
he told me to care two years ago, and had
that stuff in order, and had all of our partners outline,
and had all of our you know, P and L
(16:48):
in order gross versus net and all of that. What
I really cared about, what my business partner really cared about,
was our net profit because that was what we were
able to take home our business partners. But gross top line,
that is a very important metric for companies, and we
were oftentimes not you know, leaning into doing things that
we're going to help us at the top line, but
(17:10):
doing things that we're going to, you know, help us
from a net profit perspective.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
So just really.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Understanding that balance with something that we needed to do,
and we just had to get our business in order.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
There the very quickly.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
The bill took place very quick, but we were both
motivated to make it happen. But I would just say
to somebody who was even starting out their entrepreneurial journey,
had get your ROC now, get your business credit card.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Now, don't file.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Your taxes as an individual, like have your entity separate
from your person.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It was a mess four or five years ago.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Then it got better after I paid the government a
lot of money, but it still wasn't to the level
that it needed to be for like an acquisition.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
So I would just say, take care of your business.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, you are very much R and B House Party,
and therefore you are very much Blackvity House Party like
you're It's kind of like the acquisition of a personal brand.
Because you talked about when you were building R and
B House Party befre that people were going to the
party because they wanted to know if you were there,
and so when you're being acquired. You know, I've talked
(18:15):
to so many founders who are who will talk about
the dismay of being a when you're the when you're
the face of it, how hard that is to sell
it because you're a human being. Can you talk about
and you still have other things? I mean, you've got
you know for better best podcast that you're still a
personal brand and so can you talk about the pathway
for very much a personality driven brand in an acquisition
(18:41):
type of landscape.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah, so I think that in an acquisition landscape, the
personal brand it's actually worked in my favor. And it
worked in my favor because you know, Blavity Morgan executive
team could see me fitting into the culture. This was
just going to be I said, purchase agreement hard stop,
thank you for what you did before. Now we take
(19:05):
it to the next level independent of view. You know,
that is what could have been the call out if
the personality or the person didn't fit with the overall
company's brand value. So I'm just appreciative and grateful that
they saw, you know, who I was, you know, in
my previous roles as a leader in tech across recruiting
and the partnerships.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
They saw that as a value add to an organization.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
How I operated as a CEO to manage my business
and secure brand partnerships and you know, to mortgage point say,
one of the hardest work of people that she's met,
which is a compliment, but you know, a second nature
to me because I really really cared, cared about all
the things that I did in tech to enable people
to get jobs. I cared about every experience that we
(19:49):
curated with the R and B House Party, and so
it made a lot of sense to bring the person
with the brand. And I'm just really excited about what
the future looks like. You know, now being under the umbrella,
I feel like there's an army, you know, what happens,
all aligned to create these experiences for people, versus just me,
my business partner and the great, great, great team that
(20:11):
helped build R and.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
B House Party or what it was, and now being
the director of Community of Blavity. So there had to
be conversations around, Okay, there's there could be one day
where Charles is not the guy out there on stage
one day, So how do you continue to build this
thing so where you're still a so where you can
build in the in the interim, like this is based
(20:33):
on Charles Beloved, you know, coming along, but there's there's
a day two years, five years, twenty years away that
it's not going to be Charles.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
Yeah, and that makes that makes a lot of sense.
And it's already not Charles. This is Glavity House Party.
And that even you know, to some degree, had to
be an ego cham Like, this is not Charles's baby anymore.
This is Glavity House Party. We're opening up the demographic
of you know, people that fall under what we're looking
for from our experiences.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
From an inclusive standpoint.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
It was a silo community that we were trying to
really attract. Now we've opened that up and we think
that with the things that we're able to do, everybody
can benefit and have a great time at the experiences
that we ultimately curate. But in this seat now it's
general maiged community. It's really all about the community. It's
about the community of DJs that exist that we can
(21:29):
amplify through the things that we do. It's the community
of hosts who have so many different styles that can
add value to the events that we care about to do.
It is the community of music and the diversity of
music have been gone and done events and Ghana. You
gotta me feel like I'm preaching. I told you'll can
build it up, you know what I mean. I'm an
Afro peace the great game. My wife is you know,
(21:52):
from Antigua and Jamaica, what type of music do they love?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Soca and all that.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
I'm anovilist, But to celebrate all of those cultures in
the constructs of what's to come, you know what I mean.
