Today on The Breakfast Club, Richelieu Dennis Talks Essence Festival; Online Criticism, Target Boycott, Black Businesses. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that answer up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Everybody is DJ en Vy, Jess Hilarious, Chelamaane the guy
we are the Breakfast Club. Lonla Rosa is here as well.
And we got a special guest in the building. He
has so many titles.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, Richard, We'll go ahead.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
I'm gonna say he's the executive chairman of Sundown Group
of Companies. That's right, we have rich Dennis.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
Yes, it is a group of companies. Tell them some
of the companies.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Uh, Richard, Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. As
I was saying earlier, like every couple of.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Years, talk to Mike, talked to Mike. You should know
every couple of years.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
No, I only do this like once every two years,
explain myself to you. But so, Sundown Group of Companies
consist of Sundown Media Group and Media and Technology Group.
Uh So, that's Essence, Refinery twenty nine, Afro Punk, Beauty
con and a few other media assets, Sunday Aile uh Financial,
(01:02):
which is New Voices fund in which we we invest
in and businesses. One of the largest investors in black
owned businesses and people of color. So that's that's the
and then the consumer. We have so now consumers. So
some of you guys know us for the brands that
(01:24):
we've built like Shade Moisture and in Heritage and Madam C. J.
Walker and now some of the newer brands like Alafia
and some of those things. So so we we we
we play across the the economic landscape of culture.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
And also, if I'm not minatake, you said afroc, I
mean afroch afro punk, afropunk Okay, and a beauty conk and.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Beauty he said, you know, listening, he said, Okay, I'm
just making sure man.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I'm the reason I want to stress that is because
you said you got to come in here every couple
of years to explain yourself.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
But I want people to know who you are, and
I want.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Them to know how important you are to a lot
not not just you know yourself, but to a lot
of other black companies in black Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we've we've invested in, uh probably
at this point, well over one hundred black businesses we've
focused in on. We started with a keen focus on
women on black businesses, and then we we spread that
out to men. So you know, we've invested in and
(02:27):
helped build companies like Mael Honey Pot Square Squire rather
than not Square Squire solo funds. So we go across
everything from consumer to to deep tech, right with the
lens of trying to solve vexing problems in the black community,
(02:51):
investing in businesses as solve vexing problems in the black community.
We see ourselves as building the UH, the cultural infrastructure
and monetization engines that allow us to keep ownership of
our intellectual property as a community and to build and
(03:13):
scale businesses that can then reinvest back in the community.
One of the last times I was here, now one
of the last times with the time before the last time,
I came in here and we're talking about me selling
Shae Moisture, and I said to you guys, I'm selling
this company because I am going to unlock wealth that's
(03:33):
never been seen in our community before. I'm going to
invest that wealth back in our community.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
And you did it.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I did that right six years later, seven years later,
not only have we done that, we've now had four
or five exits that have delivered more than a billion
dollars wow back into Black families in this country. So very,
very proud of the journey that we're on. But every
once in a while, you know, we don't get it
(04:00):
one hundred percent right, But what we do do is
come back and fix it and get it one hundred
percent right.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
So that's and I do want to say it's very important,
h what you do and have done is so important
and even more important now when you see all these
DEI initiatives getting rolled back, when you see these fundings,
when you see this funding for these black organizations and
black companies getting cut.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
All we gonna have is us that's to invest back
in each other.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
That's it. That's it, you know. And and part of
that is if you don't create wealth, we don't have
us to invest back in each other. Right, then we're
we're constantly needing to have other people support us to
I mean, look, you know we've got we've got changes
in healthcare coming, right, We've got changes in our abilities
(04:49):
to get an education. It's going to cost it. We're
going to have fewer opportunities and higher costs. Right. The
only thing that we can control is our economic destiny, right,
And so I'm fiercely protective of that because if we
(05:10):
don't have that we've got, We've got nothing, and to
do that, we've got to build big businesses. We've got
to build infrastructure to support those businesses, and we've got
to train up people so that they can run those
businesses right, all things that we all know are missing
from our community infrastructure today. So we've got a lot
(05:31):
of work to do, and we're here to do the
work now.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Of course, trendon all.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
The last couple of days was the Essence Festival yep,
thirty first Essence Festival. Some people were upset, some people
were mad about timing. Some people said it wasn't as
packed as it usually is. They were mad that target
was a sponsor. So I know you're here today to
break some of that down. So yeah, what happened I
guess Essence Festival weekend?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah, So, first of all, a lot of the criticism
is warranted, a lot of it is not right. There's
always an explanation for things that go wrong, and people
always excited to take credit for things.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
That go right.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
My job is to balance that all out, right. So
we have an incredible team that's running Essence Festival. They
have built something that when you look at it, if
you look at the scale of what it is today
that competes against the best in the world, right without
the resources of the best in the world, right and
(06:37):
without the access that the best in the world has. Right.
So I'm extremely proud of that team. I'm also proud
of the fact that they took risks that we don't
normally get to take in order to build something better,
and some of those risks worked out exceptionally well. Like
you go into the convention Center extraordinary, right. We had
(07:02):
problems in production with the mics. That happens seems seems
to happen more in the Superdome or in domes rather,
but we had problems there. Those problems will be addressed
because they are easily addressable. There's reasons for why that
(07:23):
happened at some point. We can get into that if
you want to. But they look, we had over forty
acts over the three day weekend in the in the
in the Superdome. Right, best talent in the world, and
they deserve the best acoustics, they deserve the best production,
(07:48):
and we'll give that to them. We've given that to
them for thirty years. This thirty first year, we didn't
we didn't do as good a job as we normally do,
and next year we'll do a better job than we've
ever done. Is we've learned what the what the issues were.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
So why would Lauren hillsow Lake?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
She said it wasn't her fault, Absolutely was not her fault,
she says, she thanks y'all for actually stepping up and
saying it wasn't a Well.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Our job is to protect black women. We're not going
to sit here and say, hey, you know, because she's
taking the heat for it, We're going to be quieter
because that's just not that's not what we are, that's
not what essence it's about, that's not what we're building.
There were there were production issues with the audio video
system that caused the delay in her performance. We own that, right.
(08:34):
Those delays you know, were primarily because we've been very
aggressive in as I said earlier, our job is to
develop the infrastructure that drives black businesses, right, So we
also want to make sure that we're investing in the
(08:54):
local businesses in New Orleans, right, And so our partner,
our production partner, from our mandate and my team's directive,
which which again we're very proud that we're able to
do this. You know, One of the things that that
that that is also satisfying but scary, is that there
(09:17):
are no more black festivals around, right. We're about the
only independent one left, right. And so what that means
is that the people that get to produce these festivals
fewer and fewer and fewer of them have the resources
and the access and the ability to run these large
festivals because they're not getting those opportunities. Right. I said
(09:41):
to my team a year ago, is we need to
go out and find the types of partners that we
can develop and grow so that they have the opportunities
to do these right. So we probably should have been
a little bit more uh thoughtful in the execution of that, right,
(10:02):
But at the end of the day, I'm proud of
the fact that they took the risk. Right. Next year,
we will have a local, well trained, well developed a
partner in that area because we got the experience we
had this.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Year, y'all didn't have the right production team to pull
off a.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
Concert of that scale base.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
For the sound.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yes, right, however, sorry, sorry, you go ahead that right. However,
our job is to train them up. It's not their fault, right,
it's our fault. Right. We have to we have to
if we if we're going to go that route, we
have to continue to make sure that we're investing in
their development and then their training, and we're gonna we're
(10:46):
going to continue to do that and rest assured that
will not happen again. I'm sorry.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
I want to ask you the production company that you're
talking about, is that separate from the Solomon Group company,
because there was articles about them working with you guys,
and people throwing a lot of blame on a Solomon
g people too.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, it's
not any of our partner's fault. Is our fault because
we engage them, we we hire them, we pay them,
we manage them, and it's our job to make sure
that everything is delivered properly. I'm not gonna sit here
and say that it's the Solomon Group's fold or is
this group's Faulds that.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Group's fault, right, Richiere a nice guy.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
At the end of the day, Well, if I want
you to do.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Sound, I'm not a sound guy. It sounds supposed to
be right. I'm paying you a certain amount of money
to sound supposed to be perfect. That's what you're paying for.
You don't sit there with the mics and it just
levels and stuff like you pay somebody.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
About the artist. Yeah, that was the other thing I
kept hearing. I kept hearing people was you know, late.
Speaker 7 (11:36):
But Lauren Hill says she wasn't late though, So.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Let me get to that. But first, let me take
this right. It's not that I'm a nice guy. Is
that I am trying to build something that's lasting. If
I don't invest in people and I don't have the
patience with them, plenty of people allowed me to fail, right,
And because they allowed me to fail, I'm where I'm
at today. Right. My job and the role that I
(11:58):
see myself playing is to make sure that when somebody fails,
I'm there to pick them up right, because that's the
other thing that we don't have the luxury of as
black people. We get one shot right and then you
walk away. So we're gonna take the hit. It's our fault,
it's our responsibility. We will deal with our internal partners.
(12:20):
Our internal partners will step up and if they then
don't step up to the plate, then they will be gone.
But it will not be because they made a mistake here.
It will be because they haven't been able to learn
from those misses, right, So that that's that's the answer there.
I think you you you were asking the tardiness.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
You know, I read the open letter that you know,
Stephanie Mills wrote, and you know, I love God, bless God.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Loves Stephanie Mills. And what she said was, you know,
she's a professional. This is an o G veteran in
the game. He said.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
The challenges I encountered were multifaceted and in my view,
indicative of broader organizational shortcomings. The scheduling and time management
were severely lacking, creating a chaotic and stressful, stressful environment backstage,
This organization cascading onto the stage, impacting the flow of
the event and ultimately diminishing the quality of the performances.
Then she got into the logistical issues, and oh, she said,
(13:13):
beyond the logistical issues, the technical difficulties is what we
just talked about.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
The sound system, she said, all that was deeply problematic.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, well, I mean she she said it there's nothing
that there's nothing to.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Argue there, right, The I guess the why is what
I'm asking.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Well, I think I think the why is one scale, right,
and when you have when you start with the technical issues.
As you guys are in this business, things have a
way of having domino effects and they impact they impact
other things. Right, So we're tracking all of that down.
(13:51):
We've got, you know, folks that have been working nonstopper
on the clock to make sure that we not just
identify these So so whether it's it's Mills, or it's
the security guard on the floor, or whether wherever it is,
we're talking to everybody and we're making the adjustments that
(14:11):
we need that we need to make. This isn't a
matter of hey, you know we're oblivious to these issues.
It's not This isn't a matter of, hey, we don't
understand that there were challenges. We understand there were challenges.
We're getting to the bottom of it. We're correct.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
I think I understand what you're saying as far as production,
because you know, we deal with that, especially in.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Radio a lot of times.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Right, you're giving people an opportunity, you're giving people a chance,
but they may not have the experience. And you said
you got to train them up. But man, when you
got something that needs to hit the ground running, I
can't teach you how to run. I need you already
know how to run.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, yeah, well you know, and a lot of times
too because we don't get the opportunity. We may know
how to run, but we may be rusty, right, I
may not have done it in a year a year
and a half, so things slip, right, I may have
I may have new team members that haven't really run
it with me before. So I've got it. I've got
to figure out how to do that. So this is
(15:16):
not this is not this isn't anything new to this
business or to the to the the music or the
festival business. But I think it is particularly heightened because
we care about the people that we care about, and
the people that we serve care deeply about what it
(15:36):
is that we're doing. Right, So this this criticism, I
don't take it as criticism to criticize, although there is
some of that, right, there's some piling on this all that,
but that's that's part of the game. But people really
care about what essence means to them and it's a
source of pride for them, right, So we have to
deliver that. That's why I'm here, right, So we have
(15:58):
to be able to deliver that, and we have to
deliver that excellence every day and so you know, five
hundred things may go right, and one thing may go wrong,
or two things or ten things may go wrong. We
owe it to ourselves to say, hey, this isn't working
and be for us to correct it. So I do
have to ask.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
You know, I go to Essence every year, right, and
I was there this year. I actually spoke on one
of the stages, this Wade Lounge.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I did dope. Was that it was dope? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:27):
It was really.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I mean I love that because I get you get
to see your core of people that you don't usually
necessarily get to see.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Right, everybody comes in one place.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
And you don't see that as the Puerto Rican I'm
not Puerto.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Rican black, stop that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
But I really get a chance to see people, and
not just at the convention center, not just at the concert,
at restaurants, at day parties, at just being out and about.
