May 27, 2025 ⢠43 mins
On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, talks with Jhordan Gibbs, co-founder of Milk + Cookies, about building one of Atlanta’s most respected music platforms from the ground up. Jhordan shares how he and his partners booked Kendrick Lamar before the fame, took their festival from the BeltLine to South Africa, and earned the trust of brands by leading with culture first. They break down the real business behind festivals, the power of community, and how to build global momentum without losing your identity.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're building some scratch you literally need people not
to construct the stage. You have to understand how many
porta parties you need. You know how many security you need.
Like there's parmenting things you have to go through the city,
so you have to you have to have relationships in
the city now right, It's like you know how you're
gonna pay for this thing where you need sponsorship, but
like who's gonna teach sponsorships? And then you really realize
there's a lot of moving parts and you have to
(00:21):
be able to build a team and you have to
be able to like trust other people on your team
to also be able to like know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
He everybody, welcome to another episode of about Anomics. I'm
your host, Brandan Butler, found the CEO Butter yt L
and today we got my guy in the building fresh
off the plane, well you know, fresh off basically basically
basically still still getting respected this air in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
But the one only mister Jordan Gibbs. Man, Gibbs, how
you're doing, bro.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
I'm good. I'm good man.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Appreciate you having me like it's been a long time coming.
So I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I just believe you get back in the country.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Dog.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I think he was coming back.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I questioned it. I think I was coming back.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
For a minute, I think y'all left somebody out there.
Metter fact, we did.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
And he actually came back the last day his visa.
His visa was expiring. He had to fly to Amsterdam.
He couldn't catch a flight directly back here, but he
couldn't stay in the country. We had to fly to
Amsterdam to get out. That's all we stayed in our say.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Man, hey, man, well look man, congratulations and everything y'all doing. Man,
For those that don't know, this is one part of
Milk and Cookies, you know what I'm saying, which also
just did the amazing Milk and Cookies music face that
was officially called in Africa to South Africa. Yeah yeah, yeah,
man Like, So we don't get into that in a second. Man,
we won't get into that in a second. But just
for those who don't know, man like, tell people what
(01:42):
milking cookies is.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Bro yeah, man, milking cookies.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Uh, it's a music start as the music festival, right.
So the whole idea was, you know, we think about milk.
Milk is you know, obviously it's an iconic thing. You know,
cookies are iconic thing, but together it's one of the
greatest duos you could have possibly we imagine in anything, right,
in food and sports, whatever. Milking Cookies makes you smile,
takes you to a child like place, right, and it
(02:07):
brings people together. And the idea for Milking Cookies is like,
how do we how do we create a platform that's
based around music that we can bring different genres of
music together and kind of make our own kind of pairings.
And that became Milking Cookies. And then we wanted to
be diverse. We want you to come to our experience
of ours and meet a friend, you know, and leave
and be like, yo, I remember that's where I met Brandon.
(02:28):
It was that Milking Cookies. You know, we just had
a couple of drinks in the VIP area kch and
just came on like that's that's that's the feeling we
always want to create. So that's that's one part of it,
which is the festival, and then we've also branched into
now Milking Cookies Music Week, which is really adding on
some more kind of edutainment components to it with panel series,
(02:49):
with writing camps, you know, really kind of unpacking what
the music industry is and how music kind of affects
all these other industries as well.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
So you know, that's it in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, man, y'all built something amazing. I mean I remember
going to book Way before we knew each other. Yeah,
I remember I went to see a currency was Cookies events.
You know what I'm saying. I just big currency fans.
I was just out there, you know. I just remember
that experience was just a dope vibe. And I mean
that was years ago. Man, Like what was one of
the first shows that y'all did.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So the founders we've been together since we all met
at Morehouse really and so we've been together since, like,
you know, two thousand and seven. So our first, our
first ever show was promoting wil A at the Loft
and like nine. But I think we've had a lot
of a number of you know, those kind of first
artists to come through the market that were really great.
(03:39):
But I think probably the one that I mean sticks
out the most was probably Kendrick Lamar in twenty eleven.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
We had him at the Old Masquerade.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, that's so I feel like I'm like really Atlanta,
like the old Masquerade, Yeah, I got no old things
now that don't exist anymore.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
The old Masquerade with the flour used to bounce.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, But I was like right after Section eighty dropped
and we had him form Dom Kennedy opened up. So
how the prints opened up, This group University opened up,
and then Titty Boy came out and did a guest
appearance before he was two chains and so but that
was the first show we like invested money into, and
you know, we went to school, we learned a lot
of we learned a lot of learn a lot of
(04:17):
things to that show. But then also I think a
lot a lot of the key players in the city
saw that we were real about what we were doing,
and it put us on a whole nother trajectory for
us to be where we are now. So that was
like a I remember that on was it was Pivotal
and me and my partner Chase for you know, buying
pizza for Kendrick Lamar's team. And then we had a
bunch of students who were working with us, and one
of the guys like stole a box of pizza from
(04:40):
Ketchrick's manager and then we had to like find a
guy and Ketchrick's managers like it was my food. I'm like,
we reready delivered it, and I'm like, I don't really,
I'm the twenty one. I'm just like figuring stuff out.
So but yeah, we went through a lot of learnings
in that in that timeframe.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So, I mean it's been it's been all kind of
stuf because I mean y'all were doing like d M
hip hop, Like y'all were bringing all kind of vibes together. Yeah,
it wasn't just like we're just doing a hip hop
show or like an urban show like That's that's how
it's always kind of been, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, exactly when we think of milk and cookies, that's
exactly what we kind of stand for. It's like, you can,
you know, we can put people together that you wouldn't
expect to see. You know, you might see Santi gold
and Asat Rocky on the stage or whatever. Right, It's
like these genres that you wouldn't normally think would mix,
but they actually go really well together.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
And I think you.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
See that there's really a lot of in DJ culture now, right,
Like like parties like mash up right, like the idea
of taking things that exist separately and kind of remixing
how people experience them and feel them.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
It becomes a whole nother thing on its own.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Like we always come from different backgrounds where we you know,
I grew up in New York until I was like seventeen,
and like, you know, the one thing about growing up
in New York is like you get exposed to all
kinds of cultures. Yeah, every day, whether you want to
or not. Right, Like you hear things, you see things,
and so you know, I think my perspective on like
these other genres of music and other cultures just like
(05:59):
some how it was in me without even realizing it.
And so when we started putting things into the world,
and music is such like a spiritual thing to put
into the world and like amplify, you know, some of
those things are started coming out naturally. Being like Okay,
I want to like I want people to understand that,
you know, black people, but people in general are much
more alike than they really even they realize, you know,
(06:22):
And what better way to do that than through music,
you know, putting people on stages that we believe in
and resonate with their messaging. You know, so everything is
really intentional. Like we're putting somebody on stage is very intentional.
We're trying to take somebody across the world is very intentional.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
You know, what was it like when y'all were playing
that stuff, because I mean it sounds like intentionality of
just you know, diversity has kind of always been in it.
Like how did y'all even come together with that idea in.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
The first place?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Uh, for like milk and cookies, just saying like we
want to do something different, but we want to do
it like with this again a different kind of vibe
bringing all these kind of mus because again, y'all met
each other in college, Like y'all didn't go up together, right,
So y'all were all strangers.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, and then y'all came together.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
But like, what was it that brought y'all together but
also made y'all say, like, yeah, we all agree with
the same vision of you know, putting a different kind
of vibe out here for evince and entertainment.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And yeah, yeah, I think when we were in school.
But as far as four main partners Chases from New York,
so I knew him since we were like fifteen years old.
We were doing teen clubs and stuff. We promoted you know,
Jewel Santana and Chris Brown and yeah, we were like
sixteen years old, right, So like so I already knew
(07:29):
who he was. I met Kevin and Greg in school
and because well we had a lot of friends with
other schools, you know, so like we spent time at
Emory and Kansas State and the UGA and Georgia State,
and we realized at that time everybody was like partying
in their own silos, but the similar stuff. It was
like everybody's playing beer pong just in their own like
they don't they don't even know these other spaces or
(07:52):
other kids are doing the same thing.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So the idea was really like how do we literally
how do we.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Like show our version of Atlanta, Like how do we
show these students that they have a lot in common?
Like how do we create a place that becomes a
meeting ground for everybody? And that was really the genesis
of like you know why we even kind of started this,
Uh started started producing shows and funny not funny, but
like the Kendrick Lamar show we did was actually after
(08:19):
a whole like we did a week long panel series
called on Music as a Natural Resource, and we actually
partnered with the United Nations on that because they had
this document they were working on uh that was called
it was called it was called Music as Natural Resource,
and it was looking at how music is used and
all these different pillars for like trauma survivors for Economic Development,
like they had five of them, and so we took
(08:41):
each pillar and put them on a different campus in Atlanta,
and then we did panels on those campuses based around
their like their strengths, Like so Emory we did the
Trauma Survivors one because Emory Hospital, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Like Morehouse we did Music for Economic Development.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Because you know, that's more else's about that, right, So
we basically we did these panels. We also like were
promoting the show at each campus throughout the week. So
that show was really important to us because it was
the first time we were able to branch out throughout
the city and be like, all right, we're going to
all these campuses talking about all these things we're seeing,
and we're bringing it back into one space, you know.
(09:18):
So yeah, I mean that's that's really why that that's
really each Guilts of Everything was really about community and
bring people together, and how do we do that in
our way?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Right?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
And just for the record, y'all were one of the
first ones actually bring.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Kendrick to Atlanta, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, v first like
officially y'all, Like how did.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That all come together? Man?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I can't tell because I don't make sure.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I want to make sure y'all get the credit for
putting this thing in because y'all were for people, even
like Gain.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I remember section eighty, I remember that.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I don't know if we were the first first because
I felt like Kendrick, I feel like Artis were coming
through Atlanta already, but that was a major show and
at the time that was like I think it was
the first show. I remember, I hadn't seen him in
Atlanta before, so and it.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Was twenty eleven.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It was still like, you know, like we paid less
than ten thousand for at the time, which is crazy, right,
like because now you can't even look at the Mayri
it out if you don't have ten thousands of donation.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
So but yeah, it was. It was. It was very
very early on. So I'll say it's the first, I'll
say it's the first.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
How did that relationship even like come together.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Like, I mean friends and people who believed in us. Really, yeah,
I'm just gonna name drop me here because so Key
Henderson was one of the first people to really like
take us under her wings.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Shot the Key.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, she really like she believes in us. She you know,
she gives opportunities, She helped us. She had the book
postmlone in like twenty twelve, like she you know, we
really wouldn't have started our career in the same way
without her. And she also gives a lot of guidance
and like, but she connected us with uh with top Dog,
which is Kendrick's mandager, and you know, and she helped
facilitate the deal and like that's that's really how it
(10:56):
came came to happen.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Oh man, that's wild. So usaw all these relationships.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Man, man, Like yeah, the relationships are are are probably
the biggest driver to like someone that's to believe in
you early on. It's like, if you don't have a resume,
you don't you haven't done anything really yet, what are
they believing in?
