a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence — Dapper Dan!

0:00:07 Hi everyone, welcome to the A6NZ podcast. Today’s episode is hosted by A6NZ co-founder Ben Horowitz
0:00:13 interviewing special guest Dapper Dan. Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the early 1980s,
0:00:19 remixing luxury brand logos into his own designs for gangsters, athletes, and musicians dressing
0:00:25 cultural icons from Eric B and Rakeem to Jay-Z. He went on to define an era, and his work has been
0:00:31 featured in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, The Met, The Smithsonian, and more. But Daniel
0:00:38 R. Day, aka Dapper Dan, began as a hungry fast learner in Harlem, who became a gambler, spent a
0:00:43 brief stint in a foreign jail where he nourished himself with reading, and then studied the market
0:00:49 to build his business, rising to the top, falling to the bottom, and rising again, reinventing himself
0:00:54 over and over. The conversation is based on an event that we hosted for the launch of his memoir,
0:01:00 Made in Harlem, where throughout, Dapper Dan shares inspiration for all kinds of makers
0:01:04 from the struggle, especially when not given the privileges and opportunities that others have,
0:01:09 to the power of studying the game and the power of listening to your customers, but not in a
0:01:15 typical way. To what cultural influence and leadership really means, especially because, quote,
0:01:22 “you cannot be in it and not be of it.” It is a story of the OG Hustler and spans 70 years,
0:01:26 with the first 30 minutes of this episode focused on his growing up in Harlem,
0:01:32 visiting Africa, and cultural influences at the time, and then 30 minutes in, going into his
0:01:38 trendsetting and fashion, including the concepts of logomania and later influencer marketing.
0:01:43 And finally, the story ends where it begins, with reopening his boutique and his partnership with
0:01:48 Gucci, which involved the power of voice, including that of Black Twitter.
0:01:54 So I’d like to thank everybody for coming out. And this is probably one of the most difficult
0:01:58 introductions that I’ve ever had to do, because how do I explain Dapper Dan? That’s like almost
0:02:05 impossible. And, you know, I didn’t know who Dapper Dan was really. I knew Dapper Dan, but I didn’t
0:02:10 know until I read the book Dapper Dan Made in Harlem. And so I thought to introduce him,
0:02:14 there were a couple of things that were sent to me leading up to the event that were like,
0:02:22 right on point. We put like a tweet out, and this came tweeted back from David Doswell.
0:02:27 Is David Doswell here? Oh, all right, what’s happening? Thanks for coming out. So he tweets,
0:02:33 “Such a legend. When I was young, I thought his name was a term. I didn’t know he was a person.”
0:02:42 And then the second one is from my business partner, Mark Andreessen. You guys know Mark?
0:02:48 Software eats the world. He invented the browser, all that. So Mark’s from Wisconsin,
0:02:53 and he didn’t really know anything about Dapper Dan until he read the book. And
0:03:00 he sends me this. He says, “I read Dapper Dan’s book. I got a couple of reactions. One,
0:03:08 he is an actual entrepreneur and an innovator, parentheses, tech twice over, once screen printing
0:03:15 onto leather, the other using a hospital badge machines to fabricate credit cards. Number two,
0:03:21 similarly, in another life, he’d have a major national global apparel brand by now worth
0:03:27 billions of dollars. And I was like, yeah, that’s right. So that’s Dapper Dan. And without further
0:03:47 ado, I welcome Dapper Dan. Thank you. All right. Well, let’s get into it. So the book starts
0:03:53 with Harlem in the ’50s. And that was like a very different Harlem, the Harlem that you
0:03:58 grew up in than the Harlem that came after it and for sure the Harlem of today. So what was that
0:04:05 like? Well, the Harlem that I grew up in was a village. Now the Harlem you find today is like
0:04:11 a little city. The difference between a village and a little city is like, I grew up, I’m the
0:04:17 first generation of the great migration that came from the South. So when I, my family,
0:04:24 my mom and my pop got to Harlem, they were still, and it sounds crazy, they were still
0:04:30 horses and buggies in the street. Wow. So cars hadn’t quite gotten there. Yeah. It wasn’t many,
0:04:35 but they were there. All the neighborhoods was comprised of mostly in Harlem, even though it
0:04:40 was sectional. You see, like, this neighborhood here, everybody would be from a particular part
0:04:45 of the South and the next neighborhood, a particular part. So people knew each other. So
0:04:52 that a different kind of community. I think the most warming thoughts that I have a Harlem man
0:04:56 is like 11 o’clock Sunday morning, 11 o’clock Sunday morning, you see everybody leaving out
0:05:02 their houses, everybody converges on the church. My family went to the church. We had a little
0:05:10 storefront church we used to go to. The congregation was like 23 people and 18 of us was in the same
0:05:18 family. Right. And we called it “Hallelujah Sunday” because, you know, even though we was poor, I
0:05:24 think nothing made me feel as good as, you know, leaving church on Sunday. You know, we was poor.
0:05:30 So food wasn’t plentiful back then, but we used to, you know, after church, you get the meals. Oh,
0:05:36 yeah. And today, that still goes on today. Like the big churches on Sundays, they still help,
0:05:41 they serve meals. But you know what? The most significant thing about Harlem that you won’t
0:05:50 see today in Harlem was that I grew up with the diversity. You know, I didn’t even realize how
0:05:58 diverse Harlem was until I began to travel like places like Detroit, Chicago, and I always had
0:06:06 different ethnic groups as friends of mine. And I think that cultural part, that like gumbo of
0:06:12 culture was what made Harlem the way it is. So then, you know, your father came to Harlem
0:06:19 when he was just 12 years old. You know, it’s like, it’s hard to imagine because we tend to think
0:06:25 that, you know, slavery was a long time ago, but, you know, it’s been like maybe 153 years.
0:06:35 And my father left home when he was 12 years old. My father was born in 1898. That’s 33 years after
0:06:42 the Emancipation Proclamation. My father’s father was born a slave and later free. So when my father
0:06:48 came here, this is the Reconstruction Era in 1910 when my father came to Harlem. He was 12 years old,
0:06:54 but at 12 years old, and 10 and 12 years old, young blacks was leaving the South because they
0:06:59 didn’t want to put up with that. And that’s what made Harlem so unique. In every aspect, what made
0:07:05 Harlem unique is that we had the most revolutionary, spirited people that you could find. The ones who
0:07:12 were not going to tolerate like the Jim Crow and the Haines and things that were that was taking
0:07:17 place in the South at that time. And so do you think that’s one of the things that made Harlem
0:07:22 such a center of culture was that the people who came out were the people of the strongest will,
0:07:28 the people coming out to Harlem? Yeah, when you look at when you look at like the
0:07:39 what happened to us with the slave trade, first you get captured. I read in liberal art and
0:07:45 before the Mayflower, they talked about sharks used to pick up the slave ships on the coast of
0:07:50 Africa and just follow them across the ocean. And that’s how many slaves were thrown off.