But I did notice that it wasn't his pact that
it usually is, right right. Some people say it was
maybe because of the boycott of Target. Some people say
maybe you know, people can't afford it. Right now, What
do you say to that?
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Was it Target?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Was it? You know?
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Look, I think I think we live in a world
right now, where there's so much uncertainty right and and
people are trying to figure out where this is all headed. Right,
they're they're they're hurting financially, or they're or they're unsure
of what's going to happen to them financially. So they're
they're they're they're taking a beat on things and say, hey,
(17:23):
am I going to do this? There's uh a sort
of deep sense of of responsibility for to just share
everything right and and to be and to be as
(17:43):
as loud and as and as vocal and as visible
as as possible. So so things that may not be
fully understood get discussed in ways and in places that
sound like they actually know what they're talking about. But
so at the convention center again, phenomenal success. Here's why.
(18:10):
Last year there was a lot of lines, a lot
of blockage of the aisles. Our elders couldn't move freely,
they couldn't get from one place to another. So we
made a strategic decision to increase the size by one
hundred thousand square feet. Right. What that enabled us to
(18:34):
do was wider aisles right spread the spread the place
out of tuk tuk lines on the sides and away
from the center aisle, so people could move more freely. Right.
So when you look at that, you say, oh, there's
fewer people here, right, And you couple that with an
active boycott that's going on, right, and you couple that
(18:56):
with all of the uncertainty that I just talk about,
and then it's easy to come to that conclusion. Well,
you know, we had almost fifty thousand people a day
go through the convention center in some days more right,
that's the first thing. So same numbers as last year
(19:17):
right in the convention Center, same numbers are last year,
better organized, better plan. That's the lessons that we won
last year. Right. Now, we got to turn our attention
to our production in the Superdome and make sure that
that's just as tight. You don't have any issues in
the convention Center, and we're engaging with that many people
a day, right. I think it's something like I don't
(19:40):
like four hundred panels, right, twenty something thousand minutes of content, right,
like massive stuff, right scale stuff. The last part about
that is it's all free. Right, So when you come
into that experience. The other thing that I think you
noticed this year, for those of you that have Ben
(20:00):
is the elevation of the experience, right, the the the
the the visuals, right, the the content, the the the uh.
The quality of the presenters right, the quality of the
presentations extraordinary. Right. I was extremely excited about about the
(20:22):
programming at swayet right for for the first time, it
wasn't an afterthought A men's experience wasn't an afterthought. It
was it was a real intentional experience and execution.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Right, we'll bring down with Swede is for people that
don't know it and worry there because they might not know.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, So Swayed is Swayed is what is now essences uh,
men's platform and experience that we're that we're slowly building
up because if you go out, then you look in
in the media landscape today, there's nothing that's really focused
on on on black men in an elevated and aspirational way.
(21:05):
And so Swede was actually a a magazine that was
owned by Essence, that was launched by Essence back in
the day as as a and was then shuddered shortly thereafter.
And I looked at it and I said, you know
what a cool what a cool name uh for for men? Right,
(21:30):
And and so we're gradually building that up. But I
think from your experience there you can see where we're.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Headed with it.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
And I think a lot of women all the time
always look for men at essence.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Right, because there's a lot of relationships.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
There's a lot of women and they're.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Looking for relationships, they're looking So that Swede Lounge was
a great opportunity for me looking at the panel. So
but I do want to say too, I want to
stay on the economic point that and be brought up.
I saw people came plaining about the BBIP super lolenges.
I guess they said the super Lounge used to be
(22:05):
a part of the standard ticket price, but then they
had to charge extra for the v VI I P.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
So a lot of people was like, man, that prices
me out.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
So that was one how do you balance like financial
sustainability with accessibility.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Well, And but I think that's also part of a
part of what I was saying earlier about people having
an idea but not really fully having all of the
information to make to make decisions right. So that super
Lounge experience was was a free experience where the convention
(22:41):
center had not the conventions the super don't have these
spaces right inside of them. That essence used as a
way to showcase up and coming talent, right, give them opportunities,
and went quite for the for the main stage for
the past three year years or so, the super Dome
(23:01):
was under construction and those spaces went away, so we
haven't had that for three years. The way that we
solved for that was doing super lounges early on the
main stage. Right. That didn't change, right. But what we
also are dealing with is one we should talk about
(23:24):
the economics of it, right, and we'll come back to
the economics of how an event like this gets pulled
off and what it takes and what it requires. But
what we then did was said, hey, we're trying to
over deliver on the value proposition of why you come
to why you would go to the Superdome, why you
(23:46):
would buy a ticket, right. And what has happened is
for our community, they get charged more and they receive less.
We're guilty of trying to give more for the same price, right,
and that has to then be accompanied by other sources
of revenue in order to sustain that free convention center. Right.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
How about I didn't I've been going for so many years.
I didn't know the convention center was free.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I had no idea convention centers.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I had no.
Speaker 7 (24:15):
Idea, well, you'd be working. I just was an attendee
and I just went and you just had no idea.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
It was free.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
That's crazy. I had no clue. Nowhere else on this planet.
Which is amazing is anybody giving us that. I mean,
think about who you got to see, and they got
to see and talk to you, right, they got to
see on that same they got to see and talk
to Maxwell. They got to see and talk to it.
And let me explain it this a little bit.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
So the convention center, of course, it's it's a huge
convention center and they have different stages, podcasts, artists performing,
and I didn't know all that was free.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
But all that is free, So like you can go there.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
And when I was there doing one stage, Lloyd was
doing another stage performing, so there was like ten thousand
people at Lloyd's stage. There was a couple thousands people
that our stage, people doing podcasts, conversations with Maxwell, And
I didn't know that's free, that's.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, but that's dope. No. But in order to maintain that,
that money has to come from somewhere, right, so we're
we're trying to find other ways that we can monetize
so that we can continue to provide that experience, so
we don't have to charge because our community is going
(25:22):
through I don't know if people know this, right, unemployment
rate for black women in this country right now is skyrocket, right,
unemployment rate for black people in this country is skyrocket. Right.
The opportunities that we were promised just two years ago
(25:44):
have evaporated. Right, We're gonna stand by our community and
we're gonna build. We're gonna use our business acumen to
build a sustainable business that will be here one hundred
years from now. Right, We're gonna make those investments. We need,
our commun need to come along. We also, though taking
full accountability, need to make sure that our community knows
(26:07):
that that's what we're doing. Right. I think we take
for granted that they know what we're doing. The fact
that you guys in here have been there, I don't
know how many times you've probably been there fifteen times
that you didn't know that all of those experiences were three.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
Right, So it's only been once, I'm sorry, once and
once in Houston.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Oh so you went ra Trina Katrina yeah, yeah, yeah,
But that's that's a million square feet that we produce
in that convention center for our community, serving anywhere from
fifty to seventy thousand people a day, right for three
days straight. It's where we bring black businesses in the
Soco market so they can sell their products. And when
(26:53):
they come to that SoCal market that one weekend, many
of them make more money in that one weekend than
they make the entire year.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
But the only other thing that I would say that
I did not like is every night at that convention center,
well at the concert when people were performing, I didn't
know who was really performing until I got there.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You guys had, I mean, think about it. You got
Looe Rilla, Patty LaBelle.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I think they had the last Line Law in the Hills,
nas Boys.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Too, Menie Dougie f Babyface, so many.
Speaker 7 (27:30):
It was like that wasn't properly promoted. But I didn't
know what I got.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I didn't know what I got there about all those artists.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
And I feel like it would have been a bigger
push if you to know, like you got to see
all those artists in the weekend. You never see nothing
like that, old and new coming up artists like it was.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
It was a dope show.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
That's but that's what we do every year, right, and
that's and that's the idea.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
So you usually you know when new addition is closing out,
you know when Mary's before.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Like you never it was, I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I didn't Niles was there until.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
I got there.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
So let me so I'll tell you I don't know
was there too, I see want to play.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
That's true.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
By the way, he's being biased.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
All the people are from Queens, Okay. I bet y'all
promoted Patty Leabell and crazy Queens.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
If you asked you, I did not know.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So so that's another learning, right, So but I tell
you more than that, more than than Hey, we need
to we need to really amp it up because you know,
people need to know. More than that. We need to
be earlier so that people can plan because in this economy,
in the world that we're in, right, people need to plan.
(28:39):
And people this is this is some people's vacation, right,
Like some people are like, Hey, I'm gonna save up
my money this year so I can go so I
can go to Essence, right, Great, we need to make
sure that we give them enough of a window for
them to plan. The other part of it is we're
we're the music and the festival. The concert part of
(29:05):
it is an important part in the celebration, But that
convention center is where the nourishment and the learning and
the nurturing comes in. And so we've got to make
sure that we tie those closer together so that people
know all of all of what's happening and they can
understand just exactly how massive it is. So we'll do
(29:29):
a better job of marketing so that people know more
and that they know earlier. So that's that's certainly something
that we can improve on, and that feedback is very well.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
I want to talk to you about Target.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
I totally get you need targets dollars to even do
this event.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
You don't have to explain that.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
But was that a tough decision being that you know,
the Jamal Bryant, the Tamika Mallory's, a Nina Turner's have
you know, staged this boycott against Target that a lot
of people.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Are participating in out So.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Those are always difficult decisions, right, And this wasn't a hey,
we decided to go with Target against the boycott or hey,
we decided to go with the boycott against Target. Right,
You've got to remember what our value proposition is to
this community, and that is to help them build their
businesses and to help them build their build their build
(30:25):
the infrastructure that supports their business. Right, we build the
infrastructure they build their businesses. So it wasn't a it
wasn't a uh A decision around here's you know, here's
this boycott that we want to go against, or here's
this retail partner that we want to support, right, it
(30:46):
was it was the decision first of all, was we
already had a contract right prior to all of this
four years now, and they've been good partners, right, They've
they've done what they've told us to we're going to
do and even recently not recently at at festival, Brian Cornell,
(31:07):
their CEO, came on the ground. He's like, look, I
want to see the people, I want to talk to
the people. I want to understand. But he also shared
that we haven't stopped doing the things that we had
committed to. We're going to complete We've made a two
billion dollar commitment that was who the black community.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
But isn't at the whole point of the whole point
of the protest is that because they rolled back to
DEI initiatives, but they haven't you know, done those things
from what I've been told.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
No, So what he shared was that they actually never
stopped those things. Right, They're they're two billion dollar commitment.
He said that they are going to complete that two
billion dollar commitment at the by the end of this year.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
They just can't label the d GAD a trump.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I'm not going to get into the politics of it,
but what I will say is that they've committed to
and have exercised and from what I've been able to see,
they have done what they said, certainly with the businesses
that are in there, that are in their retail environment,
which is where I think the bulk of those dollars
(32:16):
go anyway. But that's for that's not for me to
that's not for me to answer, right What I what
I can say, though, is that they have shown me
and provided evidence that they have continued that they've continued
those programs. They've continued their HBCU program and the scholarships.
They've continued their their their their their dollar commitments. Right. So,
(32:41):
for our decision making was based on the economic impact
or the or the inadvertent economic impact that we're seeing
in the black businesses that So if that convention center
didn't happen, there's two hundred vendors that would have lost
(33:02):
their income for that weekend, right, which, as I said earlier,
for some of them, is the bulk of their income.