Speaker 4 (11:13):
They gotta believe in the person. Yeah, and that's that's
that's a risk.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Like if we had messed that up that could have
had a bad effect on her, you know, and so
like so yeah, we we appreciate her to this day.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
We'll get into other stuff y'all working on, but just
when you think back, like would have been some of
your favorite shows or events that y'all have just done
in general over the years.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, She's a bunch of them. Been a
bunch of them. Man.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So Sissa, we did, we did. We did Sissa first
show for sure, twenty fourteen and one has sold out,
you know, and it's surprised the agents. The agents were
literally calling trying to figure out like how this happened.
But the night was just magical, Like she hit the
stage and she was just like floating, Like the audience
is like, you know, seventy percent woman and you know
(11:58):
all the words I'm like, and then you meet her
and she's like this beautiful person. I remember a feeling
like that was a night where I was like, Okay,
this makes me feel like I want to get this
experience to people, yea for life, you know, like I
want to create what people are feeling tonight. That's what
I want to recreate for them, you know, so that
was memorable. Post Malone was crazy because you know, you
(12:18):
don't really always know how diverse Atlanta is until you
do certain things. And like the audience he brought out
was like just young people just want to rage. And
it was like and the show we did it with
me shack, Yeah, so that was that was like a
a collide we did with beering tacos back then, and
one he taught us how to scale pricing, you know,
(12:39):
so like we we were like nervous about the show
and then.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
He was like, nah, I've got this.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
We go do this this and this this, and the
show sold out like the last day and it was
just madness outside. Like it was it felt like I
was at south By Southwest or something and like and
then and then posts came in. It's like got the
lady capt there like two am in the morning. It
was just the whole thing was just ridiculous. And to
see where post Malone came like it's grown into to
be a part of, Like that moment in Atlanta for
(13:04):
his first show in Atlanta was like, you know, that
was just like a I can't in I can't really
I can't even put into words really like this how
the energy.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
It's really the energy of the space, that's really what
it is.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, those two and that and then not to go
on forever on this topic, but the show we did
with Render for Kate Trinada in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
On the belt Line.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I was there. I remember that.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, that was that was really special because that was
a dream we had had for a long long time.
And we had another partner before who was one of
our investing partners, and we had this like we wanted
to do something on the belt Line for the longest,
and you know, we kept just feeling like we're hitting
roadblocks and like, and we ended up explaining from that
(13:51):
partner and essentially bought ourselves out of our out of
our existing contract, and within like six months, we were
doing this show on the belt Line that we've been
dreaming about for years. So for us, it really showed
us like, Yo, you gonna actually do like there's really
no ceiling here, you know, like if we're focused on it.
Like and I think the way that production came together,
(14:11):
you know, all the opening DJs were Atlanta based. You know,
everybody was dancing. It was diverse, you know, I mean,
I think it was the first it was the biggest
show that had been on the belt or the first
international act on the belt Line. You know, in that space,
the CEO the belt Line came, people were tailgating at.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
The top of the and.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Everybody like it was like everybody was just having a
good time in Atlanta, And I was like, this is
the Atlanta like that I love to see like this, Yeah,
you know what I'm saying. There was no incidents, nothing like,
and it was just a you know, it was just
an incredible night.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
So I think those it's all about the energy for me, man,
really is. But yeah, those those three like stuck out.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Yeah, to this day, everybody talks about, you know, want
to do events and festivals and all that stuff, but
just in general, like, what's one part of the business
side that most more people you think need to understand
(15:14):
when it comes to doing these kind of events, whether
it's a smaller venue or it's now festivals like y'all
are doing.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Like what part of the business do you think kind
of people overlook or don't fully understand.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
All of it, to be honest, like, because there's so
many parts, like like like if I decided I wanted
to go to Wall Street out of Moorhouse.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Right, there was a very clear path for me to
go there. Right.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I do these internships, you know, I get recommendations from
these professors. I get an opportunity. I just have to
show out or the concert space is not really it's
not clear what to do. You know, you kind of
like I have to learn. And people who like to
bring people together by nature, and they're not a reform
it usually end up becoming like promoters, a part of promoters, right,
(15:58):
because that's what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
You're still you're people.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
You're taking people out of their day and day out
life and you're bringing them to a space where they
have a great time for four hours.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Then they go home and go deal with whatever they
gotta deal with, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
For us to try to like take that and then
like how do we elevate this to the next level,
we had to create a blueprint, which which is why
it's great to work under center Stage and the Loft
and the Masquerade. And we start consulting for them, and
then they introduced us to J Carter and we interned
in the JA Carter for a couple of years, you know,
so we started learning how these pieces work, and you
realize it's a massive amount of departments like you're you know,
(16:33):
like if you're building some scratch you literally need, you know,
your operations team has to be you know, people not
to construct the stage. You know, you have to understand
how many porta potteries you need, you know, how many
security you need, Like there's there's permitting things you have
to go through the city that you have to understand.
You have to you have to have relationships in the
city now, right, it's like, you know how you're gonna
(16:54):
pay for this thing where you need sponsorship, but like
who's gonna teach you sponsorships? And then you have to
you have to go and get somebody who under dans
how to work with brands. And then you really realize
sponsorship is really it's not about the brand. It's really
about the person inside the building. So you have to
have a relationship with somebody who works there, you know,
to be able to film the vouch for you again. Right,
So like it's just it's just like there's a lot
of moving parts and you have to you have to
(17:16):
be able to build a team, and you have to
be able to like you know, trust other people on
your team to also be able to like know what
they're doing, because yeah, it's it's a lot of moving parts,
I say, and not I think people just see the
end result, which is what they're supposed to see, which
is they're just having a blast and you know, they
having a great time. Like that's if we if you
(17:38):
feel like that, then we've done all the other components properly.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
The only time, you know, you know, somebody's office, if
like someone's complaining about something or there's a bathroom or whatever,
that then you're like, all right, there's been a you know,
a missing link in the chain of command here.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Man, now look I just again, I just got done
producing this four or for day parade. I think it's
a lot of the same things, right, Like you don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Not only that you did four four day parade, block
party you did that. Yeah, like you did like none events.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But like it's to your point, man, it's like, yeah,
you don't there's no playbook to go figure out how
to do a parade, right Like I literally had this
idea last year and was like, okay, what do we do?
And it was just figured it out. It was like okay, well,
who's done a parade before. It was like, okay, well
at O Pride's done one, Like who we know over there? Okay,
come talk to them and go talk to this person
and then how do you figure out the permits? And no,
we need oh shit, we need porta potties now, like oh,
(18:30):
we did all this, but now we got to find
somewhere to stage everybody. We need somewhere to house, you know,
three thousand people because parents are dropping off their kids,
like there's just there's no plaper for this stuff. And
you kind of go through that, you're like okay, like
and that's why I told everybody even we were doing it,
was like, look, let's just get the first one done,
you know what I mean. I said, we can always
make it complicated. Everyone was like, oh, you're gonna have Macy's.
(18:51):
I said, we can always make this more complicated. I promise,
But right now my main focus is getting three thousand
people to walk from point A to point B.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Saye, right, and that's it.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
And it's the same thing, right.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
They all belong to you at that time responsible for
all their.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Safety, right, and so it's the same thing. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
It's like, yeah, how do we do this thing, it's
go play. But you just got to figure it out
and then you learn and then you build more into it.
And yet I think people try to oversimplify because they
to your point, they see events, they see activations, They're like, oh, yeah,
we just need a sponsor.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It's like, no, bro, it's just a sponsor to pull
some of this stuff off. You know what I'm saying, And.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I probably said the timing of it all is probably
the biggest thing people don't realize, Like it takes time
to get sponsors. It takes time to get the permits,
you know, like the city has to literally just their plans.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
You'd have a parade, Yeah, it's like what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
What we're doing the festival on the belt lines, Like
the neighbors over there literally had to change, like they
had to allow us to be able to because we
had to park cars, you know, we had to we
need to like fire lanes and stuff like. Yeah, So
all that stuff takes a lot of time and a
lot of planning and a lot of attention to detail
and the right teams. I don't have attention to detail
all the time. Like I have big ideas, but like
(20:00):
I need someone who can that's.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
What that's that's what the team is for it though,
you know what I'm saying like the same thing, Like
I've I've learned that on myself. It's like, look, I
got the ideas, but I need people that are hands
on the ground, you know, boot on the ground, that
can get in. I mean even with the event we
just did last night, it was like I need people
to can help watch my back and make sure this
thing goes and like who's gonna go get get this
person or who's gonna do this?
Speaker 3 (20:20):
And people do that like you know, you know, it's
like I got the idea.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
It's like we got the money for it, but who's
picking up the talent when they get here?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
It's like you.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
But those are all the different pieces, man, Like when
it comes to making something dope, Like how do you
kind of manage like how do y'all even like ide
eate just around like making something dope? And again like
you're like, all right, I want to do this artist,
I want to do this thing, but you also got
even like balanceing like with sponsors and partners and stuff
for on, Like how do y'all kind of keep that
balance to where it look this is still gonna be good,
but we need we need to get parties and sponsors involved,
(20:54):
and like y'all can't water this down, So y'all gotta
trust us to make sure this comes together.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, I mean we can try to credit ideas all
the time. Like that's that's the one thing I think
our team does. We get on the phone, we talking
the next thing. You know, we got a whole concept
that we're like, wait a minute, this is not even
when we started on.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Like Greg is going and half the time is great
what he gets going.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Gregor just here, so I'll say something Gregor is here,
And it was just flipping into a whole other thing.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
And now we got a podcast concept.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
It's like, bro, wait literally and that's actually a lot.
