Culture Signals 1.5.20: The Origin Story
Cheat Codes
I’m very comfortable writing so all of this return to blogging feels like riding a bike. Truth be told I was blogging before it was called blogging and an influencer before the term influencer. (Yes, I am Keyinfluencer on Twitter) In 1996 while I was an executive at Columbia Records I built an email newsletter that I worked on in my office, late at night and in between music video shoots and artist in-store appearances. New York City felt like a big high school to me and my desire was to tell the stories of those of who worked behind the scenes every day. My theory was that we were making the toys that the world played with and as toymakers we should know each other. We were the “Gepettos of culture” with each of responsible for items, icons, movements that were driving the voice or “urban America".” These people were my friends and we shared town car vouchers in New York City, bottles of champagne in Miami and suites at the Nikko in Los Angeles. There would be no Bad Boy, Def Jam, Fubu, Ecko, Alan Iverson, Missy Elliott, Destiny’s Child, Nas, Will Smith and even Jim Carey if not for the contributions of young, culturally plugged in executives like myself working tirelessly behind the scenes in thankless jobs with what seemed like never ending expense accounts. I chose to use a new platform of communication called “the world-wide web” as my platform of choice and instrument of disruption. Sure while there were things like Billboard Magazine and Hits, Vibe Magazine and The Source there was no social media and no way to get information out in real time outside of email. So I took to AOL and started scraping email addresses of executives behind the scenes of places like NBA, Vibe Magazine, La Face Records and EA Sports and built a database of 300 email addresses. Much like this platform, I was able to immediately share my thoughts and highlight the accomplishments of young men and women that I knew personally and I felt more people needed to know about. In 1996-1997, Soul Purpose was born with Andy Platnum, a fictitious character I created as Editor In Chief. I had a “day job” as Sr. Director, Marketing at Columbia Records and “side hustles” weren’t totally supported and plus a “anonymous character” could move around without anyone knowing. Truth be told my close inner circle knew I was Andy and the insider information was validated by some of the most trusted power figures in hip hop / urban culture, but they were sworn to secrecy. The newsletter grew in popularity (300 readers became 25,000) and eventually my contract ended at Columbia Records.
One of my readers and early supporters and fans was the legendary streetwear designer Marc Ecko. Marc loved what I was doing and we struck up a relationship and I ultimately became Ecko Unlimited’s senior marketing executive while at the same time managing this bubbling media property. It kept growing from 300 to 10,0000 in a year and I left my position at Ecko and sold Soul Purpose to one of the many “dot coms” that were pursuing me for a deal. Having grown up in Palo Alto, CA I was more familiar than most around code and machines. As an 8th grader at Jordan Jr. High School, most of us spent time in the computer lab and I was even a “computer tutor” at one point in 1984.
However despite having grown up in the “Vatican City of Technology” I had no idea about this gold rush for technology in the mid 90’s outside of the fact that a lot of my friends from high school were now calling themselves “dot com millionaires” and I wanted to learn more. Outside of reading the daily and weekly music and entertainment trade magazines, I became obsessed with books about technology and business. In 1995 I devoured Nicholas Negroponte’s “Being Digital” which pretty much predicted the digital world we live in today. Despite having a pretty fancy job, office with an assistant, nights out with Nas and Steve Stoute and gold and platinum plaques on my wall, I was a super fan boy of the “digital pioneers” like Omar Wasow (founded NY Online, Black Planet), E. David Ellington (founded NetNoir), John Lee (early hacker) and so many others. These dudes were doing something new and big and I wanted to know more. In many ways it felt like the early days of hip hop.
It was the creative geniuses that I worked with in culture that really showed me how to break the machines and put them back together again. You see the true disrupters of technology were the hip hop generation which in thesis is the result of a cultural and technology hack. Most of the people I talked tech with outside of internet nerds were the music producers because well before technology invaded the corporate world guys like DJ Jazzy Jeff, Daddy O, DJ Eddie F and of course Chuck D from Public Enemy were the guys I used to geek out about gear and the internet with. They were essential to the evolution of how technology and music were evolving and thus they were some of the smartest guys I knew in technology. Chuck D and I did a couple of tours together where we talked about the “digital divide.” (Shout out to Larry Irving, another hero of mine who coined the term).