There are retail there are brands that have been preparing
all year to have a showcase to get retail distribution, right,
So there's other retailers that come there. Because we also
(33:24):
have a program through the New Voices Foundation that trains
up our vendors to be ready to go into retail.
So that's the other thing that we do. We have
almost thirty thousand black businesses on our platform and women
own businesses on our platform that we're providing developmental services
to every day and also at the festival, right. So
(33:48):
that's everything from preparedness to go into retail, to business planning,
supply chain development, all the things that it takes to that.
So we've also then as a result of that, really
curated the SoCal markets so that when our guests come in,
they're getting the best of the best, and that when
(34:08):
retail partners come in, they're able to then say, hey,
they're ready to do business and go and go to
the next level. Right, So we don't want to deprive
them of that opportunity. Greater than that is they've already
made the investments, right, Some of these people have not
some of the many of them, because where do we
(34:30):
go to get funding in our community when we need
to build a business today? Right?
Speaker 5 (34:36):
Go fund me right?
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Right? So part of what they use this weekend for
is to recoup the investments that they've made. So how
do they get these investments? They're taking our second mortgages
on their homes, they're drawing down on their four to
one ks, they're borring from their neighbors and their friends
and their family. Go for every single person here right, right,
(35:03):
And if they don't get these opportunities, what happens to them? Right?
So we've got we've got to think about. So it's
it kind of you know, it's I'm a I'm older
than all of you guys. I grew up at a
time where it was, you know, it was it was
(35:25):
we had MLK to follow and learn about, and you
had two sides to mlk's platform. The first one was
the civil rights platform. The second one which he didn't
get to see all the way through unfortunately, and we
can all speculate as to why was the economics rights platforms? Right?
(35:46):
So the boycott is focused on the civil rights platform.
I'm focused on the economic rights platform. That's what I've
done my entire career, right, thirty something years now, almost
forty years. This is what I've done, right, I started.
I started when I was nineteen years old, right, so
almost forty years. It's kind of crazy to think, right,
but that's all I've done, right, All I've done is
(36:07):
build businesses that invest back in black communities and develop
new businesses that can then stand on their own. So
I'm looking, I'm faced with this and I'm seeing the
impact that this is not just having here but also
on shelf. So, yeah, the boycott can. Our voice has
(36:30):
been heard, there is no doubt about it. Our voice
has been heard, fantastic, Right. My question is what next? Right?
And how do we now? How do we now protect
those businesses that have been impacted because targets, traffic may
(36:50):
be down, right, their revenue may be down, But think
about those I don't know how many there has I
know that we're involved with maybe twenty businesses in that
that cell to the target that at other retailers, but
we're talking specifically here. Some of them, their businesses are
(37:10):
down more than fifty percent. Some of them their business
the average is around thirty percent. Right, the right, because
the traffic isn't there and the the So the impact
of that is the longer this goes on, I can't
(37:33):
pay my mortgage. I can't pay you back the money
that I barred you from you, Right. I can't send
my kids to the schools that I've not put them
in because I thought, Hey, I've got I've got this business.
That's that's ramping up. Right. I'm worried about healthcare because
there's all kinds of changes coming there. There's there's an
(37:53):
undue amount of stress that goes on those businesses as
a result of this. Right, the boycott I think has
served its purpose. I think it has been one that
showed our economic might, It showed our voice, It showed
that we can be we can be united. I'm all
(38:15):
for that, right, But what I have to think about
is how I make sure that these people and these
businesses that have made these investments survived through this. Until
all of that is the result.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
Can you move on from a boycott if a demand
hadn't been met? Though, again, if you have, because the
whole point of boycott is because you have demand. If
Target hasn't met those demands, why should we tell people
to move on if they have not met those If
they haven't met those demands, why should we tell the
protests to move on?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Yeah? So I haven't told anybody.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
To move on, right, It sounds like you're saying that.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Just No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying
is that my responsibility, the place that I've lived my
life is in building out that ecosystem. Right, So my
job is to ensure that our ecosystem survives. Right, That's
my job, right, And that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
I guess my mother's real quick.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
God.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I just want to.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Just from a just from your standpoint, just Essence, right,
not the black owned businesses within Target, just Essence and
Essence Festival. If you would have said, you know what,
I'm listening to the protesters Target, I don't want you
to be a sponsor this ship.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
How would that have impacted y'all business? Because I know
you had a contract.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Well, we have a we have a contract, so that
that would that would impact our business. I tell you
something else, Right, there's many others that have either pulled
out of supporting uh uh uh black media and and
and and black businesses. There are many others that have
cut down what they have, what their commitments had been,
(39:50):
or or where they have where they have invested before.
So it's not just this isn't just an issue that
related just to target, right, this is an issue that
you know, we've had partners you know that didn't come
back for didn't come back right, used to be able
to you know, do the ride and drive and you know,
(40:13):
they they they've cut back. They didn't come back, Delta
didn't come back right. So there's partners in it. But
we still put on the same, the same show. We
still put on the same the same event. So we're
gonna ride for our community. Right. We knew we were
going to take a loss going into this, but it's
better to me that we take a loss and that
those those that community, that business community, the broader community
(40:36):
of New Orleans, the broader community that comes to Essence
Festival has an extraordinary experience.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
We did have hiccups, Yes, why didn't those companies come back.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Well, I mean you know some of them have. Some
of them have have Yeah, I mean they've they've they've
they've they got rid of program. There's no money, there's
no there's nobody, right, So so you know, but this
is the new world that we live in, and I
think it's very important that we are that we're moving forward.
(41:09):
Like we can't just we can't just go to sleep
or we're not going to wake up and it's going
to be better. We got to work through it, right,
And so I think that, like I said earlier, you've
got the the civil rights part of the civil rights
and civil justice part and you've got the economic rights
and economic justice part of it. The two have to work, right,
(41:30):
and so I'm looking forward to us getting the two
to work in the interim. You've got to sustain what's there,
otherwise it's not recoverable.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Do you bring it back next year?
Speaker 3 (41:38):
And you know, with the difficulties that you had this year,
especially with sponsors.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Pulling out, do you bring it back?
Speaker 3 (41:43):
And that's question The reason I asked is you said
you took a huge loss this year, right, yeah, yeah, right,
and you don't have the sponsorship, So how do you
sustain that without raising prices and making sure that people
can still enjoy what they enjoy without hitting the consumer
in the pocket, you know, especially since you lost a
car company, lost Delta and whatever else.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Those are big hits.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
You never know. Next year they may be back, gotcha, right, you?
They may be back. And there are other there are
other brands out there who value our community, who want
to engage with our community. Right There's there's new revenue
streams to find, there's new partners to go find. It's like,
we can't just give up because it's hard, right because
(42:26):
otherwise we won't be here.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
You know, I agree with you, and you know, yes,
there is going to be criticism for any event. But
based on what you just said, I wonder if people
realize that, let's say, next year, these companies that pulled
out this year for DEI initiatives, they want they might
want to come back, but they're not going to come
back to something that is getting so criticized. They're not
(42:49):
going to come back to something that's getting so slammed
on social media. That's when they be like, I want
to stay away from that, like you know.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, you know, And and the thing is it's Look,
what we did this year was an extraordinary success. It
had faults and issues like everything else. Right, but I
can go through the stats with you. You same number
of people in the convention center. Right, we're dealing with
(43:17):
what feels like a recession, especially in our community. We're
dealing with, Hey, you know, the conscious decision of do
I support this or not support this? Because I want
to support my community, but I also want to support
this this economic stance that we're taking here, we're dealing
with all of those things. Right. I don't think we'll
be dealing with that next year, Right I have I
(43:39):
have faith and confidence that we won't be I can't
speak for the economy, but I think the the the
the inner dialogue that we're having with ourselves around do
I do this? Do I not do this? I don't
think we'll be dealing with that next year. And yes,
the criticism doesn't.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Hurt, butomy no, That's why I'm not going.
Speaker 7 (44:02):
So this target thing has been going on for a while.
Speaker 6 (44:04):
So if next year the boycott is still there, do
you guys, I don't know how long your contract is,
you guys will still be in contract next year, so
they'll be back next year.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah. So, so the answer to that question is we
have a we have a responsibility to our community to
deliver to them the best product that we can deliver. Right,
every year, we get better at delivering that product. Right
(44:33):
that to your point, the criticism doesn't help at all, Right,
doesn't help at all, But it's not going to deter
us from doing the work that needs to be done
so that we can get those partners right and we
can grow and we can scale and we can do
the things. Like I said, our vision for this is
not for next year. Our vision for this is one hundred,
one hundred years. So we're building the infrastructure that allows us,
(44:57):
that allows us to do that. We'll do the work,
we'll make the adjustments from the that we see from
the criticisms, the one that the ones that are that
are reasonable in that work, we'll do that. Right. So,
as far as you know what happens next year with partners, right,
we have to go through the process to see what happens, right,
(45:20):
we have to go through the process, see what the
other partners come through. We have to we have to
look at who what's going on with the boycott, what
changes are made to it, how things get resolved. So
to your point, there is a resolution to everything, right,
we have to come to a resolution. I think that
(45:41):
will happen.
Speaker 6 (45:42):
How did you feel when they turned the conversation because
of Target in Caroline are your CEO's past involvement with Target?
They turned it into a Black American versus Black African conversation,
and that whole thing exploded of like essence is losing
its focused on Black Americans.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I mean, those are one of the I mean, I'd
love to hear how you guys think about that, But
that's one of those ones that I struggle with understanding
intellectually right, for a host of reasons, just from let's
just talk about the actual facts. Right. So we had
(46:21):
I don't know forty plus acts and performers, right, we
had one Jamaican act performer and we had one African performer, David. Right.
That to me doesn't say that we're losing our center. Right.
(46:42):
We remain extremely centered on African American culture, right and
on black women. That's our center. That doesn't mean we
can't expand out from our center. All that means is
we can't lose our center. So, if you were on
the G if you were there, you see that that
(47:03):
center is very much there. Right, you go into the
convention center, right, you look at what happened on the stages.
You look at what happened. If you were there, you
know that we're still centered. Right. But if you were there,
you also know that we're growing and that we're broadening,
because everybody has to grow abroadened otherwise you won't be around. Right.
(47:25):
There's also sort of the philosophical approaches to these. To
this is I view myself as black. I've benefited from
being black, and I have also lost from being black.
When I walk in the room. What people see, if
(47:47):
they don't know me, when I walk in a room,
I walk down the street, they see a black man. Right.
My entire life has been dedicated to uplifting black. I've
focused it on the economics, on the economic side of
black because that's what I know how to do. That's
that's that's what I'm skilled at. The Thing that I've
learned from that is we're much better off when we're
(48:10):
focused on our commonalities and we're building on those commonalities.
As I said earlier, I grew up you know, King
Garvey L. Mumba, right that the thinking around. Hey, we
have a much better chance of developing and growing our
(48:31):
communities when we find the commonalities and the alignments and
we're working towards shared goals and shared objectives. When we
don't do that, we become much smaller, right, and much more,
much more volatile, and much more vulnerable.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
I can't even believe you took the time to explain that.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
I mean something, if me.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Booju, Bonting and and Devido or walking down the street
and a white supremacist see us, guess what do you see?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
That's it? What do we talk?
Speaker 6 (49:00):
Do you feel like though we criticisms like that and like,
you know, just some of the stuff that you you
would feel like we're not going to get y'all took
ownership for a lot of things even before the articles hit, right,
the things that you're like, this is nonsense, We're not
going to take ownership for that. Do you ever feel
like it's kind of like unfair? Are you ever hurt
by it? Because you do so much censored in black people,
regardless of where they come from.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
I don't have the luxury of being hurt by it, right.
I think the first couple of times that it happened.