That's that's what we feel like we are most pure.
We're just having those conversations, you know, and then like
we just let we just literally we're learning how to
now like take these ideas, park them, but then also
be able to like flush them out later on.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
You know, what's the question again?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
You know, I'm just saying, like how do y'all balance
like Ugain coming up with like an a dopeing amazing
idea and an amazing event, but also just making sure that
your sponsors feel good, feeling like they're not they're not
like watering the idea down.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, So I'm I'm very clear about understanding what the
KPIs are for the sponsor, right, and I'm also very
clear about aligning with the right sponsors. So like I
will say no to a sponsor that doesn't align with
our values, and I have no problem saying it.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
I've done it before.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
So you know, what I've realized is like brands want
to they want to attach themselves to the cool thing
or the thing that's like pushing the culture forward or
whatever they're driving, whatever their KPI is, they want to
be attached to the thing that's driving that thing forward.
So once I understand like what a brand is looking for,
it's easy to then I can line it up and
make sure that I find the place that we both link.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I think that's that's part of my superpower, is finding
that part, like where is the synergy between all these things?
Speaker 4 (22:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
But what leads culture is not the brands, right. The
brands are kind of the third tier. Really, It's like
the person who does the thing, whatever it is, right,
they create the concept, they push it out there in
the world. They're taking a leap of faith, and a
lot of times they're not going to get supported at first.
But once it goes well, the recaps, social media, all
that stuff's going. When they do the second one, now
(22:50):
somebody from the brand saw that and it was like, oh, wait,
we're trying to do that.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Know, they're doing it already, righteah.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
So what ends up happening is you kind of have
to take a leap of faith on yourself and be
the be the cultural leader, be the thought leader, and
then the brands come behind you, and then they're more
open to, you know, following or molding themselves to fit
your vision because they see something already that they want
to be a part of, and they may not know
what they want to be a part of it yet
(23:17):
until they see it, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I think that's the part that people miss man, like
even even you, a lot of stuff that we do.
I tell people like, if you really want to get
it done, you got to do it.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Yourself first, got to do it.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Like there's this whole thing I think that people really
miss out on where it's like, yeah, I got this idea,
I just need to I need to need a sponsor
to make it happen. And it's like, bro, there's a
there's a version of this you can do, probably without
a sponsor. But what you don't understand is is that
by you doing it first, you now have the leverage,
right like you have the you have, you have the example,
like and it's so much easier to get people involved.
(23:46):
Like when you've done something and I say this, I mean,
I know what it happens everywhere, but I even say
it in Atlanta, I say, Atlanta is a very fomo city.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Like talking about this, it's like it's like, bro, talking
about this parade we did.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It's like I literally shouted from every platform I could that.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
We were gonna do this parade.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And I knew it was not going to reach everybody,
and I knew people were gonna be like, oh, I
didn't even hear about it. But you know what, I
knew that once we did it the next year, and
you were gonna be like, oh yeah, like I know
about it this time. But I'm telling people like, you
gotta do the thing first. And that's how you maintain
the leverage, That's how you get yourself in a better
position to negotiate if you can't do something because you
can't go find a bunch of you know, an unlimited budget,
(24:24):
Like anybody can do anything with an unlimited budget, but
if you tell them you got to go find one
hundred thousand dollars just to make something happen, Like there's
not another version of.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
This, Yeah, it might not be the right thing.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, like right, like bro, even like the even the
credit is of color event. You know, it was like, Bro,
that was something I want to do. I just did
it last year and I paid for it out of
pocket and now look what it's grown into and just
a year, you know what I mean? And like I
think again, it's the same thing with you all. It's
like you got to do the thing first, and you
got to put it out into the world because that's
how you maintain the leverage. That's how you can actually
control what it turns into versus you know, needing all
(24:56):
these things. And yeah, it's nice when you get you
get enough you know, leeway, you enough relationship, but then
you can actually work with brands and work with people
and say I had another idea, let's build this together.
But in the beginning, like yeah, man, And that's I
think people really miss that part of the game.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Bro. Yeah yeah, yeah, I was simplified now whatever it is, like,
I would dumb it down to the simplest form that
we can do, you know, just to do it, because
then then you have data, Then you have people who
vouch for you, the people that went to the experience,
and you're trying to build the community, right, so you
actually don't need everyone there for everything or even the
first thing, Like you want the people who are going
to support you and want to be there for that,
(25:30):
you know, because then those people champion whatever you do
ten x more than somebody who just pulled up, you
know and doesn't really care about whatever's going on, you know.
And like so you can start small and then kind
of like keep building it up, you know. And I
think that's that's also the best way to just grow
an organic or community.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Like all this stuff is about community these days.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
You know, people go online, whatever they follow is a community,
right Like whoever, whatever page you follow, there's twenty other
people following it or two thousand people follow it. Either way,
y'all tap it in for a reason. There's something that
unites you about whatever this content is coming out. That's
a community, you know what I mean. Like, so we're
building communities, whether they're physical or digital. We're building communities.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Now.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
See in the building something about Milk Music Week, Man, Like,
how did that come?
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
So that was an amazing experience too.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. How did it come together?
Speaker 1 (26:32):
It was really our response to I feel like Atlanta
needed a south By Southwest for itself, you know, And
there were like you know, there were there were other
events that were kind of like that, and some of
them kind of you know, through COVID or whatever other reasons,
like they just don't really exist in the same way.
So the idea was, like how do we we built
(26:52):
up all these relationships? And that's the beautiful thing about
Atlanta too, right, Like people I was just partying with
a decade ago or like you know, or just like
going to Networking Advance and going to this brand thing
whatever it is. You know, a lot of these people
ended up going on their own arcs and the managing
talent or working at this brand or like you know,
becoming a lawyer is an X, Y and Z, which
(27:14):
makes it easier now to like kind of tap in,
Like now where we are we can either start a
network and they know they know who we were, you know,
ten years ago, you know. So what I realized is like,
what would young me want? What would young me out
a Moorhouse who has no blueprint for to produce concerts
or festivals? Like, how would I help this person? And
(27:34):
I realized the people I was looking up to then
fast forward now my peers, you know, and my friends.
So we're like, how do we bridge that knowledge gap? Like, so,
how do we make this more purpose driven beyond the
festival and the concert and the fun stuff, Like what's
how we leave in a market legacy, you know in Atlanta?
And so the idea was literally put together this week
(27:56):
of programming where we have panels are focused on really
music and aa I. But then we branched it into like,
well how do labels use this, you know to find
new talent like or find new audiences? You know, how
how is it being used in like education like Georgia
State as a whole you know, building dedicated to creatives
and music and they're using AI power tools, you know,
(28:17):
Microsoft as initiative, Like all these people have initiatives, So like,
how do we wrap our programming around music and AI
and then bring in people who are already high level
executives to come speak to students who are just interested
or just trying to figure out what am I doing
in life?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
So that was that was the whole thought behind it,
and we did we did a music tech house. We
took over Blueprint Group studio literally was like a three
story building. The bottom floor we had a couple of
food trucks and like fuse positors out there, you know,
and then the second floor was like we usually where
their offices are. We transformed that entire space, you know,
(28:55):
into really a studio you know, for the most part,
and so much so then at you know, Cortes, one
of the founders of Blueprint, walked into his own space
and was like whoa, he said.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Y'all, y'all did all this behind us.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
And so we had we had the you know, panels there,
and then the room, and then the next floor we
had like a lounge area with some you know, you
know bar kind of just.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Like a reprieve, and the top floor outside.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
We set up like almost like a tiny desk kind
of set up where we had we had a bunch
of artists come in from Canada from Toronto and some
artists from here, and we allowed them to perform on
the rooftop. So literally it was like a music tech
house that was going on and in between the panels
and these performances and once they were done, next panels started,
you know, et cetera. And uh, yeah, we built it
(29:43):
into uh you know, into a place where we made
it free for students, so that we parted with LVRN
also they were huge partnering what we were doing. Uh
and they have a couple of student led organizations, so
we let all their students come in free. All the
kids who came from Toronto came free. If you are
everything r VP, everything was free. So it's really more
so who wants this knowledge versus like how we monetizing
(30:06):
this piece of it, you know, And so that's that's
really what the music came about. And then we did
writing camps. We rented out Child's Major studio. We had
artists from Atlanta and so you know, Canada join be
part of it. Steve O and you know Juju from
Lad of Masters, they came in. They were there for
the sessions. Shout out to Steve running for office now
(30:28):
office and the real.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Quick, still trying to run the championship game.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Oh yeah, I heard that got competitive, man, that got crazy,
get crazy every year. Yeah, but yeah, that was the
idea is like, all right, how do we just do
something that's a little bit more purpose driven beyond the
festival and then still needing the festival piece of it,
because that's when it gets people excited.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
And like, you know, they want to people want that moment,
you know. So so it was a combination of both.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Things and now and now.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
So then we trans we took We liked that model
so much we were like, all right, let's take this
over to South Africa because we've been traveling back and
forth there for like, you know, four years and didn't
start like we started because Ken Kevin, my other partner,
he wanted to go for his birthday, and our accountant
lives out there, and then our publicist lives in Joe
(31:21):
Burgh also, like so we had people out there, and
so we just went on vibes initially, and then we
realized the vibes matched our vibes a lot, like you know,
like the sounds of k Tranada, the sole elections like those,
you know, the everyday people sound like they appreciate it
out there in the same way that we kind of
appreciated it too. So we're like, what if we like
(31:42):
do the music week you know in South Africa in
December January. It's their festive season, it's their summertime. It's
very cold on this side of the world. Like I
could do two summers. So that's that's yeah, like you know,
and so we also are talking about k Tranada, and
that's somebody we worked We worked with in twenty sixteen,
worked with the Render Fest, you know, and so his
(32:04):
team had a lot of faith in us, and he
hadn't been out he hadn't headlined the show out there.