0:07:56 So you had to survive that middle passage. Then your family had to survive 300 years of slavery.
0:08:02 And then you had to tolerate the Jim Crowism. And so we had the most strongest blacks that
0:08:07 were leaving the South to go north. So I’m a product of those powerful people. So when
0:08:13 I got when the people who were in Harlem was the ones that stayed and put up with it,
0:08:17 that wouldn’t go back. They were really the strongest of the strong.
0:08:24 So I learned from the people who were the best hustlers and people like my fathers who were
0:08:28 the best workers. Because my father worked 15 years straight
0:08:37 for the city and he was never absent and he was late once and that was the great snowstorm of 47.
0:08:44 Nobody was at work that day. And that’s because he walked to work and was snow was deep.
0:08:53 Wow. And you and your father had an incident that changed your life in Ripley’s department store.
0:09:01 Oh yeah. That was like growing up like even a well a neighbor down the street from me used to laugh
0:09:07 at us a lot because they was just doing slightly better than us. And a lot of the times I had
0:09:12 holes in my shoes man. So we used to put paper in our shoes to keep our feet from touching the
0:09:19 ground. Then we got more innovative. We stopped using linoleum because it last one. But one day man
0:09:25 my feet was hurting so bad because the borders of the shoe could not no longer hold linoleum in
0:09:31 right. So I think I was like about eight and I come on and say mom my feet is killing me.
0:09:36 Mom my feet is killing me man. And before my mother could say anything my brother was there.
0:09:43 He said don’t worry mom. He said come on. I go with my brother and we walked four blocks.
0:09:49 And I never forget we walked four blocks from one hundred and a half to one hundred and twenty
0:09:54 four or four or five blocks. He turned the corner and it was a good wheel there. So we won the good
0:10:00 wheel. And my brother said you see any shoes you like. I saw some nice mahogany split toes with
0:10:08 the tassel. I said I like them right there. He said try them on. I said they feel good.
0:10:16 He said okay pick your shoes up. I picked my shoes up. He said put them in the rack.
0:10:27 I put them in the rack. He said let’s go. That probably wasn’t fair trade there.
0:10:33 I’ll never I will never forget that. But you know as you know all our clothes was
0:10:38 hand me down right. But my brother right over to me he always got the first pick.
0:10:43 You know so he had the best clothes from Goodwill’s right. So I wanted to go to school man. I wanted
0:10:48 to be fine. You know I really wanted to be sharp as I could stand up front of school with the girls
0:10:54 and everything in front of the candy store. But my brother wouldn’t let me wear his clothes right.
0:11:00 So I had to sneak him out. And he got to the point where he was sitting by the door where I had to
0:11:08 go out so I couldn’t walk out with his clothes on. So what I did I had my two best friends but
0:11:12 my two best friends heard their thirming. I told her their thirming wait outside the window.
0:11:17 And I would take his clothes and I’d drop them outside the window.
0:11:26 And I go in the hallway and change them right. But then by the time I’m 13 now right my father’s
0:11:30 going to take me to get my first suit. I’ll never forget that. No no 13 I was already hustling
0:11:36 about 11 years ago. So we’re going to Ripley Ripley department store. And my father’s going to buy
0:11:45 me a suit on credit right. And I said wow I saw a charcoal brown suit with with pinstripes.
0:11:51 I said daddy you want to get me. He said he’s going to pay on credit. But I had just learned
0:11:55 mathematical equations to tell you know interest time rate and see how much he’s going to pay.
0:11:59 And then when I read the contract I said daddy don’t buy this. Of course they’re going to charge
0:12:05 you to and they have time with the suit board. So we’re coming down the steps from the store.
0:12:10 And this is this is the moment that changed my life. And we’re coming down the steps from the
0:12:16 store. And my father stopped me. And he looked in my eyes. I saw the tears well up in my father’s
0:12:23 eyes. And he said boy don’t you know you could read. You could read boy. You could read. But I
0:12:28 you know I’m saying I’m seeing how emotionally getting I’m seeing the tears well. But what
0:12:33 what happened was my father only went to the third grade. And he had to teach himself how to read.
0:12:38 Because you know during during times of slavery and back then you know it was against the law
0:12:42 to teach the slaves how to read. And my father only got to go to the third grade. So he had to
0:12:48 teach himself how to read. And from that point on I learned something. I said man no matter what
0:12:54 happened or what kind of fix I get in I’m going to read my way out of it. And that ended up being the
0:13:01 key to almost everything you did after that. So how did you get into hustling?
0:13:12 Life is about life is about the tools that you get based on how you come up you know.
0:13:21 It was seven of us. Me and six siblings. And my mom and dad. And three had three had three bedrooms
0:13:29 you know. So my father in all the relationships like we have with people that’s auntie so and so
0:13:36 but you know it’s just that it wasn’t our blood relationship but the communal relationship that
0:13:42 you take on those titles right. But the ones that were in my neighborhood they were all hustlers.
0:13:47 My father’s the only one wasn’t a hustler right. But my father used to have poker games what we
0:13:56 call rent parties. A rent party is is a circle of people. This one week this one give a party have
0:14:03 a poker game you know they have red rice chicken colored greens and they sell dinners you know
0:14:10 like that. So when my father when they gave their poker game and I used to stay up every time my
0:14:15 father went with a hand this is the first time I was exposed to gambling. Every time my father
0:14:20 went a hand he’d take all the change and put it in my pocket and I’m just standing there. Couldn’t
0:14:28 stand up no more and let it and take it away. So the first exposure I got to anything was like
0:14:35 gambling. And I became a real proficient like that. But I had an uncle Eddie Henry is just him
0:14:40 and my mother right. Eddie Henry had went had ran away when he was young and he joined he had
0:14:45 joined the circus and was one of them guys yeah one of them guys join the circus. I mean this is
0:14:51 yeah that era. I’ve heard that story but I never knew anybody. Yeah he was a handyman they had him
0:15:00 doing like what in errands but he was he um hooked up with the um the the magician told him all these
0:15:08 kind of tricks with the cards. So Eddie Henry taught me them tricks. So those tricks helped me
0:15:15 out later on in life you all hear a lot about them tricks later. So anyway the Harlem that I
0:15:21 grew up in we are I’m the last product of a generation that saw Harlem without a drug epidemic.