You know, there was oh you know, I think the
first time I was here, and very very similar circumstances. Right,
we did an add for Shay right, and that ad
(49:44):
had run for months, and they cut it down for
Social and the person that cut it down from social
for social cut it where there was a It ended
it was a white woman in the front and a
white woman in the back, and then there was a
(50:04):
very small glimpse of a black woman, right, And that
wasn't intentional at all, and it wasn't the message we
were trying to convey. But you know, people got hurt
by it, right, And because we build we build brands,
and we're involved with brands that are all about our
culture and all about our identity, and we ride hard
(50:28):
for it. Right. So the person that made that mistake, right,
I could have walked in and fired that person, right,
I chose not to because that was a person that
was trying to do something and trying to create something,
(50:50):
and that deserved an opportunity to fail. And they got
that opportunity to fail. Okay, they are today running one
of the most acclaimed agencies out there. Right, if we
had not if we had reacted differently, they probably wouldn't
(51:11):
have gotten that opportunity, right, So it's our responsibility to
give them an opportunity to fail. I have chosen to
spend my career trying to develop businesses and economic engines
in our community. I can't if I were so thin
skinned that, you know, every time I did something wrong,
(51:34):
or every time people perceived me to do something wrong,
I walk away from what the mission was. We wouldn't
be here, right, We wouldn't have these hundreds of businesses
that are now on the shelves of Target or Walmart
or CVS. If I had listened to the criticism when
I sold Shay, I would have gone off into somewhere
and hidden away and gone and done my thing there.
(51:56):
I wouldn't have.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
But then Honeypot wouldn't have been Honeypot wouldn't have man
Miel wouldn't have been here, Lipbar wouldn't have been here,
Solo Funds wouldn't have been here.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
I mean, you name it. List goes on and on
and on. So you know, I don't have that luxury,
you know, And I have to take the other thing
is because because what we're doing is so novel in
our community, right, I have an accountability to say, hey,
this is what's working, and this is not what this
is what's not working. Right. People have the right to
(52:29):
decide whether or not they want to rock with us, right,
But we're going to keep doing what we what our
intentions are. We going to continue to share what those
intentions are, and we're going to continue to do the
work and be accountable for what we get. Like I
said earlier, when something goes wrong, when something goes right.
Speaker 4 (52:48):
You know, I be here for both. And I'm glad
that you're open to all this criticism. But the reality
is it's hard to explain business to people who don't
run one, especially corporate business, especially when you are, you know,
a black person running a business trying to do things
specifically for black people. We are so hard on each other, man.
I haven't heard Essence talked about. I haven't heard Essence
be talked about this much in years at least Essence
(53:10):
probably decades, you know what I But now everybody talking
about it so much because we got so much negative
things to say.
Speaker 5 (53:16):
And like you said, some criticism is valid.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
Something is valid, not all of it, that's right, right,
And the levels of criticism is definitely not warrant, right,
I will tell you that right. But if we Hurtanie.
Speaker 5 (53:29):
Mills, got to make that right.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
That's what we're here for.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
Heart, Lauren Hill, you got to make that right, gott
to make But those are actual valid issues, right that letter.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
She has actual valid issues, valid issues. Y'all got too
much Africans. It's not a valid criticism.
Speaker 6 (53:41):
No, But I like the way that I like the
way that you guys responded to things because it curved
the headlines, Like the headlines about Laurence Hill had to
include fescal says it's not her fault.
Speaker 7 (53:53):
Here's exactly what happened.
Speaker 6 (53:54):
A lot of most festivals don't do that because she
said that this has happened to her before.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
But this isn't most festivals. Is essence, we're accountable to
our community and to those black women that we're here
to serve and protect, and when we get it wrong,
we're going to say it right. Caroline, you just brought
up Caroline Wanga had nothing to do with this, all right.
I saw it.
Speaker 4 (54:14):
I saw people blaming her, but I told I was
told she's not even really she's.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
On leave, Yeah, she's on leave. She just she'd go
buy her book. Guys, she she just she just dropped
a phenomenal book and she's been an incredible leader for
for essence, and we're grateful.
Speaker 7 (54:31):
Is she still in the CEO?
Speaker 1 (54:33):
S she's still in the CEOC because she's on leave.
Speaker 5 (54:36):
Why was it so quick? Why was people so quick
to blame her when she had nothing to do with
this year?
Speaker 1 (54:40):
I mean, look, I don't know. We we live in
a world. We live in a world now where it's
it's easy to do that right, and so people do that.
And you can you can shy away from it right,
or you can face it head on. I choose to
face it head on because I think people get an
opportunity to lo learn from my mistakes. They learned from
(55:02):
my team's mistakes. My team gets to learn from their mistakes.
And the greatest blessing is to be in a position
where you're allowed to make mistakes. That's the greatest blessing,
because if you're not allowed to make mistakes, you shrink, right,
you don't try things. You're you're you're You're stuck in
one thing, and that's the only place you can be.
(55:22):
For our community to grow, We've got to be able
to afford to make mistakes. Right, We've got and but
the other thing is we've also got to be able
to the thing that I'll notice that I'll say now
is I've gotten on in years, is my community no
longer has the grace it once had for each other.
All right, we go on these platforms and did we ever?
(55:46):
I don't know if we know we maybe maybe yeah,
in my day, yes, there was grace. You know, if
something went wrong, somebody pulled you aside and said, hey,
you know this is going wrong, if your kid did
something wrong, they're like, community, it was, But we've got
to bring We've got to bring that back. Right. It's
(56:08):
like if we run away from these things, it doesn't
come back. If our kids grow up and don't see,
they think that this is this is the way it
should be. So where did we get some things wrong? Absolutely?
But I think if you measure us against any festival
that happened this year, I think we we we rise
to the top. Right. I don't know of one festival
(56:30):
that happened this year that didn't have some sort of
production issue. Right, ours is amplified because people care. Right,
ours is amplified because our community is under a lot
of pressure. Ours is amplified because we have a boycott
going ours is amplified for a whole host of reasons.
That doesn't mean that we run away from it, right,
It means that we got to talk about it. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (56:50):
I think the valid criticisms and I know you gotta
get out of here. I think the valid criticism or
the production issue, the lateness, the cost for people, and
I do think the target, the target conversation is a
valid conversation to have. It's a valid criticism for people
that are boycotting to bring up.
Speaker 5 (57:05):
But I think with you the way you're explaining it
makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Yeah, because if if, if we don't have sponsors. But
here's here's the other. Here's the other bigger thing, right
is we don't know, right, and it hasn't been shared,
and we probably need all need to do a better
job with that of the impact. As I said earlier,
(57:29):
that it has the the unintended consequences, right that it's
having on the dozens, if not hundreds of businesses that
do business and target. Right, we don't, we don't, we don't.
We don't know that, right. So there's two sides to this.
And as I said, my job is to make sure
(57:51):
that those companies are protected, those people, those people are protected,
and that our community continues to get the opportunities. Because
the other thing that happens, and I said this on
one of the other times out here because this is
something that I believe to be extremely true, is if
we make people scared to do business with us, they
already have a reticence to invest in us and to
(58:14):
do business with us if they're concerned about, Hey, you know,
if I do business with this person, are and something
goes wrong between them and their community, right we burn
the house down, they won't. They have plenty of places
to put to put their money, and they have plenty
of choices to as to who to put that money with.
(58:35):
We have to and as it, you know, when I
was growing up, he used to tell, you know, you
have to be three times better than the next guy.
Right in the world that we're growing up in today,
we have to be five times better. It's just that
nobody's telling us that.
Speaker 4 (58:48):
But that's the point I brought up earlier when I
talked about, you know, the criticism, because the people will
go on social media and they may think about, okay,
let's put some money there next year. But if they
go on social media and see a bunch of backlash,
they'd be.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
Like, no, I'm not going to why why am I
doing now?
Speaker 1 (59:00):
I don't want my brand associated right with them.
Speaker 6 (59:02):
So we talked about this on my podcast, and my
thing was the criticisms are valid. Like Charlomagne said, I
just wish that we understood how we shape what conversation
and impression is. But when you say that, like people
don't want to do business with us because they say
that we can burn the house down, what's the happy
medium of But at the same time, you want people
who feel like they need to boycott for whatever reasons
to get what they need and feel respected too, because
(59:23):
that's an obvious pushback, someone would say, but like, you
don't want people to run all over you.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
Either, Yeah, and that's fair, right, There's no I'm not
arguing that. I'm just saying that there's another side to it.
Two things can be true, right, So I'm not arguing that.
All I'm saying is that there's a side to it
that has a consequence, right, And as a community, we're
going to have to figure out what the balance is,
because neither side is good if I'm feel like I'm
(59:49):
being disrespected here, let's let's let's dive into it and
understand what that actually means. And if I feel like
I'm not getting an opportunity here, let's dive into that,
understand what it not just jump on a platform that
and then just spill. And I personally think a lot
of this stuff is driven by bots. I don't even
(01:00:11):
think it's well, not.
Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Only that a lot of people weren't even there, like
the people that left those they weren't even there, and
they do those type of things. I say this, and
I tell me Charlaman talk about it all the time.
The bad thing is we reward this type of behavior right,
And the way we reward it is there's likes, there's views.
They get paid for the amount of views. So if
I get a million views for issue on Essence and
I get paid one thousand dollars for it, you know
(01:00:32):
what I'm gonna do tomorrow, I'm gonna do it again.
Speaker 5 (01:00:34):
Well, you probably right, but let's not dismiss the people
who are there.
Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
But there weren't people there. But there were people there,
and he said they did have some problem.
Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
But what I want you to do too, rich is
instead of coming when is fed up to talk about
fixing it. When we want you to come before and
talk about what you're doing so we can get that
good word out to the people.
Speaker 5 (01:00:51):
But you're too busy doing the work.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
So that's I was gonna say, yes, So let me
let me, let me tell you what I grew up by. Right.
My mother would always tell us, let's do the things
we're going to talk about. Let's not talk about the
things we're going to do. Oh, So that's my mentality. Right.
If it's something, if I have something to share that
(01:01:13):
I think like this conversation, I'm happy to share it.
But other than that, i'd rather be I'd rather be
working with my team solving these problems. Right. And now
that you know i'm executive chairman, we have CEOs in
different roles, you know they're they're doing that so I
can sit here and talk. But the reality of it is,
(01:01:35):
we have to give each other more grace and we
have to build more businesses. Right, that's our only way
out of this, Right, we have to build more businesses,
and we have to treat those things that allow us
to build those businesses with that mindset. Right. So I'll
say this, Those sponsor dollars that come in go into
(01:02:02):
the investments to put on the free experiences that you get,
and they'll allow us to pay for the talent that
we won't be able to pay for just by ticket sets.
I got you right. There's nowhere else on this planet
that you can go and get what Essence Vest gives you.
(01:02:22):
And that's why I believe people are so protective of it, right,
And so I appreciate that, and I understand that, and
we will continue to do the work to make it
continuously better. But I will say this, what we put
on lives on the world stage. Right. It's not nobody's bigger, right.
(01:02:49):
It's just that a lot of what we do is free, right,
But nobody's bigger. So our revenues don't match everybody else's
revenues because they charge it. The other thing is when
you go when you go to Cochella, you go to
any one of these other places, you're just there for
the act that's on the stage. When you come the
(01:03:10):
Essence Community, you're there for community. Right. So I think
we did a great job with community. We didn't do
a great job with the production, right, But I think
that just the community of the talent that was there,
and we need to communicate more frequently, earlier and more frequently,
who's here, who's not here, what's happening? Right? So those
(01:03:33):
are those are things that those are things that are
fixing when we're here to we're here to do the work.
Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
All criticisms are valid and Essence is just going to
try to do better next year.
Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
There we go. That's it.
Speaker 5 (01:03:42):
That's it.
Speaker 6 (01:03:44):
We appreciate you, I said, God bless you have a
lot of patience, like.
Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
You don't have to you said, luxury of being hurt. No,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
I don't have that luxury.
Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
I appreciate you for joining us this morning.
Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
Caroline Wing is the president and CEO. I called it
our editor in chief.
Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Yeah, of Essence Ventures, which is, uh, the the Essence
business you all right.
Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Well it's rich Dennis, it's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,
thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Wake that answer up in the morning. The Breakfast Club
Wake that answer up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Everybody is DJ en Vy, Jess Hilarious, Chelamaane the guy
we are the Breakfast Club. Lonla Rosa is here as well.
And we got a special guest in the building. He
has so many titles.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, Richard, We'll go ahead.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
I'm gonna say he's the executive chairman of Sundown Group
of Companies. That's right, we have rich Dennis.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
Yes, it is a group of companies. Tell them some
of the companies.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Uh, Richard, Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. As
I was saying earlier, like every couple of.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Years, talk to Mike, talked to Mike. You should know
every couple of years.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
No, I only do this like once every two years,
explain myself to you. But so, Sundown Group of Companies
consist of Sundown Media Group and Media and Technology Group.
Uh So, that's Essence, Refinery twenty nine, Afro Punk, Beauty
con and a few other media assets, Sunday Aile uh Financial,
(01:02):
which is New Voices fund in which we we invest
in and businesses. One of the largest investors in black
owned businesses and people of color. So that's that's the
and then the consumer. We have so now consumers. So
some of you guys know us for the brands that
(01:24):
we've built like Shade Moisture and in Heritage and Madam C. J.
Walker and now some of the newer brands like Alafia
and some of those things. So so we we we
we play across the the economic landscape of culture.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
And also, if I'm not minatake, you said afroc, I
mean afroch afro punk, afropunk Okay, and a beauty conk and.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Beauty he said, you know, listening, he said, Okay, I'm
just making sure man.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I'm the reason I want to stress that is because
you said you got to come in here every couple
of years to explain yourself.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
But I want people to know who you are, and
I want.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Them to know how important you are to a lot
not not just you know yourself, but to a lot
of other black companies in black Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we've we've invested in, uh probably
at this point, well over one hundred black businesses we've
focused in on. We started with a keen focus on
women on black businesses, and then we we spread that
out to men. So you know, we've invested in and
(02:27):
helped build companies like Mael Honey Pot Square Squire rather
than not Square Squire solo funds. So we go across
everything from consumer to to deep tech, right with the
lens of trying to solve vexing problems in the black community,
(02:51):
investing in businesses as solve vexing problems in the black community.
We see ourselves as building the UH, the cultural infrastructure
and monetization engines that allow us to keep ownership of
our intellectual property as a community and to build and
(03:13):
scale businesses that can then reinvest back in the community.
One of the last times I was here, now one
of the last times with the time before the last time,
I came in here and we're talking about me selling
Shae Moisture, and I said to you guys, I'm selling
this company because I am going to unlock wealth that's
(03:33):
never been seen in our community before. I'm going to
invest that wealth back in our community.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
And you did it.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I did that right six years later, seven years later,
not only have we done that, we've now had four
or five exits that have delivered more than a billion
dollars wow back into Black families in this country. So very,
very proud of the journey that we're on. But every
once in a while, you know, we don't get it
(04:00):
one hundred percent right, But what we do do is
come back and fix it and get it one hundred
percent right.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
So that's and I do want to say it's very important,
h what you do and have done is so important
and even more important now when you see all these
DEI initiatives getting rolled back, when you see these fundings,
when you see this funding for these black organizations and
black companies getting cut.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
All we gonna have is us that's to invest back
in each other.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
That's it. That's it, you know. And and part of
that is if you don't create wealth, we don't have
us to invest back in each other. Right, then we're
we're constantly needing to have other people support us to
I mean, look, you know we've got we've got changes
in healthcare coming, right, We've got changes in our abilities
(04:49):
to get an education. It's going to cost it. We're
going to have fewer opportunities and higher costs. Right. The
only thing that we can control is our economic destiny, right,
And so I'm fiercely protective of that because if we
(05:10):
don't have that we've got, We've got nothing, and to
do that, we've got to build big businesses. We've got
to build infrastructure to support those businesses, and we've got
to train up people so that they can run those
businesses right, all things that we all know are missing
from our community infrastructure today. So we've got a lot
(05:31):
of work to do, and we're here to do the
work now.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Of course, trendon all.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
The last couple of days was the Essence Festival yep,
thirty first Essence Festival. Some people were upset, some people
were mad about timing. Some people said it wasn't as
packed as it usually is. They were mad that target
was a sponsor. So I know you're here today to
break some of that down. So yeah, what happened I
guess Essence Festival weekend?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah, So, first of all, a lot of the criticism
is warranted, a lot of it is not right. There's
always an explanation for things that go wrong, and people
always excited to take credit for things.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
That go right.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
My job is to balance that all out, right. So
we have an incredible team that's running Essence Festival. They
have built something that when you look at it, if
you look at the scale of what it is today
that competes against the best in the world, right without
the resources of the best in the world, right and
(06:37):
without the access that the best in the world has. Right.
So I'm extremely proud of that team. I'm also proud
of the fact that they took risks that we don't
normally get to take in order to build something better,
and some of those risks worked out exceptionally well. Like
you go into the convention Center extraordinary, right. We had
(07:02):
problems in production with the mics. That happens seems seems
to happen more in the Superdome or in domes rather,
but we had problems there. Those problems will be addressed
because they are easily addressable. There's reasons for why that
(07:23):
happened at some point. We can get into that if
you want to. But they look, we had over forty
acts over the three day weekend in the in the
in the Superdome. Right, best talent in the world, and
they deserve the best acoustics, they deserve the best production,
(07:48):
and we'll give that to them. We've given that to
them for thirty years. This thirty first year, we didn't
we didn't do as good a job as we normally do,
and next year we'll do a better job than we've
ever done. Is we've learned what the what the issues were.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
So why would Lauren hillsow Lake?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
She said it wasn't her fault, Absolutely was not her fault,
she says, she thanks y'all for actually stepping up and
saying it wasn't a Well.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Our job is to protect black women. We're not going
to sit here and say, hey, you know, because she's
taking the heat for it, We're going to be quieter
because that's just not that's not what we are, that's
not what essence it's about, that's not what we're building.
There were there were production issues with the audio video
system that caused the delay in her performance. We own that, right.
(08:34):
Those delays you know, were primarily because we've been very
aggressive in as I said earlier, our job is to
develop the infrastructure that drives black businesses, right, So we
also want to make sure that we're investing in the
(08:54):
local businesses in New Orleans, right, And so our partner,
our production partner, from our mandate and my team's directive,
which which again we're very proud that we're able to
do this. You know, One of the things that that
that that is also satisfying but scary, is that there
(09:17):
are no more black festivals around, right. We're about the
only independent one left, right. And so what that means
is that the people that get to produce these festivals
fewer and fewer and fewer of them have the resources
and the access and the ability to run these large
festivals because they're not getting those opportunities. Right. I said
(09:41):
to my team a year ago, is we need to
go out and find the types of partners that we
can develop and grow so that they have the opportunities
to do these right. So we probably should have been
a little bit more uh thoughtful in the execution of that, right,
(10:02):
But at the end of the day, I'm proud of
the fact that they took the risk. Right. Next year,
we will have a local, well trained, well developed a
partner in that area because we got the experience we
had this.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Year, y'all didn't have the right production team to pull
off a.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
Concert of that scale base.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
For the sound.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yes, right, however, sorry, sorry, you go ahead that right. However,
our job is to train them up. It's not their fault, right,
it's our fault. Right. We have to we have to
if we if we're going to go that route, we
have to continue to make sure that we're investing in
their development and then their training, and we're gonna we're
(10:46):
going to continue to do that and rest assured that
will not happen again. I'm sorry.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
I want to ask you the production company that you're
talking about, is that separate from the Solomon Group company,
because there was articles about them working with you guys,
and people throwing a lot of blame on a Solomon
g people too.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, it's
not any of our partner's fault. Is our fault because
we engage them, we we hire them, we pay them,
we manage them, and it's our job to make sure
that everything is delivered properly. I'm not gonna sit here
and say that it's the Solomon Group's fold or is
this group's Faulds that.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Group's fault, right, Richiere a nice guy.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
At the end of the day, Well, if I want
you to do.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Sound, I'm not a sound guy. It sounds supposed to
be right. I'm paying you a certain amount of money
to sound supposed to be perfect. That's what you're paying for.
You don't sit there with the mics and it just
levels and stuff like you pay somebody.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
About the artist. Yeah, that was the other thing I
kept hearing. I kept hearing people was you know, late.
Speaker 7 (11:36):
But Lauren Hill says she wasn't late though, So.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Let me get to that. But first, let me take
this right. It's not that I'm a nice guy. Is
that I am trying to build something that's lasting. If
I don't invest in people and I don't have the
patience with them, plenty of people allowed me to fail, right,
And because they allowed me to fail, I'm where I'm
at today. Right. My job and the role that I
(11:58):
see myself playing is to make sure that when somebody fails,
I'm there to pick them up right, because that's the
other thing that we don't have the luxury of as
black people. We get one shot right and then you
walk away. So we're gonna take the hit. It's our fault,
it's our responsibility. We will deal with our internal partners.
(12:20):
Our internal partners will step up and if they then
don't step up to the plate, then they will be gone.
But it will not be because they made a mistake here.
It will be because they haven't been able to learn
from those misses, right, So that that's that's the answer there.
I think you you you were asking the tardiness.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
You know, I read the open letter that you know,
Stephanie Mills wrote, and you know, I love God, bless God.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Loves Stephanie Mills. And what she said was, you know,
she's a professional. This is an o G veteran in
the game. He said.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
The challenges I encountered were multifaceted and in my view,
indicative of broader organizational shortcomings. The scheduling and time management
were severely lacking, creating a chaotic and stressful, stressful environment backstage,
This organization cascading onto the stage, impacting the flow of
the event and ultimately diminishing the quality of the performances.
Then she got into the logistical issues, and oh, she said,
(13:13):
beyond the logistical issues, the technical difficulties is what we
just talked about.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
The sound system, she said, all that was deeply problematic.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, well, I mean she she said it there's nothing
that there's nothing to.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Argue there, right, The I guess the why is what
I'm asking.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Well, I think I think the why is one scale, right,
and when you have when you start with the technical issues.
As you guys are in this business, things have a
way of having domino effects and they impact they impact
other things. Right, So we're tracking all of that down.
(13:51):
We've got, you know, folks that have been working nonstopper
on the clock to make sure that we not just
identify these So so whether it's it's Mills, or it's
the security guard on the floor, or whether wherever it is,
we're talking to everybody and we're making the adjustments that
(14:11):
we need that we need to make. This isn't a
matter of hey, you know we're oblivious to these issues.
It's not This isn't a matter of, hey, we don't
understand that there were challenges. We understand there were challenges.
We're getting to the bottom of it. We're correct.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
I think I understand what you're saying as far as production,
because you know, we deal with that, especially in.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Radio a lot of times.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Right, you're giving people an opportunity, you're giving people a chance,
but they may not have the experience. And you said
you got to train them up. But man, when you
got something that needs to hit the ground running, I
can't teach you how to run. I need you already
know how to run.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, yeah, well you know, and a lot of times
too because we don't get the opportunity. We may know
how to run, but we may be rusty, right, I
may not have done it in a year a year
and a half, so things slip, right, I may have
I may have new team members that haven't really run
it with me before. So I've got it. I've got
to figure out how to do that. So this is
(15:16):
not this is not this isn't anything new to this
business or to the to the the music or the
festival business. But I think it is particularly heightened because
we care about the people that we care about, and
the people that we serve care deeply about what it
(15:36):
is that we're doing. Right, So this this criticism, I
don't take it as criticism to criticize, although there is
some of that, right, there's some piling on this all that,
but that's that's part of the game. But people really
care about what essence means to them and it's a
source of pride for them, right, So we have to
deliver that. That's why I'm here, right, So we have
(15:58):
to be able to deliver that, and we have to
deliver that excellence every day and so you know, five
hundred things may go right, and one thing may go wrong,
or two things or ten things may go wrong. We
owe it to ourselves to say, hey, this isn't working
and be for us to correct it. So I do
have to ask.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
You know, I go to Essence every year, right, and
I was there this year. I actually spoke on one
of the stages, this Wade Lounge.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I did dope. Was that it was dope? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:27):
It was really.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I mean I love that because I get you get
to see your core of people that you don't usually
necessarily get to see.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Right, everybody comes in one place.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
And you don't see that as the Puerto Rican I'm
not Puerto.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Rican black, stop that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
But I really get a chance to see people, and
not just at the convention center, not just at the concert,
at restaurants, at day parties, at just being out and about.