But still having that r and beat, you know, that's
my bread and butt of that gospel.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, that's my bread and But we want to open
it up.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
And so I'm excited that in this role, you know,
we will have the opportunity to ultimately create new avenues
and highlight other people. It is no longer the beloved show,
and I'm really excited about what that.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Could look like.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
There's this quote I found that I'm going to read back,
and it's something you said a couple of years ago,
and it made sense because speaking to what we're talking
about today, and you said, the biggest challenge that I've
had to overcome was fear. I think a lot of us,
myself included approach problems with a high level of caution.
When you overcome that fear and try something new, you
(22:45):
get a whole new perspective and a whole different set
of learnings and options become available because you tried. But
if you just never actually step out on faith and
actually do something where you already know what not doing
looks like. So overcoming fear is something very very hard
to do. That's something you said, Yeah, yeah, you said that. Wow,
(23:08):
So you said that, and so I want to I
want to bring that that quote up under the guise
of getting acquired, because there's you know, when you're building
a company, particularly a lifestyle thing, to whereas you you
may have some of your homies, some of your people
that grew up with you working with you, and then
somebody wants it. You're like, there's a part of you,
this side that wants the bag. Yeah, but there's also
(23:29):
a part that's like romantic about the thing that you built.
You're like, this is my baby. And so that fear
that what is that internal dialogue like where you're like, yeah,
I like the number you presented me with, but how
am I going to let go of this thing?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
So to that end, it was important that I actually
heavily leaned on where that initial quote came from, which is,
you know, the birth of R and B House party
and the fear that came of doing something new, or
the fear that came with the career change from working
in finance to you know, taking an agency recruiter job
that paid me less than my internships when I was
(24:10):
you know, five years into my career. I leaned on that,
and it was if we look at the brand five
years from now, and I look at my career five
years from now, I know what this path looks like.
I mean, tech was laid off that there were another roles.
There were other opportunities that could come. You get you know,
your marginal increase in salary, you get a higher level
(24:32):
that equity package increasing slightly. But then there was like
this other path of being a P and L owner,
being general manager community, doing things that are literally the
most authentic to the twenty four hour charles of the
entire day and learning under the tutelage of a Morgan
Debond and a small White and you know, being on
the back end of afrotech that I love as a product,
(24:55):
Like what does five years of that look so personally
hate when people say it wasn't about the money that
let me.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Be clear, I would fix my mouth to say that.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
But the value pop for me for us to be
able to get to the finish line was the money,
honestly with secondary for me, what me and my business
partner were extremely after was knowing like, hey, there's some
point we're not gonna be able to do this experience
in the way that it was, and that means it's
either gonna phase out, that means that we're gonna have
(25:31):
to shift it. But there was a shift that was
going to need to ultimately take place. And what better
way for that to have taken place than an opportunity
for our community to be able to get this experience
on a ten X level of a music festival and
then secondarily from a career side, the role was just
literally from day one, the minute that you mentioned it,
(25:52):
where I saw as the next step for my life,
my career that the role was a yes.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
From the first call, it was getting through all the
other people.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
So talk to me about you said, this deal happened quick,
So talk to me like, what, like what the milestones
look like when you're putting from that first DM to
the day where you both signed off.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
What does that? What do those mile markers look like?
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Yeah, so initially you know the conversation. Then it was like, Okay,
we're going to figure this out. I'll introduce you to
my cheap business off for Sir watsap, and then he
sent the due diligence checklist. So I was like quite
quite quiet on social for a while, but because I
was literally putting in twenty four hour days to get
all of that stuff together. So it took about a
(26:36):
week of many sleepless nights on my accountant, myself, my
business partner are consultant to figure out all the documents
that needed to be in place to be able to
present back so that Blobary could then do their due
diligence to see if this was something that they did
actually want, and so went through that the NBA and
(26:57):
then from that point we were able to trying to
transition into actually determining what the value of the asset
was and negotiations. Negotiations took a while because this was
quite the complex deal A because it was going to
include an employment contract for me, meaning that there was
not going to be Charles doing his tech job, and
(27:17):
then this on the side.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
This was now going to be my full time role.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
I have a lot of things happening as Charles Beloved
the influencer, and then there was a separation that needed
to take place between Charles Beloved the talent and Charles
Beloved the host of R and B House Party, in
which I used R and B House Party interchangeably with
myself since I went to every event under the construct
of the now Blobbery House Party.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
My role is to produce it.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
But not necessarily be talent at it, and so we
had to like segment those two and then price out
what that looked like and then that I said, outside
of me being a talent. So it was extremely complex
to make all these different pieces make sense. That part
probably took an additional week and a half, but we
(28:04):
were I mean, Morgan was working twenty four seven. Whys
was working twenty four seven because I would take me
a few days to come back, and I'm sure she
was like, what's taking someone with texting men just like, bro,
what's up? And I'm trying to get advice. We're creating
this document. And then once we actually got to it,
the actual negotiations happened there very fast because we were
(28:27):
both motivated. She understood what the value prop of you know,
I was trying to get for myself and my shareholder Kareem,
as well as.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
You know, understanding what the future needed to look like for.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Us to still be incentivized to build this into what
we think it has potential to be. Then everything worked out,
but we just had to be silent because we had
