On Wednesday of last week, I moderated a panel entitled “Making Your Mark” at this year’s Latin Mixx Conference.

The conference, now in its 5th year, is half entertainment summit, half information session and attracts a pretty varied audience of DJs, artists, and industry folk. To kick off the panel, I delivered a presentation (available below) covering a few areas of interest including: personal branding, the marketing and publishing landscape, and the role that today’s public-facing entertainer must play to thrive in the modern information economy.

To be successful in today’s business climate and attract the attention of brands and marketers, artists must fulfill the role of “Culture Creator.”

Establishing a dominant position in today’s entertainment and marketing environment requires one to vision going above and beyond the traditional, formulaic processes that comprise the bulk of today’s vapid, cookie-cutter landscape. Here are a few traits that the Culture Creator must embody, and inherently value:

Sometimes it feels like there is nothing new under the sun, but make something your own. Make it unique to you and your values. Revisit emotional territory that your FFF (friends/followers/fans) had once been emotionally invested in and reinterpret it. As Mark Pollard puts it in a brilliant blog post titled, “Why Strategists Should Make Stuff”, stories are currency; building a construct in which your content manifests values that are important to you and your community is a very important aspect to the process that cannot be ignored.

There will always be the idealists that can apply a prophetic eye towards culture and assist in the ushering in of “what’s next” by creating the mechanisms for those things to happen. This can include content platforms that begin digitally and then extend into the analog world. These people might not make total sense at first, and run the risk of being labeled disruptive, but, over time, their position shifts from the ‘idea advocate’ to the conduit through which the subsequent content, ideas, and themes are realized. To quote Jay-Z (as I frequently do), “I used to beat that block…. now I BE the block.” Fluidity is also very key to advancing one’s brand, as avoiding volatility and progression is an exercise in futility.

Remember the classic scene at the end of the first Matrix, where Neo realizes he’s “The One” and proceeds to predict the karate moves of the agents because he visualized everything? We can do that now. The ability to navigate, and qualitatively extract patterns has become a phenomenon that is available to everyone with the advent of the open web. There isn’t a specific formula for developing those sensibilities- it is simply a function of paying attention and digging deeper (at ANET, we preach “the why before the what”) into the things that are relative to what you want to create. Those who work to develop a second-nature mastery will advance, those who bypass will fall to the wayside.

One of the more powerful examples of this phenomenon is Kanye West’s rise to prominence.  In the early 2000’s, a pre-iconic Kanye West took the hip-hop world by storm, ultimately driving urban culture towards its current incarnation by aggressively and holistically embodying his vision of where hip-hop was going — not just musically — but philosophically, aesthetically and materialistically as well.

Cognizant of the fact that he could better disrupt the status quo from the inside, Kanye leveraged his position as Jay-Z’s go-to producer to establish himself by trading on his credibility and changing the perception of his role in Jay-Z’s success. “I brought back the soul,” he eloquently raps on The Blueprint 2’s ‘The Bounce.’

By the time Kanye was able to tell his story on his first album in 2004 it was, essentially, already told. Every celebrated hip-hop artist at the time had either already collaborated with Kanye (Ludacris, Lil’ Kim, 50 Cent) or otherwise revived their career by leveraging his distinctive sound (Common, Twista).

His transformation from hip-hop musician to “culture creator” was a byproduct of the fact that he (and his platforms) embody everything that is of value to him.  His has successfully leveraged his curatorial voice to actively shape the urban cultural landscape. Be it sartorially (through his collaborative efforts with some of the world’s most influential personal and luxury product brands), materially, or musically (through his G.O.O.D. Music label), Kanye has created the blueprint for the modern “culture creator” role that today’s most successful icon’s embody.

Sure, not everyone has been afforded the marquee opportunities to the same magnitude that Kanye has, but that isn’t to say that artists and entertainment figures (and marketers, to an extent) can’t embody those guiding principles, and bring this weird culture thing to its next chapter.

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(In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discussed the real-world implications of this cultural hurdle in his anecdote of Colombian pilots’ apprehension to speak firmly to a Caucasian Air Traffic Control during a mid-air crisis- all passengers on board died as a result of the subsequent crash.)

The silver lining is that with every generation, the winds of change descend to create a more empowered disposition; a new zeitgeist that defines the culture. This is what’s described in Souls of My Young Sisters, a collection of experiences written and edited by Dawn Marie Daniels and Candace Sandy, intent on helping renew the identity and sense of purpose that has been diluted throughout history. With a foreword written by Mary J. Blige and contributions of 60 female authors, including the homie and extremely talented Dee Vazquez, the narrative attacks the problem of confronting authority and establishing one’s own truths and reality through the personal anecdotes of these young, progressive women.

I give much respect to Ms. Daniels and Ms. Sandy for bringing awareness and insight around an issue that’s so pervasive in our cultural landscape, in a time where “change” seems to define the times, and ultimately, the success of our people.  The book is available… go cop.

For more information, visit Souls Of My Sisters

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Earlier this week, the really good folks at 94×50 & NSW flexed their creative + marketing muscles and allowed me to partake in a very uniquely curated one-night experience.