0:15:27 I’m growing up in the 50s the drugs epidemic didn’t hit to the 60s. So the first part of Harlem
0:15:33 you see was like numbers the number game policy that used to take place and everybody used to
0:15:40 bet on numbers and then it was like they had people who was like on head maybe drinking problems
0:15:48 but they were um functional right nowhere near like like the drugs were then in the 60s when
0:15:52 the drugs hit and then we start seeing all the drug dealers with all this money all the shiny
0:16:00 things that we wish we had yeah and then they we started drifting away drifting away and then a
0:16:06 drug it went from a street game the street thing went from a number culture to a drug culture
0:16:11 and that’s when Harlem changed right we never used to have to unlock our doors nobody locked
0:16:16 their doors until the drug epidemic hit and that changed the whole complexion of Harlem
0:16:26 and I got caught up in that um because of the uh the lore me and all my brothers my sisters never
0:16:31 did nothing wrong but me and all my brothers got hooked up caught up in that and um I remember
0:16:43 it was June 19 1967 I got busted for selling drugs I got out three months later with probation
0:16:50 September 27 1967 the one of the assassins alleged assassins from Malcolm X was in there
0:16:57 Johnson 3x butler right and when I what I observed he was in lower A1 I was in upper A4 so it was
0:17:05 tears and we had to pass by and um I saw all respect that this man used to get and the way
0:17:12 they treated him and did he get respect for allegedly killing Malcolm X or was it it was a
0:17:16 different it was a different town like Malcolm X today the Malcolm X these young people in here
0:17:22 know today at the time was all there was a shism that was taking place in the nation in Islam right
0:17:29 so to the bulk of people when Elijah Muhammad was still alive Malcolm X was considered a traitor
0:17:37 Martin Luther King was considered an Uncle Tom so history has showed that that wasn’t true it’s just
0:17:43 that these men chose a path that was the right path to choose they were all like idolized then
0:17:48 because people didn’t really know what happened but anyway the story is like when I saw that respect
0:17:54 he got I said I might go to jail again but I will never go to jail for doing anything like that to
0:18:02 my people yeah and that and that’s what changed my life so that was like that was 1967 when I got out
0:18:10 I went back to school I was 23 then now and I went back to school high school that was like murder
0:18:16 being on the bus going from home oh yeah yeah oh man because I’m seeing the young kids that I’m going
0:18:21 to high school with doing that making mistakes I’m making I’m coming out of it and I’m seeing
0:18:27 them go into I said oh man it was hell so um and I started writing for a newspaper 40 acres in a
0:18:34 mule a student newspaper and then I got real revolutionary and I said you know what I had
0:18:42 from writing for 40 acres in a mule I was offered a scholarship over the summer of 68 as an intern
0:18:48 at Columbia University either I take that or I can go to Africa and study in Africa with 40 acres
0:18:54 in a mule scholarship to Columbia go to Africa but I wanted to go to Africa um Dr Henry Clark
0:19:01 I want to find out what happened so Dr Henry Clark said one day he said at the paper right
0:19:07 you know we tend to think of ourselves as victims all the time so one of uh me and one of the
0:19:11 students we always have these conferences every week with a different scholar Dr Henry Clark
0:19:16 Dr Ben Jockerman you know all kinds of scholars used to come through and so Dr Henry Clark he’s
0:19:24 the one who minted Malcolm so he’s in at the paper one day and one of the students like myself
0:19:29 on the editorial board asked Dr Henry Clark he said um if we are the first people on the planet
0:19:34 and we had chosen people why are we going through what we’re going through today and Dr Henry Clark
0:19:39 says that’s because of a transgression we made before your opinions came into our life
0:19:45 he never elaborated on that so when I was going to Africa I wasn’t looking for what he was talking
0:19:55 about you know what that took a little bit of the anger away you know and gave it gave me like a
0:20:00 focus say I’m gonna find out what’s wrong because what was whatever this that’s wrong might be what’s
0:20:08 wrong with me right and when I say me us so I had to figure out a way to get to that so when I
0:20:15 went to Africa I traveled like it was fortunate for me I’m in Harlem Martin Luther King is alive
0:20:22 Malcolm X is alive all that energy I go to Africa I’m in Ghana Kwame Nukuma with the pan-Africanism
0:20:28 movement it’s just got disposed that right then I get to Tanzania Neary is in his governor
0:20:35 is uh is the president and I get to Kenya Jomo Kenyatta’s ago so I got all this energy and we
0:20:41 study in Africanism I stayed in Tanzania I stayed at Curuscini International School
0:20:49 where they were training South Africans to fight in South Africa so we will um we were like a really
0:20:58 radical group and even the um Urban League had gathered money had gotten pan-American airlines
0:21:04 to donate the airfare for the seven countries we was going to visit in Africa to yeah to us and
0:21:08 when we got to the airport they didn’t the state department meaning the United States government
0:21:14 didn’t know how radical we were so when we got to the airport the state department put pressure
0:21:20 on pan-American allies and they canceled our reservations oh wow they withdrew the reservation
0:21:25 but then a black or philanthropist put up with the money at the last minute so that we can go on
0:21:30 this trip to Africa you know that philanthropist was today no they I never found out who he was I guess
0:21:39 he didn’t want the state department to know so when we get to the when we get to the first leg of
0:21:47 the trip in Ghana a car our passports disappeared right and the passports turned up at the state
0:21:53 department at the United States embassy so we go there picking up we didn’t find out to later on
0:21:59 that it was a CIA agent following us around you know because this was a time 1968 well I mean
0:22:08 young black radicals wasn’t going to Africa yeah yeah yeah not without a CIA escort if you go to
0:22:15 the library and you read 40 acres in a mule and you can see that the Schoenberg library on microfilm
0:22:21 and you see the things that we were talking about to give you an example I wrote an article in 1968
0:22:25 when they was building the state building the state building in Harlem
0:22:33 in 1968 I did a study on that state building and found out what this plan was about
0:22:37 Constance Baker-Montley had mentioned that plan earlier but the state building was the first
0:22:45 building they was going to put in Harlem to start gentrification taking place so I had got a prototype
0:22:50 of that state building and I put it on the front page of 40 acres of the mule and I made it look like
0:22:57 a Trojan horse you know to let people in know and Harlem know and this is 15 52 years ago
0:23:01 to let people in Harlem know that gentrification is coming to Harlem and when you go to Harlem
0:23:06 to date yeah you see gentrification don’t kick them so that’s how radical we were and how advanced
0:23:13 we was and we were all young like all from the 18 to 23 but we had so much energy we had all these
0:23:20 revolutionary and these Dr. Benjamin all these scholars coming in and um talking to us now when
0:23:25 you were in Africa for the fight in Zaire which was later oh yeah that was really interesting
0:23:30 now I went back to Africa on my own in 1968 because I went with a group and when we went
0:23:35 with that group wasn’t no all hotel things we stayed with families we did live ins everything
0:23:42 like that there you know so 1973 I went back and I because they had the Muhammad Ali and
0:23:47 George Foreman the Rommel in the jungle yeah yeah yeah so my hustling skills kicked in wasn’t selling
