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Speaker 1: We were almost out of business, literally, like we had

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Speaker 1: no way to pay the printer back. I don't think

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Speaker 1: we had any employees, a couple of interns, but like

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Speaker 1: that was it. We weren't going to make another issue.

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Speaker 1: We couldn't.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Idea Generations All Angles, a podcast about culture's

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Speaker 2: most influential brands and the teams that built them. If

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Speaker 2: you're an entrepreneur, creative, or anyone interested in harnessing the

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Speaker 2: power of collaboration, join me Noah Callahan Bever each week

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Speaker 2: as we dissect the most dynamic companies in culture, because

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Speaker 2: the only way to truly understand success is to look

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Speaker 2: at it from all angles. Idea Generations All Angles is

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Speaker 2: a Will Packer Media podcast. In nineteen ninety six, Adrian

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Speaker 2: Mohler and Patrick Alassek published the first issue of mass

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Speaker 2: Appeal magazine. In the nearly three decades that followed, mass

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Speaker 2: Appeal would grow from an underground graffiti zine into a

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Speaker 2: culture defining, multifaceted entertainment brand with a hand in everything

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Speaker 2: from digital content to music distribution, to full length documentaries

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Speaker 2: and much much more. However, the rise of Massapel has

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Speaker 2: been anything but straightforward. From barely legal circulation schemes, at

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Speaker 2: bankruptcy to a shocking death in the family, The brand

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Speaker 2: has endured extraordinary challenges and still through it all risen

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Speaker 2: like a phoenix. On this week's episode of All Angles,

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Speaker 2: we talked to co founder Adrian Mohler, former creative director

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Speaker 2: Sasha Jenkins, as well as current CEO Peter Bittenbender and

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Speaker 2: rap legend slash partner Nas to hear the tale of

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Speaker 2: two mass appeals and understand how a brand can rise, fall,

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Speaker 2: and rise again thanks to an ensemble cast of elite,

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Speaker 2: like minded culture creators. But before any of that happened,

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Speaker 2: decades before Massapeel would release a string of smash Nas

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Speaker 2: albums or produce an epic four part Wu Tang documentary,

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Speaker 2: there were just two teenagers running around the streets of Washington,

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Speaker 2: d C. With dreams of getting in touch with their

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Speaker 2: graffiti idols.

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Speaker 1: I was living in McLean, Virginia, which is a suburb

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Speaker 1: of DC.

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Speaker 2: This is Adrian Moehler, co founder of Mass Appeal magazine.

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Speaker 1: I had a crew of my dare like friends, and

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Speaker 1: all we cared about in life was graffiti, riding on walls,

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Speaker 1: riding on freight trains, and during high school, you know,

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Speaker 1: we would sneak out at night go paint in the city.

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Speaker 1: We were like a crew of like, I don't know

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Speaker 1: seven of us, and I think five of us started

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Speaker 1: doing graffiti at the same time we sucked. We'd paint

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Speaker 1: like underneath overpasses in the suburbs, and back then, you know,

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Speaker 1: obviously there was no Internet, so we would like subway

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Speaker 1: art or any kind of book or magazine we could

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Speaker 1: get her hands on, and kind of quickly realized that

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Speaker 1: we didn't have a lot of talent in the traditional sense,

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Speaker 1: but we loved excitement and loved doing daredevil shit, so

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Speaker 1: like bombing aspect of graffiti really appealed to us, being

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Speaker 1: willing to be uncomfortable, risking getting in trouble and just

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Speaker 1: getting up as much as possible.

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Speaker 2: Pat and Adrian were in love with graffiti and the

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Speaker 2: outlawed lifestyle that came with it, but they knew that

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Speaker 2: where their talent might be limiting, their passion had no bounds,

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Speaker 2: and they wanted to participate in the culture. So they

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Speaker 2: decided to document it in a magazine, a magazine that

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Speaker 2: they would call mass appeal.

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Speaker 1: At that point, we had already been doing graffiti for

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Speaker 1: a while by the time I graduated, I had moved

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Speaker 1: to New York to go to Pratt. We talked about

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Speaker 1: a little bit like oh yea, we should do magazine,

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Speaker 1: but you know, it was just drum talk, like nothing

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Speaker 1: ever came of it. And somehow Pat was just like yo,

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Speaker 1: I yea like five grand from my grandparents. I don't

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Speaker 1: know where you got it, but and he found like

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Speaker 1: a printer that like it was in DC. You know,

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Speaker 1: I think he said they printed like National Geographic, which

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Speaker 1: in hindsight I really doubt. I used the photo labbit Pratt.

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Speaker 1: They had a scanner. I would design like half the

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Speaker 1: magazine and photoshop. He did a couple of pages and

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Speaker 1: I still have the floppy disc that says mass Appeal

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Speaker 1: on it, and then I would mail him that disc.