But I did notice that it wasn't his pact that
it usually is, right right. Some people say it was
maybe because of the boycott of Target. Some people say
maybe you know, people can't afford it. Right now, What
do you say to that?
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Was it Target?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Was it? You know?
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Look, I think I think we live in a world
right now, where there's so much uncertainty right and and
people are trying to figure out where this is all headed. Right,
they're they're they're hurting financially, or they're or they're unsure
of what's going to happen to them financially. So they're
they're they're they're taking a beat on things and say, hey,
(17:23):
am I going to do this? There's uh a sort
of deep sense of of responsibility for to just share
everything right and and to be and to be as
(17:43):
as loud and as and as vocal and as visible
as as possible. So so things that may not be
fully understood get discussed in ways and in places that
sound like they actually know what they're talking about. But
so at the convention center again, phenomenal success. Here's why.
(18:10):
Last year there was a lot of lines, a lot
of blockage of the aisles. Our elders couldn't move freely,
they couldn't get from one place to another. So we
made a strategic decision to increase the size by one
hundred thousand square feet. Right. What that enabled us to
(18:34):
do was wider aisles right spread the spread the place
out of tuk tuk lines on the sides and away
from the center aisle, so people could move more freely. Right.
So when you look at that, you say, oh, there's
fewer people here, right, And you couple that with an
active boycott that's going on, right, and you couple that
(18:56):
with all of the uncertainty that I just talk about,
and then it's easy to come to that conclusion. Well,
you know, we had almost fifty thousand people a day
go through the convention center in some days more right,
that's the first thing. So same numbers as last year
(19:17):
right in the convention Center, same numbers are last year,
better organized, better plan. That's the lessons that we won
last year. Right. Now, we got to turn our attention
to our production in the Superdome and make sure that
that's just as tight. You don't have any issues in
the convention Center, and we're engaging with that many people
a day, right. I think it's something like I don't
(19:40):
like four hundred panels, right, twenty something thousand minutes of content, right,
like massive stuff, right scale stuff. The last part about
that is it's all free. Right, So when you come
into that experience. The other thing that I think you
noticed this year, for those of you that have Ben
(20:00):
is the elevation of the experience, right, the the the
the the visuals, right, the the content, the the the uh.
The quality of the presenters right, the quality of the
presentations extraordinary. Right. I was extremely excited about about the
(20:22):
programming at swayet right for for the first time, it
wasn't an afterthought A men's experience wasn't an afterthought. It
was it was a real intentional experience and execution.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Right, we'll bring down with Swede is for people that
don't know it and worry there because they might not know.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, So Swayed is Swayed is what is now essences uh,
men's platform and experience that we're that we're slowly building
up because if you go out, then you look in
in the media landscape today, there's nothing that's really focused
on on on black men in an elevated and aspirational way.
(21:05):
And so Swede was actually a a magazine that was
owned by Essence, that was launched by Essence back in
the day as as a and was then shuddered shortly thereafter.
And I looked at it and I said, you know
what a cool what a cool name uh for for men? Right,
(21:30):
And and so we're gradually building that up. But I
think from your experience there you can see where we're.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Headed with it.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
And I think a lot of women all the time
always look for men at essence.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Right, because there's a lot of relationships.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
There's a lot of women and they're.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Looking for relationships, they're looking So that Swede Lounge was
a great opportunity for me looking at the panel. So
but I do want to say too, I want to
stay on the economic point that and be brought up.
I saw people came plaining about the BBIP super lolenges.
I guess they said the super Lounge used to be
(22:05):
a part of the standard ticket price, but then they
had to charge extra for the v VI I P.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
So a lot of people was like, man, that prices
me out.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
So that was one how do you balance like financial
sustainability with accessibility.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Well, And but I think that's also part of a
part of what I was saying earlier about people having
an idea but not really fully having all of the
information to make to make decisions right. So that super
Lounge experience was was a free experience where the convention
(22:41):
center had not the conventions the super don't have these
spaces right inside of them. That essence used as a
way to showcase up and coming talent, right, give them opportunities,
and went quite for the for the main stage for
the past three year years or so, the super Dome
(23:01):
was under construction and those spaces went away, so we
haven't had that for three years. The way that we
solved for that was doing super lounges early on the
main stage. Right. That didn't change, right. But what we
also are dealing with is one we should talk about
(23:24):
the economics of it, right, and we'll come back to
the economics of how an event like this gets pulled
off and what it takes and what it requires. But
what we then did was said, hey, we're trying to
over deliver on the value proposition of why you come
to why you would go to the Superdome, why you
(23:46):
would buy a ticket, right. And what has happened is
for our community, they get charged more and they receive less.
We're guilty of trying to give more for the same price, right,
and that has to then be accompanied by other sources
of revenue in order to sustain that free convention center. Right.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
How about I didn't I've been going for so many years.
I didn't know the convention center was free.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I had no idea convention centers.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I had no.
Speaker 7 (24:15):
Idea, well, you'd be working. I just was an attendee
and I just went and you just had no idea.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
It was free.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
That's crazy. I had no clue. Nowhere else on this planet.
Which is amazing is anybody giving us that. I mean,
think about who you got to see, and they got
to see and talk to you, right, they got to
see on that same they got to see and talk
to Maxwell. They got to see and talk to it.
And let me explain it this a little bit.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
So the convention center, of course, it's it's a huge
convention center and they have different stages, podcasts, artists performing,
and I didn't know all that was free.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
But all that is free, So like you can go there.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
And when I was there doing one stage, Lloyd was
doing another stage performing, so there was like ten thousand
people at Lloyd's stage. There was a couple thousands people
that our stage, people doing podcasts, conversations with Maxwell, And
I didn't know that's free, that's.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, but that's dope. No. But in order to maintain that,
that money has to come from somewhere, right, so we're
we're trying to find other ways that we can monetize
so that we can continue to provide that experience, so
we don't have to charge because our community is going
(25:22):
through I don't know if people know this, right, unemployment
rate for black women in this country right now is skyrocket, right,
unemployment rate for black people in this country is skyrocket. Right.
The opportunities that we were promised just two years ago
(25:44):
have evaporated. Right, We're gonna stand by our community and
we're gonna build. We're gonna use our business acumen to
build a sustainable business that will be here one hundred
years from now. Right, We're gonna make those investments. We need,
our commun need to come along. We also, though taking
full accountability, need to make sure that our community knows
(26:07):
that that's what we're doing. Right. I think we take
for granted that they know what we're doing. The fact
that you guys in here have been there, I don't
know how many times you've probably been there fifteen times
that you didn't know that all of those experiences were three.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
Right, So it's only been once, I'm sorry, once and
once in Houston.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Oh so you went ra Trina Katrina yeah, yeah, yeah,
But that's that's a million square feet that we produce
in that convention center for our community, serving anywhere from
fifty to seventy thousand people a day, right for three
days straight. It's where we bring black businesses in the
Soco market so they can sell their products. And when
(26:53):
they come to that SoCal market that one weekend, many
of them make more money in that one weekend than
they make the entire year.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
But the only other thing that I would say that
I did not like is every night at that convention center,
well at the concert when people were performing, I didn't
know who was really performing until I got there.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You guys had, I mean, think about it. You got
Looe Rilla, Patty LaBelle.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I think they had the last Line Law in the Hills,
nas Boys.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Too, Menie Dougie f Babyface, so many.
Speaker 7 (27:30):
It was like that wasn't properly promoted. But I didn't
know what I got.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I didn't know what I got there about all those artists.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
And I feel like it would have been a bigger
push if you to know, like you got to see
all those artists in the weekend. You never see nothing
like that, old and new coming up artists like it was.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
It was a dope show.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
That's but that's what we do every year, right, and
that's and that's the idea.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
So you usually you know when new addition is closing out,
you know when Mary's before.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Like you never it was, I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I didn't Niles was there until.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
I got there.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
So let me so I'll tell you I don't know
was there too, I see want to play.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
That's true.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
By the way, he's being biased.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
All the people are from Queens, Okay. I bet y'all
promoted Patty Leabell and crazy Queens.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
If you asked you, I did not know.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So so that's another learning, right, So but I tell
you more than that, more than than Hey, we need
to we need to really amp it up because you know,
people need to know. More than that. We need to
be earlier so that people can plan because in this economy,
in the world that we're in, right, people need to plan.
(28:39):
And people this is this is some people's vacation, right,
Like some people are like, Hey, I'm gonna save up
my money this year so I can go so I
can go to Essence, right, Great, we need to make
sure that we give them enough of a window for
them to plan. The other part of it is we're
we're the music and the festival. The concert part of
(29:05):
it is an important part in the celebration, But that
convention center is where the nourishment and the learning and
the nurturing comes in. And so we've got to make
sure that we tie those closer together so that people
know all of all of what's happening and they can
understand just exactly how massive it is. So we'll do
(29:29):
a better job of marketing so that people know more
and that they know earlier. So that's that's certainly something
that we can improve on, and that feedback is very well.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
I want to talk to you about Target.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
I totally get you need targets dollars to even do
this event.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
You don't have to explain that.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
But was that a tough decision being that you know,
the Jamal Bryant, the Tamika Mallory's, a Nina Turner's have
you know, staged this boycott against Target that a lot
of people.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Are participating in out So.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Those are always difficult decisions, right, And this wasn't a hey,
we decided to go with Target against the boycott or hey,
we decided to go with the boycott against Target. Right,
You've got to remember what our value proposition is to
this community, and that is to help them build their
businesses and to help them build their build their build
(30:25):
the infrastructure that supports their business. Right, we build the
infrastructure they build their businesses. So it wasn't a it
wasn't a uh A decision around here's you know, here's
this boycott that we want to go against, or here's
this retail partner that we want to support, right, it
(30:46):
was it was the decision first of all, was we
already had a contract right prior to all of this
four years now, and they've been good partners, right, They've
they've done what they've told us to we're going to
do and even recently not recently at at festival, Brian Cornell,
(31:07):
their CEO, came on the ground. He's like, look, I
want to see the people, I want to talk to
the people. I want to understand. But he also shared
that we haven't stopped doing the things that we had
committed to. We're going to complete We've made a two
billion dollar commitment that was who the black community.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
But isn't at the whole point of the whole point
of the protest is that because they rolled back to
DEI initiatives, but they haven't you know, done those things
from what I've been told.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
No, So what he shared was that they actually never
stopped those things. Right, They're they're two billion dollar commitment.
He said that they are going to complete that two
billion dollar commitment at the by the end of this year.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
They just can't label the d GAD a trump.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I'm not going to get into the politics of it,
but what I will say is that they've committed to
and have exercised and from what I've been able to see,
they have done what they said, certainly with the businesses
that are in there, that are in their retail environment,
which is where I think the bulk of those dollars
(32:16):
go anyway. But that's for that's not for me to
that's not for me to answer, right What I what
I can say, though, is that they have shown me
and provided evidence that they have continued that they've continued
those programs. They've continued their HBCU program and the scholarships.
They've continued their their their their their dollar commitments. Right. So,
(32:41):
for our decision making was based on the economic impact
or the or the inadvertent economic impact that we're seeing
in the black businesses that So if that convention center
didn't happen, there's two hundred vendors that would have lost
(33:02):
their income for that weekend, right, which, as I said earlier,
for some of them, is the bulk of their income.
There are retail there are brands that have been preparing
all year to have a showcase to get retail distribution, right,
So there's other retailers that come there. Because we also
(33:24):
have a program through the New Voices Foundation that trains
up our vendors to be ready to go into retail.