0:23:52 drugs but I was a professional gambler then so I go back to Africa for the fight George Foreman
0:23:57 get busted in the head you know me and training and training that’s not what Ali busted in the
0:24:02 head yeah Muhammad Ali why he’s training so I said man I gotta stay here a month and a half
0:24:08 wait for him to get well yeah so I said you know what I might just travel around again so I stayed
0:24:17 in um Zaire for a while then I went to um back to Lagos Nigeria and then from Lagos
0:24:26 Nigeria I went to Liberia and so um and that’s in Monrobio Liberia I had uh a Fulani Taylor and um
0:24:33 that’s where the whole concept for me um getting involved in fashion yeah you know I’m tell that
0:24:43 story so come back I’m hustling again it’s like like as I mentioned earlier you get these tools
0:24:49 when you grow up poor and you use these tools but as you move along you start learning things
0:24:56 but um in 1968 when I came back from Africa I was in the Panther Party Nation Islam the Panther
0:25:02 Party had got really radical you know we they had us like we would have to study the battle
0:25:07 of Algiers where young people was kicked kicking the dope dealers down the steps and just cleaning
0:25:15 up the city and at that time it was the uh drug dealers was considered the blood suckers of the
0:25:21 poor those are the reasons that we were doing so bad so the people the Nation Islam was moving on
0:25:28 the drug dealers Panther Party was moving on them then father the head of the uh five percent of
0:25:33 all of them was zeroed in on the problem with drugs because that’s that’s what had the devastating
0:25:40 effect the reason that they were doing that because everyone during this time knew what Harlem was
0:25:46 like before drugs but the second generation that grew up with a drug culture don’t understand
0:25:52 what we were like before that happened I refused to go back and get drawn into that
0:26:01 so that’s when I um I got into what is called let me give you an idea what what what what you
0:26:06 learn in Harlem in the streets you learn the paper game that’s credit cards and checks you learn how
0:26:11 to do that illegally the paper the corn game that’s everybody know what that is everybody in here
0:26:20 been calling some kind of way here no doubt yeah the corn game you know I mean and um so these are
0:26:26 all the things out that we we learned from profession so I definitely wasn’t going to get
0:26:30 involved with um anything that’s going to be detrimental to the community so I say you know
0:26:39 what I’m gonna study this paper game yeah yeah the paper game so I divide credit cards yeah credit
0:26:47 cards and everything so I divide this method by which um I create my own credit cards yes yeah so I
0:26:54 was a bank official me and my friends all of us muslim but broke away from nation is not for the
0:27:02 same reason I never accepted the concept of a biological devil so it wasn’t suitable for me
0:27:08 in the nation islam I couldn’t accept that part so we come across this credit card scheme so I’m
0:27:14 the one who initiated the scheme so now we we go in country uh hopping catch a plane here we go to
0:27:23 we go to st. Thomas st. Croix aruba venezuela they’re spending these folks money like you’re
0:27:32 blowing us yeah we leave barbados and we go to venezuela and we’re in venezuela and some soldiers
0:27:36 pull the guns out on us right and I’m looking at colliding and this race is getting all excited I
0:27:40 said damn what’s wrong I don’t even know what’s wrong I don’t I want to know why the soldiers
0:27:44 was taking us into the bush anyway yeah they said man they was gonna kill us and rob us so I got
0:27:48 we got back in the car we went back to the airport yeah that was the second warning
0:27:56 now we get to aruba right then all of a sudden I’m trying to call my friend and I can’t get them
0:28:02 and then I see these cop cars and then we we figured it out they’re looking for us
0:28:08 they had already got one of the two friends so yeah I didn’t know where to go I’m on the island
0:28:12 I didn’t know where to go so I started ripping up all the all the receipts and I’m on the beach
0:28:20 ripping up the receipts next thing I know they pull up on us and I didn’t and I didn’t know I didn’t
0:28:26 see freedom for nine months right man you do not want to get in trouble in a foreign country please
0:28:34 please and so for nine months all I did was read read read because that was my out read read read
0:28:39 when I got out of that there then I became more proficient at that more proficient at the paper
0:28:46 game I got really proficient and I made a lot of money so and then the paper game ended up like
0:28:52 weirdly leading you into the fashion game yeah I used to make everybody listen uh what was it
0:28:56 know when to hold them know when to fold them know when to walk away and know when to run
0:29:00 Kenny Rodgers never count your money while you’re sitting at the table there’d be plenty time for
0:29:08 counting when the deal is done yeah that was my philosophy so uh after I made the money I told
0:29:14 everybody who was down with me man quit that you are on the laws too though so you knew you
0:29:20 were up you knew there was new legislation coming too that was going to make the paper game yeah
0:29:26 more dangerous yeah the banking system had not figured it out yet yeah right so there was this
0:29:31 loophole and even if you got caught you would get just 90 days but we never even got caught making
0:29:34 credit cards so but when they changed the law I said I said I ain’t doing that no more and you
0:29:38 never go back when you do something wrong but while all this is taking place I’m doing all this
0:29:44 spiritual reading and so my mind is constantly changing my mind is constantly changing and I’m
0:29:51 looking for a way to to to really fit into society you don’t want I just want to be I just want to
0:29:58 be regular I just want to be normal I just want to be you know buying to this American idea but
0:30:04 what’s also working behind my head is the only you know the fact that I didn’t have the privileges
0:30:10 and opportunities that other people had right so after the paper game I buy me a brand new Mercedes
0:30:18 Benz pay $42,000 cash you know with with paper from the paper game from from the paper game
0:30:25 and um then I said um I’m gonna drive around for a while figure out what I want to do
0:30:32 and then um I said you know what I’m gonna do I know all the gangsters I’m gonna open up a store
0:30:39 and sell to them and with the gangsters you knew they had money and like clothes in a way you knew
0:30:42 about that market where nobody else yeah I knew what every gangsta in Harlem I knew them because I
0:30:48 used to break them yeah used to call me gambling Danny yeah yeah because I studied everything I
0:30:52 learned from the best that was the best gamblers that was in Harlem and then I read all the books
0:30:58 on gambling so that I can have even a better perspective and I read um John Scotty John Scotty
0:31:04 was the world authority on gambling I read all his books yeah and when it came to hustling I read
0:31:11 hustling and con men he studies the hustle game like people can study the computer science game
0:31:17 look listen here if you want to get an inside look at what my mindset was and what my skills
0:31:25 was watch the movie with um Robert Redford and Paul Newman the sting the sting yeah the movie
0:31:32 you got ten academies war and if you can pick up on the move that they made in the sting then you
0:31:40 gifted hustler it gives you a idea of what the hustlers who came out of the south was like
0:31:46 right and it involves gambling and it involves the con game it’s the epitome of everything you
0:31:51 want to know about the inner workings of the streets and how other things other than drugs
0:31:56 how you can make money so in this thing right this is this is an older black guy
0:32:04 so the black guy he dies he can never play he can never make the big sting yeah you know