He did Afropunk think a few years ago, we hadn't
headlined his own and so you know, they trusted us
to bring them out there. We built stages in Ka
Ta and Joe Bird, but that became like the that
was the festival moment, you know, and then that sold
out literally it sold out in like six hours. Like
(32:26):
it broke the ticketing platforms, website and South Africa. No,
it was insane, bro like yeah, like all the all
the media outlets were covering it. We had like two
hundred and eighty one think million media impressions from our
pr campaign, Like it was. It was crazy, and we're like,
oh this like they they liked this the way we
liked this, maybe even more than we like this, Like yeah,
(32:46):
you know, so it felt like we were kind of
going in the right direction as people, as man as
our brand, you know. But we were like, we don't
want to just come in here and just do the show, right,
because then there's a bunch of shows.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
They got a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
They got all kinds of festivals, Hey Neighbor and Rock
to Day, they got they got stuff going on there.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
So we were like, well, what do we do on
top of this? You know.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
So we're like, all right, well let's do this Dot
Connected panel series. And we had Dallas Austin call in.
We had one of the executives from Empire Africa, Sony Africa,
a lawyer used to work with Amazon Music. Like, we
had some really heavy hitters, just artist Sakes who has
a nonprofit out there too, like he spoke, So we
we we.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Were really intentional. We actually partnered with Craig on that.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yes, that's that's what me and Craig really started locking in,
like that was the first thing we did together. And
and he he programmed like eighty eighty five percent of
the panelists, even to the point we had people who
were out there just on vacation who were like, you know,
we told them what we were doing.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
We told them was free to you know, whoever wanted
to come with it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
It was kids, students and professionals, whatever, and people were
on vacation. We're like, you know, I'll dedicate my time
to come sit here for like two hours and like
be a part of this thing. And our other boy
uh Keavi boyk I got I gotta shut up out
he works with team Yeah, and you know, we were
having a great time out there and he still made
it and still dropping knowledge and like, you know, I
(34:06):
think it was really exciting for people to see someone
from Talents Teams speaking directly to them in the country,
you know. And so so anyway, we saw how we
wanted to do. We wanted to prace some impactful that
that could start to leave more of a legacy. The
Planners also do writing camps. We couldn't get the funding
for it, so we just scratched that part because we're
not doing anything that's you know, it goes back to
(34:28):
like dumb stuff down and so but yeah, so we
did we did those really two.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Main components and some other parties.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
We did a local merch collab with a brand out
there called Broke Boys, and that was really just the
genesis of it. So it was like, you know, the
two panels one cake Ti one to Joe Berg after
parties and the festival with Kate Trinada as a starting blocks.
So next year we're looking to like, you know, do
that it, replicate that again and just kind of keep
(34:54):
expanding it out and hopefully, you know, grows more legs
and you know, it becomes a bigger and bigger thing,
an annual staple.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
You know, man doing something in the whold on the continent,
Like I'm sure that just brought on some different challenges,
like even all the stuff you've learned out here doing
it right, Like there's just the whole it's a whole
new beast. You gotta kind of go go down right,
Like yeah, facts, like it's like one thing to do
something down to downtown Atlanta, Like I'm doing something in
a whole another country with people from different you know,
(35:22):
from a different continent. You know, I'm sure, there's just
cultural differences all that kind of stuff. Like how important
for y'all to kind of have like boots on the
ground out there to help y'all pull this thing off?
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Massively important.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, we actually couldn't have done it without having a
team out there. Most of our team was actually based
in Essay. We flew in I want to say, like
maybe eight or so people from our team here, but
the majority of the work was done was done in
partnership with our South African partners. And that's because all
the details you have to go through here, you have
(35:55):
to you have to know how it works. You have
to know the people you know, like you have to
know how to get permits done. Like there's those are
things we couldn't have try to do ourselves. Lilies would
never happen, you know, winn't go off the ground.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
I'm gonna bring all this full circles. We come close.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
A lot of times people talk about the black college experience,
and that's I think a nice way of saying shit
is crazy sometimes ABC trying to get stuff done. I
personally I didn't I didn't graduate, I didn't go to Morehouse,
so I knew not appreciate I understand people always tell
me I'm the most successful morehouse drop. There's there's a
(36:34):
lot of you know what I'm saying, But but I
always tell people like what I think, you know, the
Black college experience, especially there right was like you had
to figure out how to get stuff done, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Like I feel like they kind.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Of like built that into it a little bit, like
because I'm like it should because I mean when I
went to Georgia Southern, I'm like, man, this ship is easy,
Like I have to go.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Do the stuff I was So I.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Was just like, why y'all do MLK, Why we have
why have we reve renovated?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Why is a calling car?
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Is that his hand righting on the wall right there?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Like but I feel like, you know, but I one
thing I can definitely appreciate though about that experience is
it teaches you how to get things done, teach you
how to be gritty, teach you how to like deal
with adversity. And I just feel like with all the
things you got going on, you know what I'm saying,
like that muscle kind of got started start getting build
that more house, you know what I mean, And just
like understanding, like cause again, if not me, there's a
(37:27):
million ways you could have just things you could have
ran into, you know, said all right, this is too hard,
this is too difficult. But I don't know, I just
feel like that's what you all people take away from
that black college experience.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Yeah, one more teaches you how to figure something.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Out, financial aid, whatever they're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna test,
You're gonna figure it out, or you're not gonna.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
You're not gonna figure it out, and the school goes on, right.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
But but I do appreciate that, like to this day,
Like I wouldn't have been the same person if I
did it with a moraouse not a question, you know.
And like my ability to to people understand how things work,
see things and problem solve came from morehouse, from the classroom,
from outside of the classroom.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
So I definitely appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
And I think now, like to your point, like you're like,
I just want to do parade, right, you figured it out.
I just want to do this, you know this creative program.
You just figured it out. So this past year in
Atlanta for the Music Week and in South Africa, we
were literally figuring it out like that was both of
those were like, you know, we're betas you know, like
and so now we have a lot more data, a
(38:34):
lot more people.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
Behind us, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
And so we're announcing Music Week Atlanta the top of May,
and so it's going to be the same week again
June tenth to the fifteenth, and we have some really
exciting stuff coming in and we're able to start tying
where we're doing in South Africa and Atlanta together a
little bit more now. So coming out of the festival
and the Music Week programming, we made a lot of
(38:58):
relationships relationship with the young woman named Boukley who's a
diplomat for South Africa and focuses on sports, arts and
culture for the AU and we're doing a lot of
spend a lot of time working with her. The tourism
boards for about to mess us up. So if anybody
seys in South Africa, I'm doing my best all right,
Olptain Tourism which covers joe Burg and a couple of
(39:20):
other areas, talking to Cape Towns Tourism Board, Essay Tourism overall.
So like we're now figuring out because we had a
really nice impact, we're now figuring out how do we
help export or be a partner on this side of
exporting South African culture here. So we're gonna look to
do like a taste of South Africa experience during the
Music Week in Atlanta and like let people kind of
(39:43):
sign up and like see a little bit of what
we see and hopefully they want to then come to
the continent with us when we go back in December January.
And so we're putting together like the packages and the
experience through our eyes, you know, in partnership with those
boards on that side, to make sure it's like a
really just cohesive experience.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
So I'm excited for what kind of how we keep
going forward with it. And we've talked to you know,
we talked in the Mayor's office and like you know,
Andre Gabson endorsement for what we were doing in South
Africa last year, and so, you know, I think there's
a lot of pieces here that are connecting in the
world cups coming up, Like there's just all these like
global things that are happening, and I think milking Cookies
we want to stand for like the connectivity still now
(40:24):
it's just more global, but it's still the same place
we started from like how do we connect people in communities?
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Man? Well, look, man, y'all are killing it. Man. Congratulations
to you and the whole team.
Speaker 4 (40:34):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
Man.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
You know y'all been, as they say, a one since
day one.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Man, you know what I'm saying, like all the way back,
like like we're talking like we're sawing up the other day.
You know, it's like, man, we was up here. First
time we met was that a Hawks may now look
at us?
Speaker 1 (40:45):
That was that was that was so full circle yesterday man,
because like, yeah, literally, so I used to work for
the Hawks.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
For whoever's listening doesn't know that.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
And so first of all the years that the Hawks
was fire right, they just will stay from arena. Trey
Young got drafted that year. Yeah, killing Oh the barbershop.
I got that future before at halftime, like it was
like for the opening of the Raadar.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
It was. It was craziness. But that year, you know,
I was working under Janie Smith.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I was working with me Lissa Procter, you know narcisst
the whole PR marketing teams, and I remember Melissa was like,
got me this d branding. He started this thing up
called butter at l it's it's super cool. I was
looking at the content. I'm seeing my friends like they're
dripping yellow and stuff, like what's going on here? And
so we finally got to meet and it was in
the border room I think it was on the nineteenth
(41:32):
floor of the Hawks building.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
And I was like, Yo, this dude is cool.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
I was like, I was like, I can't tell him
that now I'm little Lane, but I'm like my mom.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
I was like, all right, I got rock with him.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
And so to see the program we did, I think
it was it was Valentine's Day, right, yeah, yeah, it
was the first.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
That was the first butter eighth butter in Hawks collaborate. Yeah,
so I was crazy.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So to see what you were doing yesterday and to
be on the court speaking, and I was like, I
need to get my photo asad Bro. I need the
first photo here because they don't even know, you know.
So I think I got it. I think I got
I think it's a photo balls of the swag. I
think I got it.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I got it. I got it. I got to dig
it up man.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Okay, okay, okay, yeah that's crazy. Yeah, but very proud
of you man. You know that was that was incredible.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Hey man, well you too.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Man Again, y'all have expanded, you know, congratulations, much much
success to you.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
And the team. You know, I'm be out there, man.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Look I'm saying right now, I'm getting my stuff together. Man,
I'm going out there. I might not come back, but going.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I might not come back, man, Craig King might not
come back. I'm gonna shout out Craigs. Craig's been so
instrumental on everything, man, but he's part of the dream scene.
And so yeah, if you start seeing it Lanta looking
a little smaller, you know, he's because we're gone, because
we're eighteen hours away.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
That's why, well, you know, gives men appreciate you pulling
up man, last time.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
Man.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Little people know where they can find out more about
mioking cookies and and and support y'all and stuff.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Our Instagram handle is the best way to do it.
It's it's Milk Cookies Fast that's I K Cookies, c
O OK, I E s U Fast FBST that's our
Instagram handle. And then my personal want is in gives
we trust, I n G I b BS W E
T r U s T and gives me trusty.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Man and yes, all right and it gives we do
trust man. Appreciate you pulling up on the pod man
with that man. We out's go. You've been listening to
button Nomics and om your hosts, Brandon Butler, got comments, feedback?
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Want to be on the show.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Send us an email today at hello at butteronomics dot com.
Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by
k cy Pegram with marketing support from Queen and Nikki.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Music provided by mister Hanky.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and never
missed an episode, and be sure to follow us on
all our social platforms at butter dot a t L.
Listen to button Nomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're building some scratch you literally need people not
to construct the stage. You have to understand how many
porta parties you need. You know how many security you need.
Like there's parmenting things you have to go through the city,
so you have to you have to have relationships in
the city now right, It's like you know how you're
gonna pay for this thing where you need sponsorship, but
like who's gonna teach sponsorships? And then you really realize
there's a lot of moving parts and you have to
(00:21):
be able to build a team and you have to
be able to like trust other people on your team
to also be able to like know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
He everybody, welcome to another episode of about Anomics. I'm
your host, Brandan Butler, found the CEO Butter yt L
and today we got my guy in the building fresh
off the plane, well you know, fresh off basically basically
basically still still getting respected this air in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
But the one only mister Jordan Gibbs. Man, Gibbs, how
you're doing, bro.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
I'm good. I'm good man.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Appreciate you having me like it's been a long time coming.
So I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I just believe you get back in the country.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Dog.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I think he was coming back.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I questioned it. I think I was coming back.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
For a minute, I think y'all left somebody out there.
Metter fact, we did.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
And he actually came back the last day his visa.
His visa was expiring. He had to fly to Amsterdam.
He couldn't catch a flight directly back here, but he
couldn't stay in the country. We had to fly to
Amsterdam to get out. That's all we stayed in our say.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Man, hey, man, well look man, congratulations and everything y'all doing. Man,
For those that don't know, this is one part of
Milk and Cookies, you know what I'm saying, which also
just did the amazing Milk and Cookies music face that
was officially called in Africa to South Africa. Yeah yeah, yeah,
man Like, So we don't get into that in a second. Man,
we won't get into that in a second. But just
for those who don't know, man like, tell people what
(01:42):
milking cookies is.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Bro yeah, man, milking cookies.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Uh, it's a music start as the music festival, right.
So the whole idea was, you know, we think about milk.
Milk is you know, obviously it's an iconic thing. You know,
cookies are iconic thing, but together it's one of the
greatest duos you could have possibly we imagine in anything, right,
in food and sports, whatever. Milking Cookies makes you smile,
takes you to a child like place, right, and it
(02:07):
brings people together. And the idea for Milking Cookies is like,
how do we how do we create a platform that's
based around music that we can bring different genres of
music together and kind of make our own kind of pairings.
And that became Milking Cookies. And then we wanted to
be diverse. We want you to come to our experience
of ours and meet a friend, you know, and leave
and be like, yo, I remember that's where I met Brandon.
(02:28):
It was that Milking Cookies. You know, we just had
a couple of drinks in the VIP area kch and
just came on like that's that's that's the feeling we
always want to create. So that's that's one part of it,
which is the festival, and then we've also branched into
now Milking Cookies Music Week, which is really adding on
some more kind of edutainment components to it with panel series,
(02:49):
with writing camps, you know, really kind of unpacking what
the music industry is and how music kind of affects
all these other industries as well.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
So you know, that's it in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, man, y'all built something amazing. I mean I remember
going to book Way before we knew each other. Yeah,
I remember I went to see a currency was Cookies events.
You know what I'm saying. I just big currency fans.
I was just out there, you know. I just remember
that experience was just a dope vibe. And I mean
that was years ago. Man, Like what was one of
the first shows that y'all did.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So the founders we've been together since we all met
at Morehouse really and so we've been together since, like,
you know, two thousand and seven. So our first, our
first ever show was promoting wil A at the Loft
and like nine. But I think we've had a lot
of a number of you know, those kind of first
artists to come through the market that were really great.
(03:39):
But I think probably the one that I mean sticks
out the most was probably Kendrick Lamar in twenty eleven.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
We had him at the Old Masquerade.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, that's so I feel like I'm like really Atlanta,
like the old Masquerade, Yeah, I got no old things
now that don't exist anymore.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
The old Masquerade with the flour used to bounce.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, But I was like right after Section eighty dropped
and we had him form Dom Kennedy opened up. So
how the prints opened up, This group University opened up,
and then Titty Boy came out and did a guest
appearance before he was two chains and so but that
was the first show we like invested money into, and
you know, we went to school, we learned a lot
of we learned a lot of learn a lot of
(04:17):
things to that show. But then also I think a
lot a lot of the key players in the city
saw that we were real about what we were doing,
and it put us on a whole nother trajectory for
us to be where we are now. So that was
like a I remember that on was it was Pivotal
and me and my partner Chase for you know, buying
pizza for Kendrick Lamar's team. And then we had a
bunch of students who were working with us, and one
of the guys like stole a box of pizza from
(04:40):
Ketchrick's manager and then we had to like find a
guy and Ketchrick's managers like it was my food. I'm like,
we reready delivered it, and I'm like, I don't really,
I'm the twenty one. I'm just like figuring stuff out.
So but yeah, we went through a lot of learnings
in that in that timeframe.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So, I mean it's been it's been all kind of
stuf because I mean y'all were doing like d M
hip hop, Like y'all were bringing all kind of vibes together. Yeah,
it wasn't just like we're just doing a hip hop
show or like an urban show like That's that's how
it's always kind of been, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, exactly when we think of milk and cookies, that's
exactly what we kind of stand for. It's like, you can,
you know, we can put people together that you wouldn't
expect to see. You know, you might see Santi gold
and Asat Rocky on the stage or whatever. Right, It's
like these genres that you wouldn't normally think would mix,
but they actually go really well together.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
And I think you.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
See that there's really a lot of in DJ culture now, right,
Like like parties like mash up right, like the idea
of taking things that exist separately and kind of remixing
how people experience them and feel them.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
It becomes a whole nother thing on its own.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Like we always come from different backgrounds where we you know,
I grew up in New York until I was like seventeen,
and like, you know, the one thing about growing up
in New York is like you get exposed to all
kinds of cultures. Yeah, every day, whether you want to
or not. Right, Like you hear things, you see things,
and so you know, I think my perspective on like
these other genres of music and other cultures just like
(05:59):
some how it was in me without even realizing it.
And so when we started putting things into the world,
and music is such like a spiritual thing to put
into the world and like amplify, you know, some of
those things are started coming out naturally. Being like Okay,
I want to like I want people to understand that,
you know, black people, but people in general are much
more alike than they really even they realize, you know,
(06:22):
And what better way to do that than through music,
you know, putting people on stages that we believe in
and resonate with their messaging. You know, so everything is
really intentional. Like we're putting somebody on stage is very intentional.
We're trying to take somebody across the world is very intentional.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
You know, what was it like when y'all were playing
that stuff, because I mean it sounds like intentionality of
just you know, diversity has kind of always been in it.
Like how did y'all even come together with that idea in.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
The first place?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Uh, for like milk and cookies, just saying like we
want to do something different, but we want to do
it like with this again a different kind of vibe
bringing all these kind of mus because again, y'all met
each other in college, Like y'all didn't go up together, right,
So y'all were all strangers.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, and then y'all came together.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
But like, what was it that brought y'all together but
also made y'all say, like, yeah, we all agree with
the same vision of you know, putting a different kind
of vibe out here for evince and entertainment.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And yeah, yeah, I think when we were in school.
But as far as four main partners Chases from New York,
so I knew him since we were like fifteen years old.
We were doing teen clubs and stuff. We promoted you know,
Jewel Santana and Chris Brown and yeah, we were like
sixteen years old, right, So like so I already knew
(07:29):
who he was. I met Kevin and Greg in school
and because well we had a lot of friends with
other schools, you know, so like we spent time at
Emory and Kansas State and the UGA and Georgia State,
and we realized at that time everybody was like partying
in their own silos, but the similar stuff. It was
like everybody's playing beer pong just in their own like
they don't they don't even know these other spaces or
(07:52):
other kids are doing the same thing.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So the idea was really like how do we literally
how do we.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Like show our version of Atlanta, Like how do we
show these students that they have a lot in common?
Like how do we create a place that becomes a
meeting ground for everybody? And that was really the genesis
of like you know why we even kind of started this,
Uh started started producing shows and funny not funny, but
like the Kendrick Lamar show we did was actually after
(08:19):
a whole like we did a week long panel series
called on Music as a Natural Resource, and we actually
partnered with the United Nations on that because they had
this document they were working on uh that was called
it was called it was called Music as Natural Resource,
and it was looking at how music is used and
all these different pillars for like trauma survivors for Economic Development,
like they had five of them, and so we took
(08:41):
each pillar and put them on a different campus in Atlanta,
and then we did panels on those campuses based around
their like their strengths, Like so Emory we did the
Trauma Survivors one because Emory Hospital, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Like Morehouse we did Music for Economic Development.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Because you know, that's more else's about that, right, So
we basically we did these panels. We also like were
promoting the show at each campus throughout the week. So
that show was really important to us because it was
the first time we were able to branch out throughout
the city and be like, all right, we're going to
all these campuses talking about all these things we're seeing,
and we're bringing it back into one space, you know.
(09:18):
So yeah, I mean that's that's really why that that's
really each Guilts of Everything was really about community and
bring people together, and how do we do that in
our way?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Right?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
And just for the record, y'all were one of the
first ones actually bring.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Kendrick to Atlanta, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, v first like
officially y'all, Like how did.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That all come together? Man?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I can't tell because I don't make sure.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I want to make sure y'all get the credit for
putting this thing in because y'all were for people, even
like Gain.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I remember section eighty, I remember that.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I don't know if we were the first first because
I felt like Kendrick, I feel like Artis were coming
through Atlanta already, but that was a major show and
at the time that was like I think it was
the first show. I remember, I hadn't seen him in
Atlanta before, so and it.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Was twenty eleven.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It was still like, you know, like we paid less
than ten thousand for at the time, which is crazy, right,
like because now you can't even look at the Mayri
it out if you don't have ten thousands of donation.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
So but yeah, it was. It was. It was very
very early on. So I'll say it's the first, I'll
say it's the first.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
How did that relationship even like come together.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Like, I mean friends and people who believed in us. Really, yeah,
I'm just gonna name drop me here because so Key
Henderson was one of the first people to really like
take us under her wings.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Shot the Key.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, she really like she believes in us. She you know,
she gives opportunities, She helped us. She had the book
postmlone in like twenty twelve, like she you know, we
really wouldn't have started our career in the same way
without her. And she also gives a lot of guidance
and like, but she connected us with uh with top Dog,
which is Kendrick's mandager, and you know, and she helped
facilitate the deal and like that's that's really how it
(10:56):
came came to happen.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Oh man, that's wild. So usaw all these relationships.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Man, man, Like yeah, the relationships are are are probably
the biggest driver to like someone that's to believe in
you early on. It's like, if you don't have a resume,
you don't you haven't done anything really yet, what are
they believing in?