So that's the other thing that we do. We have
almost thirty thousand black businesses on our platform and women
own businesses on our platform that we're providing developmental services
to every day and also at the festival, right. So
(33:48):
that's everything from preparedness to go into retail, to business planning,
supply chain development, all the things that it takes to that.
So we've also then as a result of that, really
curated the SoCal markets so that when our guests come in,
they're getting the best of the best, and that when
(34:08):
retail partners come in, they're able to then say, hey,
they're ready to do business and go and go to
the next level. Right, So we don't want to deprive
them of that opportunity. Greater than that is they've already
made the investments, right, Some of these people have not
some of the many of them, because where do we
(34:30):
go to get funding in our community when we need
to build a business today? Right?
Speaker 5 (34:36):
Go fund me right?
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Right? So part of what they use this weekend for
is to recoup the investments that they've made. So how
do they get these investments? They're taking our second mortgages
on their homes, they're drawing down on their four to
one ks, they're borring from their neighbors and their friends
and their family. Go for every single person here right, right,
(35:03):
And if they don't get these opportunities, what happens to them? Right?
So we've got we've got to think about. So it's
it kind of you know, it's I'm a I'm older
than all of you guys. I grew up at a
time where it was, you know, it was it was
(35:25):
we had MLK to follow and learn about, and you
had two sides to mlk's platform. The first one was
the civil rights platform. The second one which he didn't
get to see all the way through unfortunately, and we
can all speculate as to why was the economics rights platforms? Right?
(35:46):
So the boycott is focused on the civil rights platform.
I'm focused on the economic rights platform. That's what I've
done my entire career, right, thirty something years now, almost
forty years. This is what I've done, right, I started.
I started when I was nineteen years old, right, so
almost forty years. It's kind of crazy to think, right,
but that's all I've done, right, All I've done is
(36:07):
build businesses that invest back in black communities and develop
new businesses that can then stand on their own. So
I'm looking, I'm faced with this and I'm seeing the
impact that this is not just having here but also
on shelf. So, yeah, the boycott can. Our voice has
(36:30):
been heard, there is no doubt about it. Our voice
has been heard, fantastic, Right. My question is what next? Right?
And how do we now? How do we now protect
those businesses that have been impacted because targets, traffic may
(36:50):
be down, right, their revenue may be down, But think
about those I don't know how many there has I
know that we're involved with maybe twenty businesses in that
that cell to the target that at other retailers, but
we're talking specifically here. Some of them, their businesses are
(37:10):
down more than fifty percent. Some of them their business
the average is around thirty percent. Right, the right, because
the traffic isn't there and the the So the impact
of that is the longer this goes on, I can't
(37:33):
pay my mortgage. I can't pay you back the money
that I barred you from you, Right. I can't send
my kids to the schools that I've not put them
in because I thought, Hey, I've got I've got this business.
That's that's ramping up. Right. I'm worried about healthcare because
there's all kinds of changes coming there. There's there's an
(37:53):
undue amount of stress that goes on those businesses as
a result of this. Right, the boycott I think has
served its purpose. I think it has been one that
showed our economic might, It showed our voice, It showed
that we can be we can be united. I'm all
(38:15):
for that, right, But what I have to think about
is how I make sure that these people and these
businesses that have made these investments survived through this. Until
all of that is the result.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
Can you move on from a boycott if a demand
hadn't been met? Though, again, if you have, because the
whole point of boycott is because you have demand. If
Target hasn't met those demands, why should we tell people
to move on if they have not met those If
they haven't met those demands, why should we tell the
protests to move on?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Yeah? So I haven't told anybody.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
To move on, right, It sounds like you're saying that.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Just No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying
is that my responsibility, the place that I've lived my
life is in building out that ecosystem. Right, So my
job is to ensure that our ecosystem survives. Right, That's
my job, right, And that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
I guess my mother's real quick.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
God.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I just want to.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Just from a just from your standpoint, just Essence, right,
not the black owned businesses within Target, just Essence and
Essence Festival. If you would have said, you know what,
I'm listening to the protesters Target, I don't want you
to be a sponsor this ship.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
How would that have impacted y'all business? Because I know
you had a contract.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Well, we have a we have a contract, so that
that would that would impact our business. I tell you
something else, Right, there's many others that have either pulled
out of supporting uh uh uh black media and and
and and black businesses. There are many others that have
cut down what they have, what their commitments had been,
(39:50):
or or where they have where they have invested before.
So it's not just this isn't just an issue that
related just to target, right, this is an issue that
you know, we've had partners you know that didn't come
back for didn't come back right, used to be able
to you know, do the ride and drive and you know,
(40:13):
they they they've cut back. They didn't come back, Delta
didn't come back right. So there's partners in it. But
we still put on the same, the same show. We
still put on the same the same event. So we're
gonna ride for our community. Right. We knew we were
going to take a loss going into this, but it's
better to me that we take a loss and that
those those that community, that business community, the broader community
(40:36):
of New Orleans, the broader community that comes to Essence
Festival has an extraordinary experience.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
We did have hiccups, Yes, why didn't those companies come back.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Well, I mean you know some of them have. Some
of them have have Yeah, I mean they've they've they've
they've they got rid of program. There's no money, there's
no there's nobody, right, So so you know, but this
is the new world that we live in, and I
think it's very important that we are that we're moving forward.
(41:09):
Like we can't just we can't just go to sleep
or we're not going to wake up and it's going
to be better. We got to work through it, right,
And so I think that, like I said earlier, you've
got the the civil rights part of the civil rights
and civil justice part and you've got the economic rights
and economic justice part of it. The two have to work, right,
(41:30):
and so I'm looking forward to us getting the two
to work in the interim. You've got to sustain what's there,
otherwise it's not recoverable.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Do you bring it back next year?
Speaker 3 (41:38):
And you know, with the difficulties that you had this year,
especially with sponsors.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Pulling out, do you bring it back?
Speaker 3 (41:43):
And that's question The reason I asked is you said
you took a huge loss this year, right, yeah, yeah, right,
and you don't have the sponsorship, So how do you
sustain that without raising prices and making sure that people
can still enjoy what they enjoy without hitting the consumer
in the pocket, you know, especially since you lost a
car company, lost Delta and whatever else.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Those are big hits.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
You never know. Next year they may be back, gotcha, right, you?
They may be back. And there are other there are
other brands out there who value our community, who want
to engage with our community. Right There's there's new revenue
streams to find, there's new partners to go find. It's like,
we can't just give up because it's hard, right because
(42:26):
otherwise we won't be here.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
You know, I agree with you, and you know, yes,
there is going to be criticism for any event. But
based on what you just said, I wonder if people
realize that, let's say, next year, these companies that pulled
out this year for DEI initiatives, they want they might
want to come back, but they're not going to come
back to something that is getting so criticized. They're not
(42:49):
going to come back to something that's getting so slammed
on social media. That's when they be like, I want
to stay away from that, like you know.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, you know, And and the thing is it's Look,
what we did this year was an extraordinary success. It
had faults and issues like everything else. Right, but I
can go through the stats with you. You same number
of people in the convention center. Right, we're dealing with
(43:17):
what feels like a recession, especially in our community. We're
dealing with, Hey, you know, the conscious decision of do
I support this or not support this? Because I want
to support my community, but I also want to support
this this economic stance that we're taking here, we're dealing
with all of those things. Right. I don't think we'll
be dealing with that next year, Right I have I
(43:39):
have faith and confidence that we won't be I can't
speak for the economy, but I think the the the
the inner dialogue that we're having with ourselves around do
I do this? Do I not do this? I don't
think we'll be dealing with that next year. And yes,
the criticism doesn't.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Hurt, butomy no, That's why I'm not going.
Speaker 7 (44:02):
So this target thing has been going on for a while.
Speaker 6 (44:04):
So if next year the boycott is still there, do
you guys, I don't know how long your contract is,
you guys will still be in contract next year, so
they'll be back next year.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah. So, so the answer to that question is we
have a we have a responsibility to our community to
deliver to them the best product that we can deliver. Right,
every year, we get better at delivering that product. Right
(44:33):
that to your point, the criticism doesn't help at all, Right,
doesn't help at all, But it's not going to deter
us from doing the work that needs to be done
so that we can get those partners right and we
can grow and we can scale and we can do
the things. Like I said, our vision for this is
not for next year. Our vision for this is one hundred,
one hundred years. So we're building the infrastructure that allows us,
(44:57):
that allows us to do that. We'll do the work,
we'll make the adjustments from the that we see from
the criticisms, the one that the ones that are that
are reasonable in that work, we'll do that. Right. So,
as far as you know what happens next year with partners, right,
we have to go through the process to see what happens, right,
(45:20):
we have to go through the process, see what the
other partners come through. We have to we have to
look at who what's going on with the boycott, what
changes are made to it, how things get resolved. So
to your point, there is a resolution to everything, right,
we have to come to a resolution. I think that
(45:41):
will happen.
Speaker 6 (45:42):
How did you feel when they turned the conversation because
of Target in Caroline are your CEO's past involvement with Target?
They turned it into a Black American versus Black African conversation,
and that whole thing exploded of like essence is losing
its focused on Black Americans.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I mean, those are one of the I mean, I'd
love to hear how you guys think about that, But
that's one of those ones that I struggle with understanding
intellectually right, for a host of reasons, just from let's
just talk about the actual facts. Right. So we had
(46:21):
I don't know forty plus acts and performers, right, we
had one Jamaican act performer and we had one African performer, David. Right.
That to me doesn't say that we're losing our center. Right.
(46:42):
We remain extremely centered on African American culture, right and
on black women. That's our center. That doesn't mean we
can't expand out from our center. All that means is
we can't lose our center. So, if you were on
the G if you were there, you see that that
(47:03):
center is very much there. Right, you go into the
convention center, right, you look at what happened on the stages.
You look at what happened. If you were there, you
know that we're still centered. Right. But if you were there,
you also know that we're growing and that we're broadening,
because everybody has to grow abroadened otherwise you won't be around. Right.
(47:25):
There's also sort of the philosophical approaches to these. To
this is I view myself as black. I've benefited from
being black, and I have also lost from being black.
When I walk in the room. What people see, if
(47:47):
they don't know me, when I walk in a room,
I walk down the street, they see a black man. Right.
My entire life has been dedicated to uplifting black. I've
focused it on the economics, on the economic side of
black because that's what I know how to do. That's
that's that's what I'm skilled at. The Thing that I've
learned from that is we're much better off when we're
(48:10):
focused on our commonalities and we're building on those commonalities.
As I said earlier, I grew up you know, King
Garvey L. Mumba, right that the thinking around. Hey, we
have a much better chance of developing and growing our
(48:31):
communities when we find the commonalities and the alignments and
we're working towards shared goals and shared objectives. When we
don't do that, we become much smaller, right, and much more,
much more volatile, and much more vulnerable.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
I can't even believe you took the time to explain that.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
I mean something, if me.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Booju, Bonting and and Devido or walking down the street
and a white supremacist see us, guess what do you see?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
That's it? What do we talk?
Speaker 6 (49:00):
Do you feel like though we criticisms like that and like,
you know, just some of the stuff that you you
would feel like we're not going to get y'all took
ownership for a lot of things even before the articles hit, right,
the things that you're like, this is nonsense, We're not
going to take ownership for that. Do you ever feel
like it's kind of like unfair? Are you ever hurt
by it? Because you do so much censored in black people,
regardless of where they come from.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
I don't have the luxury of being hurt by it, right.
I think the first couple of times that it happened.