to do it. It was suppress release. So I was
actually like, they're working already, no one knew.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
She was like, Charles, please do not go out other
people until oppress rely. So then when I was able
to happen, it was an exciting day.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
One more piece though, is that you know, I think
we undervalued or didn't really put enough stock into what
people would think about this collaboration coming together. I thought
it was a great call, not just personally, but for
the brand and for the people and for you know,
(29:23):
the people that we serve, which is our patrons.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
But it was a lot of positive feedback about a.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Black owned entity acquiring another black entity, about what collaboration
looks like. Promoters thinking of saying, hey, there's a new
pathway that we didn't even know existed for the things
that we're building from people to I mean, it blew
my mind how positive people felt about im. Obviously, I'm
sure some people that was like, no, horrible idea, and
(29:49):
I get that, but you know, we're excited for the
opportunity to try and.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Prove that this was the right call. As people were saying.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
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learn more. Is you've used the phrase here on that
you know Blavity boughten asset and you've not said Blavity
bought a company. Can you talk about the difference between
buying the assets and buying a company, which Blavity didn't do.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
So when Morgan and Shama business as all over the place,
we had two LLC's that kind of I want to
say co manage the brand of R and B House Party.
It's made a little bit more difficult. So we have
the Quest LLC, which Kareem and I started, and we use.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
That as the housing for R and B House Party.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
I also have Charles Kirkandaal LLC, which ultimately we pivoted
R and B House Party two. But I was operating
all of my individual Charles Beloved things out of that LLC.
So the money without her, you know, spilling my dirty
laundry was all mixed in because I had influencer stuff,
brand partnerships, I had hosting stuff, stuff, and R and
(31:39):
B house party revenue all going into you know, the
same LLC, So that would have been a purchase of
the company.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Charles kirkandaal LLC. She said, I don't want that be.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Very clear, but the asset purchase agreement was like the
logo purchasing, the licensing, the e mail list serve, purchasing
our website domain. So just all things that were R
and B house party specific that could be transferred of
ownership is well. Ultimately the APA asset purchase agreement was purchasing.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
No, I love that.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
The elephant in the room is how you guys are friends,
you know, and so how do you go to the
negotiating table against somebody that you know previous pre pregnancy,
like you might have a drink with and you know
what I mean, and so you know, how do you
do that?
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Yeah, it was it was very tough. I know I
had a lot of frustrated days. I'm sure she had
a number of frustrated days. And you know, working with
friends is always like what's the word, A touchy, touchy
topic girl, and maybe even discussing something that you should
not do. I actually disagree with that for a number
(32:54):
of reasons. But primarily I think that doing business with
your friends when you both have interry and how moral
compass and you know how.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
A shared vision is the greatest.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Kareem is my business partner and also my best friend,
and we have operated great and sure we get frustrated
with each other. That makes sense, and so on my
operatings with Morgan. It wasn't like this is the first
thing that we ever did together. We have four years
of partnering with Blivity and R and B House Party
as entities, also seeing success with the collaborations, but also
(33:27):
going through the growing pains of the yes is the
nose the disappointment. And so I think from my own
personal purview, Morgan has always had my best interests at part.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Now in this deal she had blobdy.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Art, But I couldnot lose sight of that every single
thing that we have done as business entities, as Blivity
and as R and B House Party has benefited me exponentially.
So I knew the collaboration would work and just understanding like, hey,
it was never Charles Morgan thing. It was a business
thing and a business thing, and that was how we
(34:04):
were able to get to the table and work together.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
But our moving forward relationship.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
I have worked with all the personalities you could possibly
think of, and Morgan is a phenomenal CEO. I'm excited
to learn so much from her and the other executives
in this organization. But we keep the friendship separate. We
get frustrated with each other more. I'm gonna tell you
an example. Morgan asked the R and B House party,
or to say, block the ass RMB House party, to
(34:30):
produce happy hours in the pandemic at three different times
across three different locations.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
And I listen what I need to three pm, LA,
five pm Chicago, six pm New York, exact same time,
same video needed to play in three different me I said,
she's nuts, that's crazy now.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
So I referenced that, like she's a.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Visionary, I believe in doing the work and to that
we're gonna be able to make anything.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Of benefit in the community.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
And so, you know, I've heard these stories of tech
companies particularly but companies in general, when they get acquired,
they call these big all hands meetings, get everybody in
the room so everybody can hear, the whole staff can hear,
and then there's questions about what okay, what happens to
us based on you know, this us selling to this
other thing. What happens to the team that you built?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, that's great that you asked that.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
And so from an ownership perspective, you know, I was
an owner along with my wife and then Kareem equity
owner and started a sweat equity and earned the opportunity
to be the partner of R and B House Party
and just a strong business mind Michigan NBA owner of
a you know, a Chip fil A.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
He's just phenomenal guy. And I couldn't have gotten to
this point without them.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
So I want to say that now R and B
House Party is the DJs, is the team that has
just helped us get to this point. And so while
they were not a part of the acquisition in terms
of like becoming employees of Livity, I think the opportunities
for them with me in this community role are endless.