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Speaker 1: I honestly didn't think anything would ever come of it,

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Speaker 1: but then he actually got this thing printed. That's how

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Speaker 1: mass Appeal one was born. We had a bunch of

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Speaker 1: copies and we would just go to stores and put

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Speaker 1: them on consignment and get them out there. And in hindsight,

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Speaker 1: I mean, the magazine looked terrible, but it just proved

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Speaker 1: us that these like kind of nineteen year old like

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Speaker 1: fuck up kids could make something just by having like

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Speaker 1: a magazine. We were able to get like a couple

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Speaker 1: of sponsors for the next one, a couple of graffiti

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Speaker 1: stores that took it, and like people were mailing us

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Speaker 1: shit like that was incredible. I mean we did not

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Speaker 1: put a lot of these out. Most of them probably

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Speaker 1: are still in this ba you know what I mean,

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Speaker 1: the other's mom's basement. But somehow it would get passed around

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Speaker 1: to different graph writers and we would just get these

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Speaker 1: envelopes with pictures in them, and we were like, wow,

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Speaker 1: this is actually like reaching people.

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Speaker 2: Despite its limited print run, somehow Mass Appeal got around

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Speaker 2: and overnight the guys started receiving inbound submissions from graph

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Speaker 2: writers looking to be featured in the mag With very

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Speaker 2: little strategy but a lot of authenticity, Mass Appeal had

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Speaker 2: found an audience.

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Speaker 1: It was awesome in hindsight, I think it made us

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Speaker 1: feel important. Rob from Alife said it really eloquently, you know.

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Speaker 1: Mass Appeal like at the beginning was kind of like

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Speaker 1: a blog or social media before there was that for

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Speaker 1: that culture. There were a couple other graphmags out there,

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Speaker 1: but there wasn't a ton of ways to like communicate

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Speaker 1: with everyone. People really treasured those magazines. Code from the

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Speaker 1: Bronx mailed us like some really nice pictures, and we

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Speaker 1: always were like, how did these magazines get all these pictures?

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Speaker 1: We just figured because you know, graft guys are so

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Speaker 1: like secretive, nobody would like ostentatiously just mail a bunch

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Speaker 1: of pictures. But they did, and we got cool shit,

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Speaker 1: you know, and we were just like, dude, like we

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Speaker 1: should do this again. Pat moved to New York fairly quickly.

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Speaker 1: He was my roommate in New York. I had this

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Speaker 1: like rent controlled four bedroom apartment at two thirty four

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Speaker 1: Saint James's Place, which Biggie Small was like two thirty

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Speaker 1: two or something. It was like right next door. It

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Speaker 1: was this huge apartment, and I had a couple of roommates.

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Speaker 1: I think my rand was six hundred bucks for the

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Speaker 1: whole thing, so I literally like lived there for free.

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Speaker 1: We had a little office, you know. For the two

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Speaker 1: years or something, we worked out of there.

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Speaker 2: As Pat and Adrian worked to keep massive Field's business growing,

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Speaker 2: each fell into natural roles that suited them best.

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Speaker 1: I could still picture Patt just chain smoking cigarettes in

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Speaker 1: this little office. It was like boiler room I mean

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Speaker 1: probably probably make five hundre phone calls today, Like he

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Speaker 1: didn't give a shit. He was relentless as good as

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Speaker 1: the sales stuff. But I was good at making like

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Speaker 1: decks and sponsorship ideas and whatnot. That was always really

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Speaker 1: good at talking to people and good at sales. And

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Speaker 1: you know, his dad was always in sales and taught

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Speaker 1: him a lot, always gave us great advice, and so

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Speaker 1: that was just a natural thing for him to do.

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Speaker 1: I had gone to art school for photography, so I

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Speaker 1: love the whole creative aspect of it. The printing thing

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Speaker 1: was kind of just a by product of that, because

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Speaker 1: you know, I was good at doing like the pre

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Speaker 1: press stuff and some of the graphic design, and I

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Speaker 1: just enjoyed it too. And a big thing that I like, too,

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Speaker 1: was just kind of collaborating with creative people, like in hindsight,

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Speaker 1: like that was my favorite part of the magazine, just

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Speaker 1: working closely with some really awesome, sometimes really wacky, but

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Speaker 1: just highly creative designers, photographers, whatever, and just making cool shit.

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Speaker 1: The first five issues were just really like hand to mouth,

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Speaker 1: Like Tower Records would take a bunch of magazines and

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Speaker 1: they would pay us like half the money for them

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Speaker 1: almost like upfront, and like that check would bankroll us

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Speaker 1: get like maybe ten thousand dollars in advertising, not a lot,

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Speaker 1: but we don't really have any overhead, you know. We

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Speaker 1: were like poor kids.