Speaker 4 (11:13):
They gotta believe in the person. Yeah, and that's that's
that's a risk.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Like if we had messed that up that could have
had a bad effect on her, you know, and so
like so yeah, we we appreciate her to this day.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
We'll get into other stuff y'all working on, but just
when you think back, like would have been some of
your favorite shows or events that y'all have just done
in general over the years.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, She's a bunch of them. Been a
bunch of them. Man.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So Sissa, we did, we did. We did Sissa first
show for sure, twenty fourteen and one has sold out,
you know, and it's surprised the agents. The agents were
literally calling trying to figure out like how this happened.
But the night was just magical, Like she hit the
stage and she was just like floating, Like the audience
is like, you know, seventy percent woman and you know
(11:58):
all the words I'm like, and then you meet her
and she's like this beautiful person. I remember a feeling
like that was a night where I was like, Okay,
this makes me feel like I want to get this
experience to people, yea for life, you know, like I
want to create what people are feeling tonight. That's what
I want to recreate for them, you know, so that
was memorable. Post Malone was crazy because you know, you
(12:18):
don't really always know how diverse Atlanta is until you
do certain things. And like the audience he brought out
was like just young people just want to rage. And
it was like and the show we did it with
me shack, Yeah, so that was that was like a
a collide we did with beering tacos back then, and
one he taught us how to scale pricing, you know,
(12:39):
so like we we were like nervous about the show
and then.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
He was like, nah, I've got this.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
We go do this this and this this, and the
show sold out like the last day and it was
just madness outside. Like it was it felt like I
was at south By Southwest or something and like and
then and then posts came in. It's like got the
lady capt there like two am in the morning. It
was just the whole thing was just ridiculous. And to
see where post Malone came like it's grown into to
be a part of, Like that moment in Atlanta for
(13:04):
his first show in Atlanta was like, you know, that
was just like a I can't in I can't really
I can't even put into words really like this how
the energy.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
It's really the energy of the space, that's really what
it is.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, those two and that and then not to go
on forever on this topic, but the show we did
with Render for Kate Trinada in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
On the belt Line.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I was there. I remember that.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, that was that was really special because that was
a dream we had had for a long long time.
And we had another partner before who was one of
our investing partners, and we had this like we wanted
to do something on the belt Line for the longest,
and you know, we kept just feeling like we're hitting
roadblocks and like, and we ended up explaining from that
(13:51):
partner and essentially bought ourselves out of our out of
our existing contract, and within like six months, we were
doing this show on the belt Line that we've been
dreaming about for years. So for us, it really showed
us like, Yo, you gonna actually do like there's really
no ceiling here, you know, like if we're focused on it.
Like and I think the way that production came together,
(14:11):
you know, all the opening DJs were Atlanta based. You know,
everybody was dancing. It was diverse, you know, I mean,
I think it was the first it was the biggest
show that had been on the belt or the first
international act on the belt Line. You know, in that space,
the CEO the belt Line came, people were tailgating at.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
The top of the and.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Everybody like it was like everybody was just having a
good time in Atlanta, And I was like, this is
the Atlanta like that I love to see like this, Yeah,
you know what I'm saying. There was no incidents, nothing like,
and it was just a you know, it was just
an incredible night.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
So I think those it's all about the energy for me, man,
really is. But yeah, those those three like stuck out.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Yeah, to this day, everybody talks about, you know, want
to do events and festivals and all that stuff, but
just in general, like, what's one part of the business
side that most more people you think need to understand
(15:14):
when it comes to doing these kind of events, whether
it's a smaller venue or it's now festivals like y'all
are doing.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Like what part of the business do you think kind
of people overlook or don't fully understand.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
All of it, to be honest, like, because there's so
many parts, like like like if I decided I wanted
to go to Wall Street out of Moorhouse.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Right, there was a very clear path for me to
go there. Right.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I do these internships, you know, I get recommendations from
these professors. I get an opportunity. I just have to
show out or the concert space is not really it's
not clear what to do. You know, you kind of
like I have to learn. And people who like to
bring people together by nature, and they're not a reform
it usually end up becoming like promoters, a part of promoters, right,
(15:58):
because that's what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
You're still you're people.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
You're taking people out of their day and day out
life and you're bringing them to a space where they
have a great time for four hours.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Then they go home and go deal with whatever they
gotta deal with, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
For us to try to like take that and then
like how do we elevate this to the next level,
we had to create a blueprint, which which is why
it's great to work under center Stage and the Loft
and the Masquerade. And we start consulting for them, and
then they introduced us to J Carter and we interned
in the JA Carter for a couple of years, you know,
so we started learning how these pieces work, and you
realize it's a massive amount of departments like you're you know,
(16:33):
like if you're building some scratch you literally need, you know,
your operations team has to be you know, people not
to construct the stage. You know, you have to understand
how many porta potteries you need, you know, how many
security you need, Like there's there's permitting things you have
to go through the city that you have to understand.
You have to you have to have relationships in the
city now, right, it's like, you know how you're gonna
(16:54):
pay for this thing where you need sponsorship, but like
who's gonna teach you sponsorships? And then you have to
you have to go and get somebody who under dans
how to work with brands. And then you really realize
sponsorship is really it's not about the brand. It's really
about the person inside the building. So you have to
have a relationship with somebody who works there, you know,
to be able to film the vouch for you again. Right,
So like it's just it's just like there's a lot
of moving parts and you have to you have to
(17:16):
be able to build a team, and you have to
be able to like you know, trust other people on
your team to also be able to like know what
they're doing, because yeah, it's it's a lot of moving parts,
I say, and not I think people just see the
end result, which is what they're supposed to see, which
is they're just having a blast and you know, they
having a great time. Like that's if we if you
(17:38):
feel like that, then we've done all the other components properly.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
The only time, you know, you know, somebody's office, if
like someone's complaining about something or there's a bathroom or whatever,
that then you're like, all right, there's been a you know,
a missing link in the chain of command here.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Man, now look I just again, I just got done
producing this four or for day parade. I think it's
a lot of the same things, right, Like you don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Not only that you did four four day parade, block
party you did that. Yeah, like you did like none events.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But like it's to your point, man, it's like, yeah,
you don't there's no playbook to go figure out how
to do a parade, right Like I literally had this
idea last year and was like, okay, what do we do?
And it was just figured it out. It was like okay, well,
who's done a parade before. It was like, okay, well
at O Pride's done one, Like who we know over there? Okay,
come talk to them and go talk to this person
and then how do you figure out the permits? And no,
we need oh shit, we need porta potties now, like oh,
(18:30):
we did all this, but now we got to find
somewhere to stage everybody. We need somewhere to house, you know,
three thousand people because parents are dropping off their kids,
like there's just there's no plaper for this stuff. And
you kind of go through that, you're like okay, like
and that's why I told everybody even we were doing it,
was like, look, let's just get the first one done,
you know what I mean. I said, we can always
make it complicated. Everyone was like, oh, you're gonna have Macy's.
(18:51):
I said, we can always make this more complicated. I promise,
But right now my main focus is getting three thousand
people to walk from point A to point B.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Saye, right, and that's it.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
And it's the same thing, right.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
They all belong to you at that time responsible for
all their.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Safety, right, and so it's the same thing. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
It's like, yeah, how do we do this thing, it's
go play. But you just got to figure it out
and then you learn and then you build more into it.
And yet I think people try to oversimplify because they
to your point, they see events, they see activations, They're like, oh, yeah,
we just need a sponsor.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It's like, no, bro, it's just a sponsor to pull
some of this stuff off. You know what I'm saying, And.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I probably said the timing of it all is probably
the biggest thing people don't realize, Like it takes time
to get sponsors. It takes time to get the permits,
you know, like the city has to literally just their plans.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
You'd have a parade, Yeah, it's like what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
What we're doing the festival on the belt lines, Like
the neighbors over there literally had to change, like they
had to allow us to be able to because we
had to park cars, you know, we had to we
need to like fire lanes and stuff like. Yeah, So
all that stuff takes a lot of time and a
lot of planning and a lot of attention to detail
and the right teams. I don't have attention to detail
all the time. Like I have big ideas, but like
(20:00):
I need someone who can that's.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
What that's that's what the team is for it though,
you know what I'm saying like the same thing, Like
I've I've learned that on myself. It's like, look, I
got the ideas, but I need people that are hands
on the ground, you know, boot on the ground, that
can get in. I mean even with the event we
just did last night, it was like I need people
to can help watch my back and make sure this
thing goes and like who's gonna go get get this
person or who's gonna do this?
Speaker 3 (20:20):
And people do that like you know, you know, it's
like I got the idea.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
It's like we got the money for it, but who's
picking up the talent when they get here?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
It's like you.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
But those are all the different pieces, man, Like when
it comes to making something dope, Like how do you
kind of manage like how do y'all even like ide
eate just around like making something dope? And again like
you're like, all right, I want to do this artist,
I want to do this thing, but you also got
even like balanceing like with sponsors and partners and stuff
for on, Like how do y'all kind of keep that
balance to where it look this is still gonna be good,
but we need we need to get parties and sponsors involved,
(20:54):
and like y'all can't water this down, So y'all gotta
trust us to make sure this comes together.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, I mean we can try to credit ideas all
the time. Like that's that's the one thing I think
our team does. We get on the phone, we talking
the next thing. You know, we got a whole concept
that we're like, wait a minute, this is not even
when we started on.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Like Greg is going and half the time is great
what he gets going.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Gregor just here, so I'll say something Gregor is here,
And it was just flipping into a whole other thing.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
And now we got a podcast concept.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
It's like, bro, wait literally and that's actually a lot.
That's that's what we feel like we are most pure.