0:32:09 it was always his goal to make the big sting so when Robert Redford and Paul Newman come and say
0:32:16 man you’re white y’all can make the big sting you know and one of the guys he con had killed him so
0:32:21 Robert Redford is going to avenge that and then the whole plot emerges from them but the sting
0:32:26 comes right out of the book hustlers and con men so you can get a really good view of that if you
0:32:33 want to know what that but then that portion of that but then his life was like i’m a good guy
0:32:40 it’s just that this is what happened to my life if you march backwards in my history is the this
0:32:46 was what’s opening to me this is the advances i could make i took advantage of all the opportunities
0:32:51 that were available to me this is not an apology this is the so that you understand me
0:33:00 anyway so fashion so i thought that i could go and open up a store i said you know what people
0:33:07 with high aspirations they want everybody to know that they’re moving up the ladder yeah
0:33:13 so hustlers and everybody like that especially hustling the main thing they used to like is furs
0:33:18 diamonds and gold right right so i know i couldn’t mess with them diamonds and gold like because
0:33:25 that’s a whole new study i got to go into there right so what i did was i started reading everything
0:33:33 that i could find out about furs right so it just so happened i left the paper game but there’s two
0:33:39 guys that’s still in the paper game right they use check uh certified check machines right and so when
0:33:47 people like yourself want to sell your old fur you advertise in the paper they say yeah we’ll buy it
0:33:51 and then you show up with your fur and you get one of the special main certified checks
0:34:00 there you hear that you need to take bitcoin venmo something else don’t take that so all right
0:34:07 so um i’m with these guys so they’re gonna sell me the furs all right so they head the fur they
0:34:12 bring it to me to take them out of the line in right go down into the big check for yeah yeah
0:34:17 so i go down the fur this week this is when i meet urban chakens my jewish friend so urban
0:34:22 chakens takes the fur as well and i say hold up man maybe i need to be making these furs with you
0:34:27 yeah instead of me buying hot furs so me and every check it’s hooked up i start reading everything
0:34:33 and studying everything with the fur game and then what i did was i did my research and was
0:34:38 only three black furriers in the in the country it was one called the he was the most popular black
0:34:43 furrier uh in new york and it was two in chicago and i went to visit all of them see how they
0:34:49 operation work and i come back and i started doing the furs but um what i thought was that i
0:34:54 would be able to buy and replace other clothes when i want to do other clothes with all the
0:35:00 manufacturers i went to that’s so luxury goods would not sell to me okay and why did they just
0:35:05 went to sell to you because they wouldn’t they just like that you know i’m not gonna you know
0:35:10 all i can say is that they sold to people who wasn’t my color so yeah that was the intention
0:35:17 so anyway so that wasn’t working out for me but the furs was working out for me but furs
0:35:25 is a seasonal item right so i’ll start going to this uh uh a furrier in new jersey called a fur
0:35:29 factor and he was selling furs for me another jewish guy he’s selling furs to me and i was doing
0:35:35 good off those furs right he said listen my son and his and my nephew are opening up this company
0:35:40 and they’re going to be making leather jackets i said okay cool he said go see him his son and
0:35:46 his nephew is andrew mark they’re cool they was almost like young black guys i said yo what’s up like
0:35:54 that you know that’s cool right there so we um i’m i’m buying these leather jackets with the
0:36:00 opossum lining from them right yeah so i’m paying four hundred dollars for the for the jackets
0:36:06 and i’m selling them for eight my competition was the most popular store in holland called aj
0:36:14 lessons a lay lessons is selling the same coat for 1200 so i’m smoking them right yeah one day
0:36:21 a guy comes with his friend who had already bought one from aj lessons and he was proving to his friend
0:36:26 these are the same coat so he came to me where he got this from right right he said i told you man
0:36:33 that guy got so hot he went over to aj lessons and had a fit oh yeah aj lessons goes down so andrew
0:36:38 mark and tell andrew mark if you sell the dappadam i’m not buying from you anymore i’ll
0:36:43 say cut off the supply you know when i go down to re up down to andrew marks and i’m to get some
0:36:49 more jackets they say dapp we got a problem man i can’t sell to you no more because aj lessons
0:36:56 say if i sell you then they won’t buy from me no more they have six stores you only have one
0:37:04 yeah i’ll say oh man i didn’t even you know i didn’t even debate the issue with them because they
0:37:10 told me well we will let you continue to buy but you got to take the label out you know the label
0:37:16 is everything yeah you can’t you know so i got mad i just left and i came uptown now when i left
0:37:23 when i was on that trip in africa and i was in monrovia Liberia i went down to buy me some artifacts
0:37:28 and when i was buying these artifacts right you gotta like the way i dressed and all because i was
0:37:34 you know super fly yeah you say i like it still are yeah you say i like the way you
0:37:38 you say i like what you got on i’ll say i like the artifacts i’ll say you want to trade you say
0:37:44 yeah i want them got all my luggage i took every all the clothes that i took on the trip with me
0:37:50 i came back down to the marketplace and i exchanged all my clothes for artifacts and
0:37:58 for him to make me clothes you know with african style material with hollum style cuts yeah and
0:38:02 that’s how i came back and that always stayed with me so when andrew mark and them did that i
0:38:09 said you know what man hold up i’m gonna look i’m gonna figure out how to do this myself so i’m
0:38:16 downtown in some uh Senegalese african selling uh from from senegal warlords and they sell
0:38:20 some of this stuff on the street i gave him a card i said you know anybody so tell him come see me
0:38:29 yeah right and so first i got one then i got two then i got four then eight right i was up to 23
0:38:37 tailors all right from senegal yeah all from senegal i’ll never do that again so anyway so i had
0:38:45 these Senegalese tailors and um i need something new right now i’m working with furs i’m working with
0:38:51 11 and the guy comes into the store one day and he got a louis Vuitton pouch and was that that’s
0:38:58 little man yeah little man this was a kingpin in hollum the guy was the guy was jack jackson jack
0:39:04 and he was in hollum jack jackson is the one who told on john goddys brother gene goddys they got
0:39:11 him there 50 years but the pouch is little man’s boss’s pouch yeah right and he got all this money
0:39:16 he got a hundred dollar bill and i look at that pouch i say damn what is it about this pouch
0:39:22 ain’t but six dollars worth of vinyl yeah you know this louis Vuitton pouch you know but everybody’s
0:39:31 excited i say wow so it all it clicked in my head now you got furs diamonds and gold now here’s symbols
0:39:36 yeah i say it’s the symbols that’s making that’s popular so i wouldn’t study all about the symbols
0:39:42 and stuff and i figured out the science behind textile printing and all that yeah i say if i could
0:39:49 take them symbols and make them look like that bag yeah and have them walking around looking like
0:39:57 luggage and at that time at that time louis louis Vuitton Gucci they didn’t they didn’t use the
0:40:02 symbols like that nobody louis Vuitton Gucci none of them and let me tell you all your future
0:40:09 designers and stuff i never ever went to a runway show where you see people you know