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Speaker 2: As Pad and Adrian continued to drop issues, their process

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Speaker 2: evolved and they found ways to become more efficient, and

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Speaker 2: with the help of Pat's mom's credit card and the

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Speaker 2: generous return policy at best Buy, mass Appeal was able

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Speaker 2: to level up.

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Speaker 1: We really lucked into the timing of that right because

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Speaker 1: desktop publishing became like possible. That was kind of that whole,

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Speaker 1: like Quark Express Photoshop probably one point zero, I don't remember,

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Speaker 1: but we would say, Pats mom's credit card, go to

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Speaker 1: like comp Usa or best Buy, buy all the shit

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Speaker 1: we needed, use it for a week, and then return

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Speaker 1: it all. And then at the same time, the roots

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Speaker 1: were kind of spreading a little bit.

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Speaker 2: As mass Appeal started to make a name for itself

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Speaker 2: within graffiti culture, Adrian and Pat looked to differentiate the

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Speaker 2: book within the graph scene landscape, so they avoided featuring

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Speaker 2: overly wrought legal walls and made mass apeels beat high

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Speaker 2: wire bombing.

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Speaker 1: We were like, we're going to put more bombing into

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Speaker 1: it and writers that took bigger risks. We tried not

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Speaker 1: to put a ton of legal walls in the magazine

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Speaker 1: and the people that we interviewed. We wanted someone that

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Speaker 1: was either just put it all on the line every night,

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Speaker 1: or someone that overcame a lot of obstacles and made

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Speaker 1: a successful career out of it, someone like Todd James,

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Speaker 1: you know, that had like an incredible amount of talent

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Speaker 1: but then transcended that into a successful career outside of it,

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Speaker 1: but without like turning his back on it. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if we really wrote that down or anything, but

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Speaker 1: in hindsight, that's kind of what we tried to do.

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Speaker 1: I pretty quickly realized, like this is only going to

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Speaker 1: go so far. No, like this was fun. I had

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Speaker 1: to get a job. I was working for Martha Stewart

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Speaker 1: Magazine for a while and using her color printer after

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Speaker 1: hours to print like thousands of media kids. I mean

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Speaker 1: they had this like printer like the size of a

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Speaker 1: small room, and you know, I got caught at the

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Speaker 1: and quit, but but literally print like thousands of these things.

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Speaker 1: It kind of worked. But then like we were almost

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Speaker 1: out of business, literally, like we had no way to

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Speaker 1: pay the printer back. I don't think we had any employees,

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Speaker 1: a couple of interns, but like that was it. You know,

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Speaker 1: we weren't going to make another issue. We couldn't.

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Speaker 2: Internally, the future of Mass Appeal may have been in jeopardy. However,

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Speaker 2: in the streets the magazine was gaining heat, and they

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Speaker 2: organically caught the attention of another pioneering publisher in their space.

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Speaker 3: I did a graffiti zine when I was a kid,

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Speaker 3: and they weren't many zines at the time, and maybe

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Speaker 3: two or three in the entire world.

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Speaker 2: This is Sasha Jenkins, who, among other things, is an

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Speaker 2: acclaimed documentary filmmaker, author, and co founder of the legendary

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Speaker 2: culture publication Ego Trip.

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Speaker 3: So Mass Appeal was a zine that I kept up with,

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Speaker 3: and I noticed an evolution. They started to have interviews

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Speaker 3: with rappers and great photography, and you know, I bought it.

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Speaker 2: I was a fan. Sasha kept a close eye on

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Speaker 2: the landscape because in nineteen ninety as a teenager in

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Speaker 2: a story queens, he self published a graffiti scene called

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Speaker 2: Graphic Scenes and Explicit Language. Then a couple of years later,

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Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety two, he had a neighborhood friend Hajji

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Speaker 2: Akabadi would co found the first hip hop newspaper, beat Down.

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Speaker 2: Sasha's first projects covered what was then a novel mix

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Speaker 2: of interests from rap music to skateboarding to graffiti. His

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Speaker 2: passion for those cultures and independent publishing foreshadow division that

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Speaker 2: he would bring to mass appeal.

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Speaker 3: Beatdown was a hip hop newspaper. I started with a

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Speaker 3: childhood friend and Queens who was like an aspiring producer

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Speaker 3: who had worked in Marley Marl and had done things

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Speaker 3: in the music industry. And I had my relationships with

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Speaker 3: artists and photographers, and we came together and did a

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Speaker 3: hip hop newspaper called Beatdown in nineteen ninety two. Was

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Speaker 3: printed at a place right across the street from Queensbridge

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Speaker 3: Housing projects where they printed newspapers, and it cost us

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Speaker 3: about six hundred and fifty dollars for the first issue.