You know, the number of events that we could do,
(36:12):
the visibility of those events go ten next. So when
you think about, you know, having the stage of twenty
three hundred people at Drew Hill versus having the stage
of ten thousand plus, I'm gonna say plus at the
Music festival, we're able to further amplify their work. The photographers, Hey,
you you only doing the seventeen events a year that
(36:32):
you know I can do on the weekends. Now you
can do thatfro text you can you know what I mean.
So it's just way more opportunity for me to be
able to bring them along in this seat without it
getting to a stop data just saying hey, I no
longer want to do this, this is the end. Like,
the opportunities for the team are endless, and to amplify
the amazing things that they were doing for R and
(36:53):
B House Party, now they could do it for the
Liberty House Party and maybe even for all these other
brands that we're going to bring in to be a
part of this system and community.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
If you hadn't lost your job, would you have considered
an acquisition?
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yes, absolutely, I absolutely would have considered the acquisition I did.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
I do not know that I.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Would have wanted to do the full time thing, because
everyone asked me, they were like, Okay, we see the
trajectory of R and B.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
This is the Lord pushing you to do R and
B House Party full time.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
And every time somebody said that, I said, absolutely not
because I love what my role was at my previous company.
I loved the career that I had in tech. So
this was very unique for me to be able to
steal essentially do that, but on the other side, not
the client side, but on the afrotech side, to create
(37:48):
these experiences, to assist in getting people jobs and creating
the spaces for all of that to take place.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
That's what I love.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
It did not feel like work to me, and so
I still get that aspect, plus being able to do
the efense stuff for R and B or now Black
House Party. And so when I tell you, it was
the fine alignment for this to have been the opportunity
for this to have been the company, because if it
were another company that was interested, I probably would have
(38:16):
been open to selling that I said, but not like
working there full time.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I wanted to work here. It was very clear. I
was like, well, a month more, what we're doing outside?
Speaker 4 (38:27):
You actually posted a photo from old last acrotechnic video
because I actually took.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
The photo of all of you all yeah, yeah, yes,
and I had Phonemos sitting there. I have Phon because
I'm still why I wasn't in the photo. I'm not
a black employee. I was the one that ye have
those my homies.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Out here out here. I'm excited, and so I think
this is a good time to being to bring up
Queen Charen because the partnership there. You guys have talked
about this on your you know, for better or best,
and I think it's important and there's something here because
you know, I wouldn't be at Blavity afro Tech if
it wasn't for my wife. And so when I went
(39:08):
to my second afro Tech, I took my wife with
me because.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
I'm like, you've got to see this thing.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
And at the end of it, she's like, wonderful, great,
all the things. You should not come back unless you're
on stage, and I'm like, how am I going to
get on that stage? And so, to make a long
story short, I'm like, all right, but challenge accepted. That's
what she said. I'm gonna figure it out. So I
put a picture of that, that last afrotech on my
vision board, and every day I woke up and I
(39:37):
saw the thing on my dresser and I said, by
the time they opened up speaker proposals, I'm gonna apply.
When they put up the speaker proposals. I actually got
an email and said, hey, we actually want you to
run it, and so I wouldn't have had the vision
if my wife hadn't called that out. And you talked
about your journey like your wife saw it, and she
(39:58):
saw R and B House Party and you before you
saw it, and therefore you're here now doing Blavity house party.
So can you talk about the importance of that partnership
and what it brought out of you.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah, So I would just say a having a partner,
whether that is through marriage or friendship, that's able to
see your blind spots, because it was a blind spot
for me to know that I could monetize my energy.
And that's literally what R and B House Party was
was a monetization of the energy that I bring into
the world. And I was going to other people's events,
(40:33):
literally going viral on Snapchat and whatever medium was popping
at that time, like this guy's in the circle dance
that through it all, kicking heads and all of that.