We're just having those conversations, you know, and then like
we just let we just literally we're learning how to
now like take these ideas, park them, but then also
be able to like flush them out later on.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
You know, what's the question again?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
You know, I'm just saying, like how do y'all balance
like Ugain coming up with like an a dopeing amazing
idea and an amazing event, but also just making sure that
your sponsors feel good, feeling like they're not they're not
like watering the idea down.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, So I'm I'm very clear about understanding what the
KPIs are for the sponsor, right, and I'm also very
clear about aligning with the right sponsors. So like I
will say no to a sponsor that doesn't align with
our values, and I have no problem saying it.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
I've done it before.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
So you know, what I've realized is like brands want
to they want to attach themselves to the cool thing
or the thing that's like pushing the culture forward or
whatever they're driving, whatever their KPI is, they want to
be attached to the thing that's driving that thing forward.
So once I understand like what a brand is looking for,
it's easy to then I can line it up and
make sure that I find the place that we both link.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I think that's that's part of my superpower, is finding
that part, like where is the synergy between all these things?
Speaker 4 (22:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
But what leads culture is not the brands, right. The
brands are kind of the third tier. Really, It's like
the person who does the thing, whatever it is, right,
they create the concept, they push it out there in
the world. They're taking a leap of faith, and a
lot of times they're not going to get supported at first.
But once it goes well, the recaps, social media, all
that stuff's going. When they do the second one, now
(22:50):
somebody from the brand saw that and it was like, oh, wait,
we're trying to do that.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Know, they're doing it already, righteah.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
So what ends up happening is you kind of have
to take a leap of faith on yourself and be
the be the cultural leader, be the thought leader, and
then the brands come behind you, and then they're more
open to, you know, following or molding themselves to fit
your vision because they see something already that they want
to be a part of, and they may not know
what they want to be a part of it yet
(23:17):
until they see it, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I think that's the part that people miss man, like
even even you, a lot of stuff that we do.
I tell people like, if you really want to get
it done, you got to do it.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Yourself first, got to do it.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Like there's this whole thing I think that people really
miss out on where it's like, yeah, I got this idea,
I just need to I need to need a sponsor
to make it happen. And it's like, bro, there's a
there's a version of this you can do, probably without
a sponsor. But what you don't understand is is that
by you doing it first, you now have the leverage,
right like you have the you have, you have the example,
like and it's so much easier to get people involved.
(23:46):
Like when you've done something and I say this, I mean,
I know what it happens everywhere, but I even say
it in Atlanta, I say, Atlanta is a very fomo city.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Like talking about this, it's like it's like, bro, talking
about this parade we did.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It's like I literally shouted from every platform I could that.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
We were gonna do this parade.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And I knew it was not going to reach everybody,
and I knew people were gonna be like, oh, I
didn't even hear about it. But you know what, I
knew that once we did it the next year, and
you were gonna be like, oh yeah, like I know
about it this time. But I'm telling people like, you
gotta do the thing first. And that's how you maintain
the leverage, That's how you get yourself in a better
position to negotiate if you can't do something because you
can't go find a bunch of you know, an unlimited budget,
(24:24):
Like anybody can do anything with an unlimited budget, but
if you tell them you got to go find one
hundred thousand dollars just to make something happen, Like there's
not another version of.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
This, Yeah, it might not be the right thing.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, like right, like bro, even like the even the
credit is of color event. You know, it was like, Bro,
that was something I want to do. I just did
it last year and I paid for it out of
pocket and now look what it's grown into and just
a year, you know what I mean? And like I
think again, it's the same thing with you all. It's
like you got to do the thing first, and you
got to put it out into the world because that's
how you maintain the leverage. That's how you can actually
control what it turns into versus you know, needing all
(24:56):
these things. And yeah, it's nice when you get you
get enough you know, leeway, you enough relationship, but then
you can actually work with brands and work with people
and say I had another idea, let's build this together.
But in the beginning, like yeah, man, And that's I
think people really miss that part of the game.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Bro. Yeah yeah, yeah, I was simplified now whatever it is, like,
I would dumb it down to the simplest form that
we can do, you know, just to do it, because
then then you have data, Then you have people who
vouch for you, the people that went to the experience,
and you're trying to build the community, right, so you
actually don't need everyone there for everything or even the
first thing, Like you want the people who are going
to support you and want to be there for that,
(25:30):
you know, because then those people champion whatever you do
ten x more than somebody who just pulled up, you
know and doesn't really care about whatever's going on, you know.
And like so you can start small and then kind
of like keep building it up, you know. And I
think that's that's also the best way to just grow
an organic or community.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Like all this stuff is about community these days.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
You know, people go online, whatever they follow is a community,
right Like whoever, whatever page you follow, there's twenty other
people following it or two thousand people follow it. Either way,
y'all tap it in for a reason. There's something that
unites you about whatever this content is coming out. That's
a community, you know what I mean. Like, so we're
building communities, whether they're physical or digital. We're building communities.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Now.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
See in the building something about Milk Music Week, Man, Like,
how did that come?
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
So that was an amazing experience too.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. How did it come together?
Speaker 1 (26:32):
It was really our response to I feel like Atlanta
needed a south By Southwest for itself, you know, And
there were like you know, there were there were other
events that were kind of like that, and some of
them kind of you know, through COVID or whatever other reasons,
like they just don't really exist in the same way.
So the idea was, like how do we we built
(26:52):
up all these relationships? And that's the beautiful thing about
Atlanta too, right, Like people I was just partying with
a decade ago or like you know, or just like
going to Networking Advance and going to this brand thing
whatever it is. You know, a lot of these people
ended up going on their own arcs and the managing
talent or working at this brand or like you know,
becoming a lawyer is an X, Y and Z, which
(27:14):
makes it easier now to like kind of tap in,
Like now where we are we can either start a
network and they know they know who we were, you know,
ten years ago, you know. So what I realized is like,
what would young me want? What would young me out
a Moorhouse who has no blueprint for to produce concerts
or festivals? Like, how would I help this person? And
(27:34):
I realized the people I was looking up to then
fast forward now my peers, you know, and my friends.
So we're like, how do we bridge that knowledge gap? Like, so,
how do we make this more purpose driven beyond the
festival and the concert and the fun stuff, Like what's
how we leave in a market legacy, you know in Atlanta?
And so the idea was literally put together this week
(27:56):
of programming where we have panels are focused on really
music and aa I. But then we branched it into like,
well how do labels use this, you know to find
new talent like or find new audiences? You know, how
how is it being used in like education like Georgia
State as a whole you know, building dedicated to creatives
and music and they're using AI power tools, you know,
(28:17):
Microsoft as initiative, Like all these people have initiatives, So like,
how do we wrap our programming around music and AI
and then bring in people who are already high level
executives to come speak to students who are just interested
or just trying to figure out what am I doing
in life?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
So that was that was the whole thought behind it,
and we did we did a music tech house. We
took over Blueprint Group studio literally was like a three
story building. The bottom floor we had a couple of
food trucks and like fuse positors out there, you know,
and then the second floor was like we usually where
their offices are. We transformed that entire space, you know,
(28:55):
into really a studio you know, for the most part,
and so much so then at you know, Cortes, one
of the founders of Blueprint, walked into his own space
and was like whoa, he said.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Y'all, y'all did all this behind us.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
And so we had we had the you know, panels there,
and then the room, and then the next floor we
had like a lounge area with some you know, you
know bar kind of just.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Like a reprieve, and the top floor outside.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
We set up like almost like a tiny desk kind
of set up where we had we had a bunch
of artists come in from Canada from Toronto and some
artists from here, and we allowed them to perform on
the rooftop. So literally it was like a music tech
house that was going on and in between the panels
and these performances and once they were done, next panels started,
you know, et cetera. And uh, yeah, we built it
(29:43):
into uh you know, into a place where we made
it free for students, so that we parted with LVRN
also they were huge partnering what we were doing. Uh
and they have a couple of student led organizations, so
we let all their students come in free. All the
kids who came from Toronto came free. If you are
everything r VP, everything was free. So it's really more
so who wants this knowledge versus like how we monetizing
(30:06):
this piece of it, you know, And so that's that's
really what the music came about. And then we did
writing camps. We rented out Child's Major studio. We had
artists from Atlanta and so you know, Canada join be
part of it. Steve O and you know Juju from
Lad of Masters, they came in. They were there for
the sessions. Shout out to Steve running for office now
(30:28):
office and the real.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Quick, still trying to run the championship game.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Oh yeah, I heard that got competitive, man, that got crazy,
get crazy every year. Yeah, but yeah, that was the
idea is like, all right, how do we just do
something that's a little bit more purpose driven beyond the
festival and then still needing the festival piece of it,
because that's when it gets people excited.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
And like, you know, they want to people want that moment,
you know. So so it was a combination of both.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Things and now and now.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
So then we trans we took We liked that model
so much we were like, all right, let's take this
over to South Africa because we've been traveling back and
forth there for like, you know, four years and didn't
start like we started because Ken Kevin, my other partner,
he wanted to go for his birthday, and our accountant
lives out there, and then our publicist lives in Joe
(31:21):
Burgh also, like so we had people out there, and
so we just went on vibes initially, and then we
realized the vibes matched our vibes a lot, like you know,
like the sounds of k Tranada, the sole elections like those,
you know, the everyday people sound like they appreciate it
out there in the same way that we kind of
appreciated it too. So we're like, what if we like
(31:42):
do the music week you know in South Africa in
December January. It's their festive season, it's their summertime. It's
very cold on this side of the world. Like I
could do two summers. So that's that's yeah, like you know,
and so we also are talking about k Tranada, and
that's somebody we worked We worked with in twenty sixteen,
worked with the Render Fest, you know, and so his
(32:04):
team had a lot of faith in us, and he
hadn't been out he hadn't headlined the show out there.
He did Afropunk think a few years ago, we hadn't
headlined his own and so you know, they trusted us
to bring them out there. We built stages in Ka
Ta and Joe Bird, but that became like the that
was the festival moment, you know, and then that sold
out literally it sold out in like six hours. Like
(32:26):
it broke the ticketing platforms, website and South Africa. No,
it was insane, bro like yeah, like all the all
the media outlets were covering it. We had like two
hundred and eighty one think million media impressions from our
pr campaign, Like it was. It was crazy, and we're like,
oh this like they they liked this the way we
liked this, maybe even more than we like this, Like yeah,
(32:46):
you know, so it felt like we were kind of
going in the right direction as people, as man as
our brand, you know. But we were like, we don't
want to just come in here and just do the show, right,
because then there's a bunch of shows.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
They got a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
They got all kinds of festivals, Hey Neighbor and Rock
to Day, they got they got stuff going on there.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
So we were like, well, what do we do on
top of this? You know.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
So we're like, all right, well let's do this Dot
Connected panel series. And we had Dallas Austin call in.