0:40:13 the models in it i never went to one until i did the deal with Gucci
0:40:20 i didn’t want to know what it looked like when it’s finished i wanted to know how it was made
0:40:28 so all i used to study is technology fashion technology fashion construction and i would go to
0:40:36 all the trade shows associated with with garment construction so i began to teach myself everything
0:40:44 about textile printing and then in addition to that what i used to do was like when the industry
0:40:50 was moving from united states to china when everybody was going offshore right when the unions
0:40:56 this listen this is very important when the unions tricked everybody into constantly
0:41:02 asking for raises but they didn’t put pressure on the corporations that were producing the goods
0:41:11 but the prices was rising they said look we can move our factories offshore which end up in china
0:41:18 and then still get the same prices that we sell goods from here so all the industries was moving
0:41:23 to china well this is the same time i opened up my store so now i’m going to auctions at all
0:41:28 these businesses these factories just closing down right and i’m learning things i would get to
0:41:32 the auction early and walk around like i knew something and listen to the auction you know
0:41:38 listen to the people who buy the machines see what they be saying about machines and ask questions
0:41:43 and i’d be the only like black guy in there i learned all about the different types of machines
0:41:49 associated with the industry right and i bought them and and i put started bringing them to to the
0:41:56 to my my location so i end up having a three-story building on 125th street and a 2000 square foot
0:42:04 factory on 120th street all in hollow all run by me and my africans right yeah and you’re
0:42:14 and your uh your design process was also very different in that that’s the most time with the
0:42:19 the customers in a way that the guys in france never would have thought of yeah my approach to
0:42:28 fashion is like you see designers they come from their ideas and that’s good they approach it like
0:42:36 their painting a canvas and that’s good you know because that that’s an input but what i’ve always
0:42:43 done was to embrace the culture and translate the culture and how i did this is like when my
0:42:49 customers came in i asked them how they feel about themselves how do they want to look now i got all
0:42:53 this fabric this your piano and i’m printing everything you know whatever design you want
0:43:00 everything but now the creative process kicks in how do you want this to look on you and we
0:43:07 sit down and we discuss how you want to look so now i got all this input from all these people
0:43:15 coming out of my community and so this is the infusion of ideas that’s taking place between
0:43:21 me and those who want to be transformed because clothes transform me and i know how it feels
0:43:28 when they got them nice outfits on so what i did was i continued that process you hear that i just
0:43:36 all these entrepreneurs you hear that okay good so it’s an important part in doing that i come up
0:43:43 with all these different ideas with a person who designs for themselves if if they mess up if they
0:43:48 make something wrong then they stuck with a collection now i got two pluses in my favor
0:43:54 i got fabrics that i’m making and that fabric can be anything once you have a garment that’s all
0:44:00 it is is that garment right so i got that working for me and i got the fact that i’m getting all this
0:44:05 input from the people from my community who have these ideas but i had to remind them i know you
0:44:16 got ideas but everything in your mind might not look good on your behind now i’m shifting there’s
0:44:26 a shift now from the hustlers and then it’s the birth of hip hop perfect timing you know now i have
0:44:38 my personal collection of influences all to me so i got this creative idea i got the knowledge of
0:44:47 textile printing right i have upcoming influences yeah so i got all this working for me now what’s
0:44:57 missing i needed a social vehicle your mtv wraps now you’re on television i got all the components
0:45:03 that i need to be successful right but i ain’t have permission to use those labels
0:45:10 right yeah so i’m making all this stuff and i’m under the radar i got all the wrappers and everything
0:45:16 now then the uh athletes start coming got all the black athletes and stuff
0:45:23 then mike tyson comes to the store he’s with me when we camber when she’s starting out
0:45:28 now i’m getting all this attention on top of that mike tyson gets into a fight
0:45:37 with mitch blood green in my store next thing it comes out uh monday night football
0:45:43 and then you get up in the helicopter you know over the ganky state down there somewhere
0:45:50 dapper dance 24 hour boutique ha ha ha you know it’s like they’re making a joke out of it but but
0:45:57 now everybody everybody knows so the brands say who the hell is a dapper dan the next thing i know
0:46:05 hip hop is moving on moving on the om tv is bursting out so all this all this attention i’m getting
0:46:14 all this attention now and now there’s something very particular is happening with the major european
0:46:24 brands the luxury houses right they are bankrupt for ideas yeah you know so you couple that with
0:46:31 what i’m doing yep and then it becomes notice say wait a minute so what i did with these symbols
0:46:40 is to create this new idea which they named after me which is called logo mania yeah today
0:46:51 today you see the reason louis Vuitton gucci fendi every major brand is using the format that i use
0:46:58 when you go to the store look around look at the artist they have logos all over and that’s
0:47:05 what i gave birth to that idea so that was the infusion that the luxury brands use so now here’s
0:47:19 the plan first part of the plan work like this cease and desist cease and desist next thing i
0:47:27 know the brands is coming to my store yep with anything with their logo on it yeah giving me a
0:47:33 letter to desist what you’re doing now they all started reading you all started reading that’s part
0:47:38 that’s part one right kept reading every time they come they taking all my merchandise and everything
0:47:47 so that’s cost of me money in addition to that right tommy hill figure starts going to the hip hop
0:47:54 clubs and giving out tommy hill figure jackets uh yeah you know right right right right right
0:47:58 i’m here for your jacket right figured out yeah the influencers were yeah he figured it out earlier
0:48:06 you know right so um now that infusion is coming from outside the pressure is coming from this with
0:48:13 the brands right the next thing they do yo m tv rep ted ted demmy was the producer of yo m tv rep me
0:48:19 and him had a tight relationship ted demmy told me anytime you want you just call me i’m sending
0:48:24 a film crew to here because this is the birth of two things this hip hop here fashion here this is
0:48:30 other side of the coin that’s moving on right they go to ted demmy and tell ted demmy if you show
0:48:36 anything that dapper dan wears we’re not advertising with you and that’s when you started seeing the
0:48:42 blur yeah on what the rappers was wearing right so now they’re raiding me you know what i mean
0:48:50 they blurring the next step is to give the contractors yeah so what the first door that
0:48:56 opened was i remember when jam message j came to the store he said that man adidas just gave me a
0:49:07 crazy deal you remember he came in with a big gold chain with a big gold adidas shoe oh yeah and that
0:49:14 was the beginning that was beginning of a thing then ll cool j then fooboo comes about fooboo
0:49:22 for us by us yeah who said that for us by them do your homework
0:49:33 do your homework so fooboo steps it
0:49:44 ll cool j wears a hat for a photo shoot that he was doing for um for the gap yeah
0:49:51 bam takes off everybody see that fooboo starts clocking numbers yeah so now the next idea now