And she's like, you're going to these other people's events
and making a popping. The promoter's like, are you coming?
You know what I'm saying, Making sure you're in the
building because the parties on another level. When you're in
the building, you need to create your own and so
(40:56):
that blind spot and being able to listen to it,
being able to have a part of that say, hey,
we're willing to put up our money, you know what
I mean. Like obviously the first time we did it,
you know, we just got five dollars ahead. But when
it came to touring, when it came to expansion, it
was out of our personal savings account. We saving for
we saving for homes where you know, having kids and
(41:19):
having a partner that really truly believed in what it was.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
That she had built with me was key.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
And when we get to you know, the partnerships with
our protech and things of that nature, it was like, hey,
she put the battery in my back to be able
to take risks and be comfortable with risks.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
She works every day. She's genuinely a queen. She's a boss.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
Even when I was let go on a random, you know,
Wednesday in June, I didn't think about, thank God, about us,
you know, losing our house or anything. This wanting to
go to work every day, she getting paved. Let me
just figure it out. I didn't have to worry, and
so that's just truly, truly, truly a blessing. And without
her none of this is possible. Well, I can't travel
(42:00):
seventeen weekends twenty weekends out the year without someone taking
care of managing our children and managing our household. And
she does that on top of her job. So I
spoil her as best I possibly can. She says, this
money is.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Part of this. I'm not going now far now, wal.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
But so I want to end this talking about where
Blavity House Party is going. But I'm going to preface
it with something you've said before, and I love it
because our generation has not had its own time, Joiner,
And I think that's a beautiful thing that you've had
that vision for yourself. Like you know, I want to
(42:42):
get bigger than just parties. I want to do cruises.
I want to do concert series, all these things, and
this provides that jet fuel. So where is Blavity House
Party going?
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:54):
And where's the community of Glavity going too?
Speaker 4 (42:56):
Absolutely, you know, the goals of blab the house party
is to celebrate culture and connect communities. And that nission
statement that has yet to roll out publicly, what you
always see soon is because that is the ultimate goal.
It's not about us, it's really about we. And there
are you know a lot of festivals events on the market,
(43:17):
and they're all phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I go to them.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
But we're excited to kind of step into that space
as well and bring something new with the different value proposition,
a unique market positioning to this space and this space
for everybody. And so what we're trying to do is
again that musical diversity that makes everybody feel inclusive, that
celebrates all the different you know, makeups and backgrounds of
(43:43):
a community. I've always from a recruitment perspective and that's
like my subject.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Out of expertise.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
They say, hey, it's diversity of ethnicity, but it's diversity
of thought.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
I'm from the Shah, you're from toll House. Talk to me,
you know what.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
And we have soul got different minds even under this
ecosystem of having some familiarity.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
And so it's just excited to be able to build for.
Speaker 4 (44:08):
That and across these tent pole moments that we have
grown to love and enjoy. NBA All Star Games, we're
talking about sports, Grammys, We're talking about music potentially our boss,
We're talking about art, and fashion. We're able to curate
this experience that is about you, that is about inclusiveness
(44:29):
and the ecosystem that's already created things that you know,
this broad demographic is excited about. So we're excited to
just keep it about the community, about the people, and
create this music festival and then this road map of
times that we can have touch points and just have
self facilitated.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Black Tech Green Money is a production to Blavity afro
Tech on the Black Effect podcast network at Night Heart
Medium and it's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas,
with additional production support by Sarah Ergin and Rose mc lucas.
Special thank you to Michael Davis, Vanessa Suruno, and Maya Mouldrew.
Learn more about my Guess and other tech distructors an
(45:21):
innovators at afrotech dot com. Enjoying Black Tech Green Money.
Share this with somebody, Go get your money.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
He's in love.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Afro Tech is a global gathering where inclusive tech companies
meet innovators. It's the only tech event you.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Need all year.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Get ready for afro Tech twenty twenty three in Austin, Texas.
No ven refers through the fifth We built a whole
temper you can use to help you get your employer
to sponsor your trip and enjoy experiences built for every
stage of your career. Whether you're a college student looking
for your next internship, or if you work in avention
capital looking for your next business to invest in, and
if you're looking for a co founder of people that's
join your team, there's no better place to be. The
(46:04):
massive corporate layoffs of twenty twenty two and twenty twenty
three have affected our community in a big way. An
afrotech wants to help you get back on your feet
with skill development, making it easier to switch industries if
that's your route. In an afrotech, you'll make connections to
help you get your next opportunity. Visit afrotech dot com
slash conference to learn more.
Host
Will Lucas
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