We had one of the executives from Empire Africa, Sony Africa,
a lawyer used to work with Amazon Music. Like, we
had some really heavy hitters, just artist Sakes who has
a nonprofit out there too, like he spoke, So we
we we.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Were really intentional. We actually partnered with Craig on that.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yes, that's that's what me and Craig really started locking in,
like that was the first thing we did together. And
and he he programmed like eighty eighty five percent of
the panelists, even to the point we had people who
were out there just on vacation who were like, you know,
we told them what we were doing.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
We told them was free to you know, whoever wanted
to come with it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
It was kids, students and professionals, whatever, and people were
on vacation. We're like, you know, I'll dedicate my time
to come sit here for like two hours and like
be a part of this thing. And our other boy
uh Keavi boyk I got I gotta shut up out
he works with team Yeah, and you know, we were
having a great time out there and he still made
it and still dropping knowledge and like, you know, I
(34:06):
think it was really exciting for people to see someone
from Talents Teams speaking directly to them in the country,
you know. And so so anyway, we saw how we
wanted to do. We wanted to prace some impactful that
that could start to leave more of a legacy. The
Planners also do writing camps. We couldn't get the funding
for it, so we just scratched that part because we're
not doing anything that's you know, it goes back to
(34:28):
like dumb stuff down and so but yeah, so we
did we did those really two.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Main components and some other parties.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
We did a local merch collab with a brand out
there called Broke Boys, and that was really just the
genesis of it. So it was like, you know, the
two panels one cake Ti one to Joe Berg after
parties and the festival with Kate Trinada as a starting blocks.
So next year we're looking to like, you know, do
that it, replicate that again and just kind of keep
(34:54):
expanding it out and hopefully, you know, grows more legs
and you know, it becomes a bigger and bigger thing,
an annual staple.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
You know, man doing something in the whold on the continent,
Like I'm sure that just brought on some different challenges,
like even all the stuff you've learned out here doing
it right, Like there's just the whole it's a whole
new beast. You gotta kind of go go down right,
Like yeah, facts, like it's like one thing to do
something down to downtown Atlanta, Like I'm doing something in
a whole another country with people from different you know,
(35:22):
from a different continent. You know, I'm sure, there's just
cultural differences all that kind of stuff. Like how important
for y'all to kind of have like boots on the
ground out there to help y'all pull this thing off?
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Massively important.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, we actually couldn't have done it without having a
team out there. Most of our team was actually based
in Essay. We flew in I want to say, like
maybe eight or so people from our team here, but
the majority of the work was done was done in
partnership with our South African partners. And that's because all
the details you have to go through here, you have
(35:55):
to you have to know how it works. You have
to know the people you know, like you have to
know how to get permits done. Like there's those are
things we couldn't have try to do ourselves. Lilies would
never happen, you know, winn't go off the ground.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
I'm gonna bring all this full circles. We come close.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
A lot of times people talk about the black college experience,
and that's I think a nice way of saying shit
is crazy sometimes ABC trying to get stuff done. I
personally I didn't I didn't graduate, I didn't go to Morehouse,
so I knew not appreciate I understand people always tell
me I'm the most successful morehouse drop. There's there's a
(36:34):
lot of you know what I'm saying, But but I
always tell people like what I think, you know, the
Black college experience, especially there right was like you had
to figure out how to get stuff done, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Like I feel like they kind.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Of like built that into it a little bit, like
because I'm like it should because I mean when I
went to Georgia Southern, I'm like, man, this ship is easy,
Like I have to go.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Do the stuff I was So I.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Was just like, why y'all do MLK, Why we have
why have we reve renovated?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Why is a calling car?
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Is that his hand righting on the wall right there?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Like but I feel like, you know, but I one
thing I can definitely appreciate though about that experience is
it teaches you how to get things done, teach you
how to be gritty, teach you how to like deal
with adversity. And I just feel like with all the
things you got going on, you know what I'm saying,
like that muscle kind of got started start getting build
that more house, you know what I mean, And just
like understanding, like cause again, if not me, there's a
(37:27):
million ways you could have just things you could have
ran into, you know, said all right, this is too hard,
this is too difficult. But I don't know, I just
feel like that's what you all people take away from
that black college experience.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Yeah, one more teaches you how to figure something.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Out, financial aid, whatever they're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna test,
You're gonna figure it out, or you're not gonna.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
You're not gonna figure it out, and the school goes on, right.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
But but I do appreciate that, like to this day,
Like I wouldn't have been the same person if I
did it with a moraouse not a question, you know.
And like my ability to to people understand how things work,
see things and problem solve came from morehouse, from the classroom,
from outside of the classroom.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
So I definitely appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
And I think now, like to your point, like you're like,
I just want to do parade, right, you figured it out.
I just want to do this, you know this creative program.
You just figured it out. So this past year in
Atlanta for the Music Week and in South Africa, we
were literally figuring it out like that was both of
those were like, you know, we're betas you know, like
and so now we have a lot more data, a
(38:34):
lot more people.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
Behind us, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
And so we're announcing Music Week Atlanta the top of May,
and so it's going to be the same week again
June tenth to the fifteenth, and we have some really
exciting stuff coming in and we're able to start tying
where we're doing in South Africa and Atlanta together a
little bit more now. So coming out of the festival
and the Music Week programming, we made a lot of
(38:58):
relationships relationship with the young woman named Boukley who's a
diplomat for South Africa and focuses on sports, arts and
culture for the AU and we're doing a lot of
spend a lot of time working with her. The tourism
boards for about to mess us up. So if anybody
seys in South Africa, I'm doing my best all right,
Olptain Tourism which covers joe Burg and a couple of
(39:20):
other areas, talking to Cape Towns Tourism Board, Essay Tourism overall.
So like we're now figuring out because we had a
really nice impact, we're now figuring out how do we
help export or be a partner on this side of
exporting South African culture here. So we're gonna look to
do like a taste of South Africa experience during the
Music Week in Atlanta and like let people kind of
(39:43):
sign up and like see a little bit of what
we see and hopefully they want to then come to
the continent with us when we go back in December January.
And so we're putting together like the packages and the
experience through our eyes, you know, in partnership with those
boards on that side, to make sure it's like a
really just cohesive experience.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
So I'm excited for what kind of how we keep
going forward with it. And we've talked to you know,
we talked in the Mayor's office and like you know,
Andre Gabson endorsement for what we were doing in South
Africa last year, and so, you know, I think there's
a lot of pieces here that are connecting in the
world cups coming up, Like there's just all these like
global things that are happening, and I think milking Cookies
we want to stand for like the connectivity still now
(40:24):
it's just more global, but it's still the same place
we started from like how do we connect people in communities?
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Man? Well, look, man, y'all are killing it. Man. Congratulations
to you and the whole team.
Speaker 4 (40:34):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
Man.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
You know y'all been, as they say, a one since
day one.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Man, you know what I'm saying, like all the way back,
like like we're talking like we're sawing up the other day.
You know, it's like, man, we was up here. First
time we met was that a Hawks may now look
at us?
Speaker 1 (40:45):
That was that was that was so full circle yesterday man,
because like, yeah, literally, so I used to work for
the Hawks.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
For whoever's listening doesn't know that.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
And so first of all the years that the Hawks
was fire right, they just will stay from arena. Trey
Young got drafted that year. Yeah, killing Oh the barbershop.
I got that future before at halftime, like it was
like for the opening of the Raadar.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
It was. It was craziness. But that year, you know,
I was working under Janie Smith.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I was working with me Lissa Procter, you know narcisst
the whole PR marketing teams, and I remember Melissa was like,
got me this d branding. He started this thing up
called butter at l it's it's super cool. I was
looking at the content. I'm seeing my friends like they're
dripping yellow and stuff, like what's going on here? And
so we finally got to meet and it was in
the border room I think it was on the nineteenth
(41:32):
floor of the Hawks building.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
And I was like, Yo, this dude is cool.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
I was like, I was like, I can't tell him
that now I'm little Lane, but I'm like my mom.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
I was like, all right, I got rock with him.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
And so to see the program we did, I think
it was it was Valentine's Day, right, yeah, yeah, it
was the first.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
That was the first butter eighth butter in Hawks collaborate. Yeah,
so I was crazy.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So to see what you were doing yesterday and to
be on the court speaking, and I was like, I
need to get my photo asad Bro. I need the
first photo here because they don't even know, you know.
So I think I got it. I think I got
I think it's a photo balls of the swag. I
think I got it.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I got it. I got it. I got to dig
it up man.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Okay, okay, okay, yeah that's crazy. Yeah, but very proud
of you man. You know that was that was incredible.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Hey man, well you too.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Man Again, y'all have expanded, you know, congratulations, much much
success to you.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
And the team. You know, I'm be out there, man.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Look I'm saying right now, I'm getting my stuff together. Man,
I'm going out there. I might not come back, but going.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I might not come back, man, Craig King might not
come back. I'm gonna shout out Craigs. Craig's been so
instrumental on everything, man, but he's part of the dream scene.
And so yeah, if you start seeing it Lanta looking
a little smaller, you know, he's because we're gone, because
we're eighteen hours away.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
That's why, well, you know, gives men appreciate you pulling
up man, last time.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
Man.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Little people know where they can find out more about
mioking cookies and and and support y'all and stuff.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Our Instagram handle is the best way to do it.
It's it's Milk Cookies Fast that's I K Cookies, c
O OK, I E s U Fast FBST that's our
Instagram handle. And then my personal want is in gives
we trust, I n G I b BS W E
T r U s T and gives me trusty.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Man and yes, all right and it gives we do
trust man. Appreciate you pulling up on the pod man
with that man. We out's go. You've been listening to
button Nomics and om your hosts, Brandon Butler, got comments, feedback?
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Want to be on the show.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Send us an email today at hello at butteronomics dot com.
Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by
k cy Pegram with marketing support from Queen and Nikki.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Music provided by mister Hanky.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and never
missed an episode, and be sure to follow us on
all our social platforms at butter dot a t L.
Listen to button Nomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Brandon Butler
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