It basically happened like this…. a delivery man showed up to my office with a mysterious paper bag (with the exception of my name etched in Sharpie, it was unmarked). I opened the bag, and removed its contents-  a miniature orange Nike box, suited for either a baby or  an adult with abnormally tiny feet. Inside the box was a burner (if you don’t know what that means, please watch The Wire), and a strip of paper with instructions to text my name to a random number. It texted me back with a time and address.

Now, there aren’t many brands that could pull of a Matrix-esque invitation process and keep the mystique (and expectations) high, but if there is one thing I know, it’s to never ever-ever-ever-ever-ever come here no more doubt Nike.

I showed up to said location, my expectations wide open, and there was a party bus waiting on the corner. Jumped on the bus, and saw a bunch of colleagues, friends, and influential people I hold in high regard on board. I sat down next to the homie Jonathan Mannion, and asked him what this was all about, to which he responded, “I have no idea”. If he didn’t know, it was safe to assume nobody did.

The bus took about 20 of us to Tompkins Park, where Bobbito (random!) was in the middle of the playground, along with a bag of DD hot chocolate. After greeting everyone, he kicked off the evening with anecdotes on his career, and the role that the Air Force One played throughout. (Light bulb!) I know a lot of self-proclaimed and industry-recognized sneaker/cultural anthropologists/historians, but I’ve never encountered someone who is as genuine about his affinity for sneakers, their underlying stories, and their cultural relevance, as this man. As a marketer in a volatile industry (and consumer) landscape, it’s an anomaly to witness someone who lives way beyond advocacy to the extent that he does- he’s now the validator for the brand, a conduit for its ongoing relevance.

Bobbito @ Tompkins Park from suitsiswatching on Vimeo.

After his monologue, we boarded the bus again somewhat reassured enlightened, and were off to destination #2. After about 10 minutes, we pulled up in front of an unmarked building (for a brand that owns the world’s most iconic logo, it sure has a fixation with unmarked sh*t), boarded an elevator, took it to the 6th (or 3rd- I can’t remember) floor, and walked down the hall into a studio…where Clark Kent was waiting for us. In the same vain as Bobbito, he kept the evening’s program going by offering his unique perspective on Ones. He also broke down his next collaboration with the brand, and per his request, I won’t go into it. But it’s ill. Like super dope ill.

After about 30 minutes in the studio, we got on the bus again for what would be our last stop of the evening- Crif Dogs/PDT in the Village. I’d never been, but I heard about it, and I was pretty hungry. So I OD’ed. At the end of the night, they gave us each a pair of the buttas.

The above slideshow has all the evidence. (I had no idea what I was getting into, so all I had to boot was my iPhone. It was pretty dark throughout, so apologies for the less-than-spectacular imagery- you can check Yoshi’s pics and account of the evening here…)

In retrospect, it was very well-presented, and impressive shot in the arm to the unique culture that was bred, and still lives, here. Peace to Heron, Kristen, Will, Will P., Jonathan Mannion, Va$htie, Chad, Scott, Yoshi, Susana, Bradley C., Chris Vidal, Paul Rivera, and shouts to NSW x 94×50 – you guys really bodied that, and illustrated a sensibility and passion that usually gets lost within the process.

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Salsa in the 70s. Punk & Hip-Hop in the 80s.

New York City is undeniably responsible for spawning the modern world’s most definitive art forms. The aforementioned movements (for all intents and purposes we won’t refer to them as simply genres of music) were all byproducts of social expression in its most pure form, became organically popular, than through engineered ubiquity reached critical mass. Such was the cycle all beginning with the most simple of ideas. (Note: no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t edit the post to wreak any less of “V For Vendetta”. My bad.)

And that’s the heritage of this city. At least until recently.

In this information-starved, everyone’s-quick-to-assign-titles-to-themselves-because-nobody’s-looking landscape that we live in, something got lost. Ideas have been reduced to mere chatter because there’s too many being spread around without discerning taste. Collectively, a lot of media + marketing professionals in New York have forgotten what matters, only seeking out what’s “now”, regardless of its origin. Too many “tastemakers”, not enough people to adhere and fill the void.

Where has that left us? Micro is seemingly becoming the new macro, and “local has inherently become the new global” (according to world-class trend forecaster Marian Salzman).

That being said, I’ve been paying more attention to the “un-obvious obvious”- the contributions of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances- and have come to the conclusion that it’s a good time to be here. In New York City. Unless you’re in the Bronx.

(Just kidding.)

For the first time in a long time, individual efforts are becoming more fluid and running parallel with each other, and the right people are crossing paths more often- all signs of a (dare I say it) cultural boom that will define a generation of Millenials looking to set standards and reconcile them with traditional standards of success. All of the people in the image above are more than colleagues of mine; they’ve made sacrifices so that they can contribute to culture, and I know this because I know them and peep game. You should as well, because they are the ones- in my humble opinion- who have stepped it another level, meditated like a Buddhist, and will continue giving everyone proof that these are the times to value being here.

Over the next few months, their efforts will be chronicled here in efforts to shed light what. it. is…

SUITS!

(Sickamore, Mel D. Cole, Maluca, The Kid Daytona, Uproot Andy & Geko Jones, GFCNY, Zandile Blay, 13th Witness, Sherlen Archibold, Willis The Barber, Kenji Summers, Outasight, William Yan, RTNC, ArtekNYC, LV The Stylist)

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