0:49:56 listen to this next idea this was our opportunity right now i’m gonna go to that next i got 23 people
0:50:02 working i got a three-story building on 125th street 2000 square foot factory on 120th street
0:50:12 so this is all money that’s going out right so one day fendi comes to the store with the marshes
0:50:20 season to sys order i got a jacket a three uh a full link coat look like an aqua school coat
0:50:26 with tuxedo black mink color black plange leather with all the black on black f’s on it
0:50:35 soda mayo anybody know who she is soda mayo she’s a supreme court justice yeah at this time
0:50:39 she’s working for fendi as one of the lawyers for fendi’s she comes in the store with the team
0:50:47 she’s saying that jacket that coat is so amazing he belong downtown they don’t take me downtown
0:50:55 they take all my clothes downtown so that these raids kept raiding me broke and raiding me broke
0:51:01 and i kept losing money on top of that the most critical thing is now you know i started out
0:51:08 with the gangsters but now because of the drug culture it’s imploding because they’re fighting
0:51:14 against each other right and when they couldn’t find each other to fight late at night they knew
0:51:22 that but they was making money so 231 warning i’m sitting in my van and these drug dealers
0:51:28 who were no longer making money was struggling attempted to kidnap me i fought them off and
0:51:37 they shot me and today that’s why i have a bullet at the base of my neck so what happens is and
0:51:45 that’s why you might hear me say you cannot be in it and not of it so after after that i had to
0:51:51 figure out you know what i had to start all over again i went from a table and selling clothes
0:51:58 out my car to a three-story building with 23 people sewing five family members working
0:52:04 you know in a big factory where i’m doing the cars because i did cars everything anything you
0:52:12 wanted with symbols on it i give you all the symbols you want anyway you want so i’m doing all
0:52:18 that so all of that vanishes yeah because you know my payroll was 12 000 dollars a week back
0:52:25 then that’s 48 000 a month i’m just with just with the workers 48 000 a month and then i had
0:52:31 rent on the three-story building and rent on the on the factory so all i was adding up but my my
0:52:41 passion for the for my work is because like we was like a family so even when i got shot i’m
0:52:47 laid up for a month i’m still paying them so that’s one month is 50 000 so all is caved in on me the
0:52:58 next thing i know i um back on the sidewalk with a little table like this yeah selling t-shirts
0:53:08 but i said to myself you know what i’m gonna come back so i never i remember when um my daughter
0:53:12 said dad what’s wrong with daddy she never saw me like that i laid up for like three months
0:53:18 just wondering what i was going to do next and then um my wife said we got to do something
0:53:24 so i made iron on chanel t-shirts and went on 125th street the table like that dear
0:53:30 i’m counting tour buses i counted 144 tour buses that came through i ain’t said one t-shirt
0:53:36 but i said you know what i’m gonna figure this out again at the time guests came out right yeah
0:53:40 i started making these little outfits for girls these little guests with the little
0:53:48 this little like uh little uh cheerleader skirt and and nice little tops with the guest symbol
0:53:54 and skirt and the symbol match with that little guess what order yeah and and i started selling
0:54:01 like 30 or 40 them a day straight for six months next thing i knew i had another 100 000 you know
0:54:08 i’m calling call it africa right so now i got enough money and i’m building me up another little
0:54:14 team so i still can’t go off the radar right so my nephew there i get my little nephew there me
0:54:21 and him hit the road all right so because i knew all the gangsters i would drive from new york
0:54:26 city to chicago hitting all the black cities ah let me tell you a trick that i can tell you about
0:54:30 this one i had a friend work for fooboo so i knew what their distribution was so i went to every
0:54:37 place they was at going west and i come back and did the same thing going south i struggle
0:54:44 next thing i know i had all this money again yes and then i was stable and in addition to that
0:54:49 something new took place with the rappers now the rappers got money they forgot all about me though
0:54:55 right no i can’t say that jz didn’t forget you know because he came of age and what they would do
0:55:00 is send this is this gay birth to what you call the stylist today all the artists are working
0:55:05 with stylist now so the stylist was the mediator between me and them i didn’t like that but i worked
0:55:12 with that anyway but um i think um by the time i’m getting ready to come out the underground
0:55:18 we had this big gap right so from the time this is important from the time that they rated me
0:55:25 to the time that i came back all these black brands these mundari brands emerge but what they
0:55:31 did not do was study the game they didn’t do no reading no studying and so they took
0:55:39 the luxury idea that i created for us and took it downstairs right right one thing you never
0:55:46 see me do i never made no gang paraphernalia i never did anything associated with that try to keep it
0:55:51 on a luxury level so they they made it so that anybody can have it anybody can do it and then
0:55:56 it went down so between the time that i went underground and all these brands emerged they
0:56:02 all collapsed but this time is giving all the brands besides beside tommy hillford because
0:56:09 he’s the first to peep it yeah all the other brands start kicking in even raffle rent because
0:56:16 that’s why raffle rent opened up raffle rent sport and got that black model tyson yeah all
0:56:24 that was to the lure to bring us in so now we lose all of that time while these minority brands
0:56:28 is the emerging but they don’t understand how this is supposed to be marketed and all of those
0:56:36 crash that give the luxury brands that gave the luxury brands time out the step in and do exactly
0:56:42 what i was doing but charge way more yes and so that’s what we have today but they made a mistake
0:56:53 my partners and the best guys out there today gucci created this jacket that i created in the 80s
0:56:59 for diane dixon ha the difference now and as opposed to when i first started
0:57:06 is that now i have a voice and i didn’t know i had a voice but that voice was black twitter
0:57:26 black twitter said uh uh that’s dapper dance you know no that’s dapper dance
0:57:31 trap black twitter went in right yeah so the next thing i know my son is of age now
0:57:40 my son said dad gucci want to talk to us first we got all these entertainers and
0:57:45 all these big wigs calling us and man yo dad man gucci’s trying to get to you through us
0:57:52 right my son say dad gucci want to talk to you no child and i don’t trust them i haven’t been
0:57:58 rated like crazy what i’m gonna talk now but i said they want to rape me again hey they ain’t
0:58:03 gonna find me don’t give him my number don’t you say nothing
0:58:13 you say no dad they want to really talk i say oh yeah i say oh you sure something he said yeah
0:58:19 man i say tell them come to hollam they came to hollam i say damn they serious
0:58:24 they came to hollam we ironed out this deal they said we know
0:58:30 that the world knows who you are yeah now he say and all these brands
0:58:38 are paying you homage but they’re not paying you yeah you’re gonna change that
0:58:48 so they came to me with this partnership deal let’s say this is what we’re gonna do
0:58:53 we’re gonna allow you to open up a store in hollam beautiful store a telly air no more
0:59:01 store a telly air y’all got that yeah they’re gonna allow you to open up the telly air in hollam
0:59:06 and you’re going to be able to do what you’ve always done produce steel only thing is without
0:59:11 fabrication and that’s going to be a partnership in addition to that we’re going to have a