I ultimately sold Soul Purpose.com to Urban Box Office, stayed on to run it as a UBO executive and we bought up a ton of other websites with a war chest of $40m capital that we raised through 3 rounds of funding. Ironically the first investor was none other than Nicholas Negroponte and legendary NYC Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson. I quickly pivoted from the world of concert tours, video shoots, fashion shows and Grammy Awards to buying up every website and “cool kid” we could get our hands on in culture. If you were doing something remotely interesting UBO was more than interested in talking to you so I spent a year meeting with the most creative humans on the planet. We ultimately blew through the $40m in funding we raised but I received so many futuristic downloads and thoughts that I carry today. Many times I feel like I was living in 2020 in 1995. At the top of the 2000’s I spent the next 12 years working in digital advertising working for big global ad agencies, I built a social media agency in 2007 at the beginning of the platform era and started working with early influentials on the internet, along with becoming a popular executive and figure in the social media business space. I’ve now sold 2 companies, lived in LA, NY and Atlanta, had some successes and a bunch of things that didn’t work and more excited about culture, technology and entrepreneurs than I ever have been.
My career has afforded me an incredible network of people from Dubai to Oakland, Jerusalem to Stockholm. We built a highly curated micro niche community 2 years ago called Authenticated that currently sits across several platforms. We’ve been gathering startup founders, agency creatives, rappers, family office investors, graffiti artists, business execs, European Royalty and formerly incarcerated for “Jeffersonian-like” Dinners and Summits around the world. While some members in our network join to find an investor or employee some simply are here for inspiration and ideas and and most get the opportunity to see and meet people in cities they would never know. We are in the tradition of a Harlem Renaissance, a place where all industries are welcome, completely inclusive, unashamedly full of “other” and like the hip hop culture I come from completely open to all colors, shapes, sizes and preferences.
Culture Signals will be the place to hear the stories of the visionaries behind the scenes of today’s trends, the modern Gepettos’. It will be a gateway to cities you thought you knew but not the way we do. Lastly, we are big fans of the businesses that are being driven by technology and shaped by or driving global communities. We are cultural anthropologists, digging in the crates of scenes globally. While some of my greatest moments have been sitting on the floor in stacks of vinyl and turntables at a record store in Berlin with DJ Jazzy Jeff, some of my greatest conversations are ones where I was initially completely out of my element and honestly super nervous and awkward. My goal is to not just make you aware of what’s happening but to find opportunities to make you comfortable being uncomfortable and unafraid to ask the questions you want to ask. Culture Signals is our space and Authenticated is our community. Nice meeting you, let’s get started.
Tracking
Angela Benton is doing something really interesting with data at Steamlytics. Sure Issa Rae invested which itself is awesome, however the real story is what Streamlytics is doing to put the power of data back in the consumer hands. Streamlytics should have a big affect on the entertainment and media business.
Lisa Wang has rebooted after selling her last company SheWorx. This former US Olympic gymnast is giving female voices permission to tell their honest stories as a catalyst for change. Here’s an episode with VC Investor and former CAA agent Laura Walker Lee on the “importance of asking for help.”
Cheddar explores Sherbenskis, a Cannabis brand that is working directly with hip hop artists and pushing the envelope of influencing music.
Andy Mcllwain is on Twitter discussing “The power of niche communities” (like Authenticated) a topic we are obviously inspired by. For more experts on this topic, My rabbi has been Gina Bianchini who built Mighty Networks for this time.
Matthew Peltier is doing something really unique with text messaging at Community and has raised $30m to go after it. I’m personally fascinated by the idea of reaching fans through this medium of the phone. Pretty old school however the possibilities are endless.
Joined Authenticated This Week
Attica Jacques (Google, San Francisco)
Aniruddh Gupta (Kido Education, London)
Ashwin Jacob (New Hollywood, Los Angeles)
Kimmy Paluch (Beta Boom Fund, Salt Lake City)
Barry Johnson (Rock Ventures, Detroit)
Ina Jacobs (CAA, Los Angeles)
Jason White (Cura Cannabis, Los Angeles)
Kelvin Beachum (NY Jets Athlete/Investor, New York)
A.C. Johnson (Soho House Malibu)
Quincy Jones, III (Entrepreneur, Media, Investor, Stockholm)