You know, there was oh you know, I think the
first time I was here, and very very similar circumstances. Right,
we did an add for Shay right, and that ad
(49:44):
had run for months, and they cut it down for
Social and the person that cut it down from social
for social cut it where there was a It ended
it was a white woman in the front and a
white woman in the back, and then there was a
(50:04):
very small glimpse of a black woman, right, And that
wasn't intentional at all, and it wasn't the message we
were trying to convey. But you know, people got hurt
by it, right, And because we build we build brands,
and we're involved with brands that are all about our
culture and all about our identity, and we ride hard
(50:28):
for it. Right. So the person that made that mistake, right,
I could have walked in and fired that person, right,
I chose not to because that was a person that
was trying to do something and trying to create something,
(50:50):
and that deserved an opportunity to fail. And they got
that opportunity to fail. Okay, they are today running one
of the most acclaimed agencies out there. Right, if we
had not if we had reacted differently, they probably wouldn't
(51:11):
have gotten that opportunity, right, So it's our responsibility to
give them an opportunity to fail. I have chosen to
spend my career trying to develop businesses and economic engines
in our community. I can't if I were so thin
skinned that, you know, every time I did something wrong,
(51:34):
or every time people perceived me to do something wrong,
I walk away from what the mission was. We wouldn't
be here, right, We wouldn't have these hundreds of businesses
that are now on the shelves of Target or Walmart
or CVS. If I had listened to the criticism when
I sold Shay, I would have gone off into somewhere
and hidden away and gone and done my thing there.
(51:56):
I wouldn't have.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
But then Honeypot wouldn't have been Honeypot wouldn't have man
Miel wouldn't have been here, Lipbar wouldn't have been here,
Solo Funds wouldn't have been here.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
I mean, you name it. List goes on and on
and on. So you know, I don't have that luxury,
you know, And I have to take the other thing
is because because what we're doing is so novel in
our community, right, I have an accountability to say, hey,
this is what's working, and this is not what this
is what's not working. Right. People have the right to
(52:29):
decide whether or not they want to rock with us, right,
But we're going to keep doing what we what our
intentions are. We going to continue to share what those
intentions are, and we're going to continue to do the
work and be accountable for what we get. Like I
said earlier, when something goes wrong, when something goes right.
Speaker 4 (52:48):
You know, I be here for both. And I'm glad
that you're open to all this criticism. But the reality
is it's hard to explain business to people who don't
run one, especially corporate business, especially when you are, you know,
a black person running a business trying to do things
specifically for black people. We are so hard on each other, man.
I haven't heard Essence talked about. I haven't heard Essence
be talked about this much in years at least Essence
(53:10):
probably decades, you know what I But now everybody talking
about it so much because we got so much negative
things to say.
Speaker 5 (53:16):
And like you said, some criticism is valid.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
Something is valid, not all of it, that's right, right,
And the levels of criticism is definitely not warrant, right,
I will tell you that right. But if we Hurtanie.
Speaker 5 (53:29):
Mills, got to make that right.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
That's what we're here for.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
Heart, Lauren Hill, you got to make that right, gott
to make But those are actual valid issues, right that letter.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
She has actual valid issues, valid issues. Y'all got too
much Africans. It's not a valid criticism.
Speaker 6 (53:41):
No, But I like the way that I like the
way that you guys responded to things because it curved
the headlines, Like the headlines about Laurence Hill had to
include fescal says it's not her fault.
Speaker 7 (53:53):
Here's exactly what happened.
Speaker 6 (53:54):
A lot of most festivals don't do that because she
said that this has happened to her before.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
But this isn't most festivals. Is essence, we're accountable to
our community and to those black women that we're here
to serve and protect, and when we get it wrong,
we're going to say it right. Caroline, you just brought
up Caroline Wanga had nothing to do with this, all right.
I saw it.
Speaker 4 (54:14):
I saw people blaming her, but I told I was
told she's not even really she's.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
On leave, Yeah, she's on leave. She just she'd go
buy her book. Guys, she she just she just dropped
a phenomenal book and she's been an incredible leader for
for essence, and we're grateful.
Speaker 7 (54:31):
Is she still in the CEO?
Speaker 1 (54:33):
S she's still in the CEOC because she's on leave.
Speaker 5 (54:36):
Why was it so quick? Why was people so quick
to blame her when she had nothing to do with
this year?
Speaker 1 (54:40):
I mean, look, I don't know. We we live in
a world. We live in a world now where it's
it's easy to do that right, and so people do that.
And you can you can shy away from it right,
or you can face it head on. I choose to
face it head on because I think people get an
opportunity to lo learn from my mistakes. They learned from
(55:02):
my team's mistakes. My team gets to learn from their mistakes.
And the greatest blessing is to be in a position
where you're allowed to make mistakes. That's the greatest blessing,
because if you're not allowed to make mistakes, you shrink, right,
you don't try things. You're you're you're You're stuck in
one thing, and that's the only place you can be.
(55:22):
For our community to grow, We've got to be able
to afford to make mistakes. Right, We've got and but
the other thing is we've also got to be able
to the thing that I'll notice that I'll say now
is I've gotten on in years, is my community no
longer has the grace it once had for each other.
All right, we go on these platforms and did we ever?
(55:46):
I don't know if we know we maybe maybe yeah,
in my day, yes, there was grace. You know, if
something went wrong, somebody pulled you aside and said, hey,
you know this is going wrong, if your kid did
something wrong, they're like, community, it was, But we've got
to bring We've got to bring that back. Right. It's
(56:08):
like if we run away from these things, it doesn't
come back. If our kids grow up and don't see,
they think that this is this is the way it
should be. So where did we get some things wrong? Absolutely?
But I think if you measure us against any festival
that happened this year, I think we we we rise
to the top. Right. I don't know of one festival
(56:30):
that happened this year that didn't have some sort of
production issue. Right, ours is amplified because people care. Right,
ours is amplified because our community is under a lot
of pressure. Ours is amplified because we have a boycott
going ours is amplified for a whole host of reasons.
That doesn't mean that we run away from it, right,
It means that we got to talk about it. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (56:50):
I think the valid criticisms and I know you gotta
get out of here. I think the valid criticism or
the production issue, the lateness, the cost for people, and
I do think the target, the target conversation is a
valid conversation to have. It's a valid criticism for people
that are boycotting to bring up.
Speaker 5 (57:05):
But I think with you the way you're explaining it
makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Yeah, because if if, if we don't have sponsors. But
here's here's the other. Here's the other bigger thing, right
is we don't know, right, and it hasn't been shared,
and we probably need all need to do a better
job with that of the impact. As I said earlier,
(57:29):
that it has the the unintended consequences, right that it's
having on the dozens, if not hundreds of businesses that
do business and target. Right, we don't, we don't, we don't.
We don't know that, right. So there's two sides to this.
And as I said, my job is to make sure
(57:51):
that those companies are protected, those people, those people are protected,
and that our community continues to get the opportunities. Because
the other thing that happens, and I said this on
one of the other times out here because this is
something that I believe to be extremely true, is if
we make people scared to do business with us, they
already have a reticence to invest in us and to
(58:14):
do business with us if they're concerned about, Hey, you know,
if I do business with this person, are and something
goes wrong between them and their community, right we burn
the house down, they won't. They have plenty of places
to put to put their money, and they have plenty
of choices to as to who to put that money with.
(58:35):
We have to and as it, you know, when I
was growing up, he used to tell, you know, you
have to be three times better than the next guy.
Right in the world that we're growing up in today,
we have to be five times better. It's just that
nobody's telling us that.
Speaker 4 (58:48):
But that's the point I brought up earlier when I
talked about, you know, the criticism, because the people will
go on social media and they may think about, okay,
let's put some money there next year. But if they
go on social media and see a bunch of backlash,
they'd be.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
Like, no, I'm not going to why why am I
doing now?
Speaker 1 (59:00):
I don't want my brand associated right with them.
Speaker 6 (59:02):
So we talked about this on my podcast, and my
thing was the criticisms are valid. Like Charlomagne said, I
just wish that we understood how we shape what conversation
and impression is. But when you say that, like people
don't want to do business with us because they say
that we can burn the house down, what's the happy
medium of But at the same time, you want people
who feel like they need to boycott for whatever reasons
to get what they need and feel respected too, because
(59:23):
that's an obvious pushback, someone would say, but like, you
don't want people to run all over you.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
Either, Yeah, and that's fair, right, There's no I'm not
arguing that. I'm just saying that there's another side to it.
Two things can be true, right, So I'm not arguing that.
All I'm saying is that there's a side to it
that has a consequence, right, And as a community, we're
going to have to figure out what the balance is,
because neither side is good if I'm feel like I'm
(59:49):
being disrespected here, let's let's let's dive into it and
understand what that actually means. And if I feel like
I'm not getting an opportunity here, let's dive into that,
understand what it not just jump on a platform that
and then just spill. And I personally think a lot
of this stuff is driven by bots. I don't even
(01:00:11):
think it's well, not.
Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Only that a lot of people weren't even there, like
the people that left those they weren't even there, and
they do those type of things. I say this, and
I tell me Charlaman talk about it all the time.
The bad thing is we reward this type of behavior right,
And the way we reward it is there's likes, there's views.
They get paid for the amount of views. So if
I get a million views for issue on Essence and
I get paid one thousand dollars for it, you know
(01:00:32):
what I'm gonna do tomorrow, I'm gonna do it again.
Speaker 5 (01:00:34):
Well, you probably right, but let's not dismiss the people
who are there.
Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
But there weren't people there. But there were people there,
and he said they did have some problem.
Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
But what I want you to do too, rich is
instead of coming when is fed up to talk about
fixing it. When we want you to come before and
talk about what you're doing so we can get that
good word out to the people.
Speaker 5 (01:00:51):
But you're too busy doing the work.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
So that's I was gonna say, yes, So let me
let me, let me tell you what I grew up by. Right.
My mother would always tell us, let's do the things
we're going to talk about. Let's not talk about the
things we're going to do. Oh, So that's my mentality. Right.
If it's something, if I have something to share that
(01:01:13):
I think like this conversation, I'm happy to share it.
But other than that, i'd rather be I'd rather be
working with my team solving these problems. Right. And now
that you know i'm executive chairman, we have CEOs in
different roles, you know they're they're doing that so I
can sit here and talk. But the reality of it is,
(01:01:35):
we have to give each other more grace and we
have to build more businesses. Right, that's our only way
out of this, Right, we have to build more businesses,
and we have to treat those things that allow us
to build those businesses with that mindset. Right. So I'll
say this, Those sponsor dollars that come in go into
(01:02:02):
the investments to put on the free experiences that you get,
and they'll allow us to pay for the talent that
we won't be able to pay for just by ticket sets.
I got you right. There's nowhere else on this planet
that you can go and get what Essence Vest gives you.
(01:02:22):
And that's why I believe people are so protective of it, right,
And so I appreciate that, and I understand that, and
we will continue to do the work to make it
continuously better. But I will say this, what we put
on lives on the world stage. Right. It's not nobody's bigger, right.
(01:02:49):
It's just that a lot of what we do is free, right,
But nobody's bigger. So our revenues don't match everybody else's
revenues because they charge it. The other thing is when
you go when you go to Cochella, you go to
any one of these other places, you're just there for
the act that's on the stage. When you come the
(01:03:10):
Essence Community, you're there for community. Right. So I think
we did a great job with community. We didn't do
a great job with the production, right, But I think
that just the community of the talent that was there,
and we need to communicate more frequently, earlier and more frequently,
who's here, who's not here, what's happening? Right? So those
(01:03:33):
are those are things that those are things that are
fixing when we're here to we're here to do the work.
Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
All criticisms are valid and Essence is just going to
try to do better next year.
Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
There we go. That's it.
Speaker 5 (01:03:42):
That's it.
Speaker 6 (01:03:44):
We appreciate you, I said, God bless you have a
lot of patience, like.
Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
You don't have to you said, luxury of being hurt. No,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
I don't have that luxury.
Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
I appreciate you for joining us this morning.
Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
Caroline Wing is the president and CEO. I called it
our editor in chief.
Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Yeah, of Essence Ventures, which is, uh, the the Essence
business you all right.
Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Well it's rich Dennis, it's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,
thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Wake that answer up in the morning. The Breakfast Club
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