0:59:16 Dapper Dan line and we’re going to partnership on that and that’s going to be distributed
0:59:25 around the world and you get a percentage of that and so and and that’s the deal i made right
0:59:33 and it was working fine then there goes another boo boo but before we go to the boo boo
0:59:42 let’s go back to Louis Vuitton soon as Gucci gives me this partnership Louis been number one for
0:59:53 years all of a sudden Louis brings up Virgil right now you know that’s a reaction because
1:00:00 Gucci put me in and we got a collection ready and we’re shooting it out Louis Vuitton reacts to
1:00:04 that by going to get Virgil and they don’t have a collection so you know it wasn’t free plan
1:00:11 but a reaction right and that’s good because we’re getting in these spaces which is where we
1:00:18 need to be you know but before that two important things happen first there was Gucci ghost a great
1:00:25 kid great idea and he was doing some of the things for Gucci that I did right but he wasn’t quite
1:00:32 Dapper Dan and then Louis Vuitton went and got supreme because supreme is connected to the
1:00:40 millennials so they go get supreme right but what the what the public did not know when supreme
1:00:50 made the partnership with Louis Vuitton when they initiated the line and everybody attended the show
1:00:56 was issued a letter stating and I want you all to hear this in the back stating that this whole
1:01:04 collection is inspired by Dapper Dan so do your homework and find out so here it is everything
1:01:10 has come out of Harlem this creative force associated with hip hop that’s circling the
1:01:17 planet now we got two things we got one number one is our ideas of fashion has encircled the world
1:01:27 right to our musical platform has encircled the world the only problem is hip hop has gotten their
1:01:35 money through trials and tribulations but we are not making any impact in fashion yeah because of
1:01:41 what we did from the time I closed down to the time I got this partnership we didn’t approach that
1:01:48 right so now all the brands got the power but now it’s far it’s slipping away it’s slipping away
1:01:53 because they’re making mistakes so when Gucci made a mistake it wasn’t intentional in my opinion
1:02:00 they made a mistake and did the blackface that was another boo boo well now I got to represent
1:02:04 who I am and where I come from so I had to tell Gucci I said listen man I’m a black man before I’m
1:02:10 a brand how you gonna do something you got to come back to Harlem again and explain what you did
1:02:18 so they came back to Harlem again and we sat down and what I did was I organized all the people
1:02:28 that I could find in the corporate world those who were responsible for the for the mechanical way
1:02:33 that corporations work and those responsible for cultural inclusivity so that they can come
1:02:41 around and organize a plan by which we can have a presence in Gucci so that this doesn’t happen
1:02:46 again and we represent it right if you want to read about it it’s called a change makers program
1:02:53 by Gucci and with it so far they didn’t hire two vice presidents they got programs to recruit
1:03:00 young black designers or minority designers and this huge program now if you look and see what’s
1:03:06 happening the world is is becoming a community now people are flying who never flew before people
1:03:11 have visited country normal so the world is getting smaller people are more familiar now with our
1:03:17 culture than ever before so we have to be represented in them places what people have to
1:03:24 realize here man you don’t have to do like I did and start from a table we need to be inside
1:03:29 these corporations on a higher level so we can take advantage of the opportunity to see how they
1:03:36 run yeah and how they work so that we can do these things for ourselves yeah so last question
1:03:41 because this is such an important point that you made when you decided to work like you
1:03:45 could have gone the other way they sued you put you out of business you could have said well like
1:03:49 we’re going to get rid of Gucci we’re going to sue them into the ground
1:03:56 but you kind of took a lesson from what you learned in Africa when you visited Kenya
1:04:03 the very good and then Uganda with Idi Amin yeah very good point so we’re not everything I did
1:04:10 nothing that I’ve done has been I act by accident it’s all been done through research so when I went
1:04:19 to Africa 1968 I studied the how to they handle their government and their industry so when I was in
1:04:27 Kenya I stayed with Chief Richard Karani and he was equivalent to like a borough president right
1:04:32 and what he taught me was that like what Joe Mokinata did when he became president
1:04:37 like all the colonial land and the colonial houses that they had he reappropriated the
1:04:45 colonial house and what he did was he take this clone this uh uh uh colonial house and he give it
1:04:51 it’s two major tribes in Kenya the kikuyu and the luau he said okay you’re kikuyu you live here
1:04:57 this you take this out you a luau you live here so he split it up so that there’d be this unity
1:05:02 the next thing he did and the most important thing he did which is what I implicate and I talk about
1:05:11 in fashion is that Joe Mokinata told all because the the economy was dominated by people from
1:05:17 outside basically in East Africa they’re Indians so Joe Mokinata told the Indians
1:05:23 that uh in Kenya he said all y’all have to have an indigenous partner in your business or you
1:05:32 cannot do business here yeah right so that’s that that’s that the framework for Africans indigenous
1:05:38 Africans to learn how to run these businesses right and Neary did something similar to that
1:05:45 but Idi Amin and Uganda did something that was devastated the economy so what he did he kicked
1:05:51 all the Indians out and he and so you didn’t have nobody inside that could take over those
1:05:57 in the economy collapsed so this is what I was thinking about when I approached the thing with
1:06:05 Wiguchi if we are to move up and move forward we have to be in the rooms to see how these multinational
1:06:13 corporations work before we can start building on our own so somebody tells you this is important
1:06:17 now and somebody tells you oh man we can start our own business tell them go get a table
1:06:24 and let me see you do it tell them go get a table let me see you do it now what’s so important about
1:06:30 that now say they’re gonna say oh yeah then they get bigheaded and they go get a table right now
1:06:37 you know every 20 or 30 something years we get a powerful cultural platform you know we’ve had jazz
1:06:44 calypso rock and roll all these all these powerful platforms by which the whole world embraces our
1:06:51 music that we could take advantage of but they don’t last forever hip hop will morph into something
1:06:57 else you know but now what what’s happening with hip hop today with which I’ve seen happen with rock
1:07:04 and roll is that other people learn how to empower themselves with our culture you know I’m saying
1:07:09 and that’s nothing wrong and that’s going to happen whether you like it or not you know so
1:07:14 what we can do is when we get these platforms that we can take advantage of our culture
1:07:21 then we have to be able to utilize the vehicles that are get our culture around the world by
1:07:27 which we can make money so while you’re sitting on that table gushy louis fendi and all of them
1:07:35 are taking elements of the culture and moving it around the world by using by using influences
1:07:42 that are representative of our culture so that’s how this works so we get a chance to work from
1:07:48 now now as the culture moves it changes people adapt to it so you got to keep going back to the
1:07:53 source from which the culture come from building on that and take advantage of that and if you
1:08:08 don’t do that you’re not paying attention on that note thank the legend