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Speaker 3: I was there for about a year. We got Tommy

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Speaker 3: Boyd to buy the back cover, which paid for everything

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Speaker 3: for at least a year. Beatdown had done a party

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Speaker 3: with KRS one and we were giving out newspapers and

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Speaker 3: I gave it to a gentleman named Elliott Wilson. I said,

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Speaker 3: I know you from high school, and then Hodgi went

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Speaker 3: up to him and said, I know you from college.

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Speaker 3: So we both kind of randomly knew him, not directly

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Speaker 3: but seen him around. So he called our voicemail and

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Speaker 3: said he wanted to be down with us, and Elliott

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Speaker 3: Wilson got down with beat Down. Eventually, me and Hodgy

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Speaker 3: had a falling out where we didn't agree on what

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Speaker 3: the direction of the magazine.

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Speaker 2: Eventually, Sasha would part ways with Hodji and lead beat Down. However,

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Speaker 2: music editor Elliott Wilson would come with him too, and

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Speaker 2: after a short hiatus, the two would secure seed money

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Speaker 2: from Star Wars producer Henry Chalfont and list beat Down

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Speaker 2: critic Jeffrey chairman Mao and co create a new Brandon magazine,

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Speaker 2: Ego Trip.

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Speaker 3: Sometime later in ninety four, myself and Elliott started Ego

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Speaker 3: Trip Magazine. Ego Trip Magazine was a free magazine in

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Speaker 3: New York. It wasn't all hip hop. It was skateboarding,

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Speaker 3: it was graffiti. It was all of my interests sort

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Speaker 3: of crystallized in a magazine. Elliott loved hip hop, but

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Speaker 3: he was open to the idea of doing something a

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Speaker 3: little different, and my argument was what purpose are we

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Speaker 3: serving creating another hip hop magazine? What advertisers it's gonna

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Speaker 3: want to fuck with us, right, Why don't we offer

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Speaker 3: something that's more expansive that can get more advertisers. Maybe

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Speaker 3: we'll get a skate brand, maybe we'll get a clothing brand. Right,

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Speaker 3: So that's how I was thinking at the time. So

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Speaker 3: at first it was myself, Elliott Wilson, and Jeff Chairman Mao,

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Speaker 3: who was affiliated with a place I was interning at

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Speaker 3: called Third World Newsreel. There was a magazine called Rap

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Speaker 3: Pages out of California and they had a section called

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Speaker 3: Underground Zine. So the Gabe Alvarez, who was the editor there,

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Speaker 3: reached out to us and said, hey, we want to

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Speaker 3: interview you guys about your zine. We think it's really cool.

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Speaker 3: So he gave interviews us and then we fly to

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Speaker 3: California to do a Cypersil cover story. We meet Gabe

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Speaker 3: in person, we hit it off. We say to Gabe,

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Speaker 3: why don't you move to New York and work on

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Speaker 3: this ego trip thing. He decides to move to New

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Speaker 3: York and he moves to my mother's house in the

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Speaker 3: story of Queen's Because we didn't have that much money,

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Speaker 3: but my mom was like, I'll put your boy up. Eventually,

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Speaker 3: Gabe convinced or encouraged Brent Rollins, who was the art

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Speaker 3: director at rad Page's, to come to New York, which

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Speaker 3: he does. And then once Brent came on board, I

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Speaker 3: mean he's, you know, obviously a fabulous artist, super talented guy.

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Speaker 3: How brands come together is obviously the talent and the

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Speaker 3: vision that everyone has, but it's also magic. It's also

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Speaker 3: like you can't explain, you know. I look at Ego Trippez,

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Speaker 3: a band that I was in, and we put out

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Speaker 3: some great records and they stand a test of time

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Speaker 3: and we move on.

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Speaker 2: Ego Trip did indeed put out some classics, and I

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Speaker 2: know because I was fortunate enough to be part of it.

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Speaker 2: As a young intern. I looked up to Sasha and

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Speaker 2: I was eventually able to work with him at Well,

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Speaker 2: we'll get into that later. Meanwhile, at Mass Appeal, things

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Speaker 2: were still looking pretty bleak for Patent Adrian. The guys

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Speaker 2: were down to their last dollar and it looked like

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Speaker 2: they had published their last issue, but with a lucky

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Speaker 2: bounce and a little help from their NYC Graffiti network

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Speaker 2: of writers like Saysan Ewok. Things would change overnight.

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Speaker 1: Mountain dew called us and we're like, we need breakdancers

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Speaker 1: to make a video commercial. Do you guys do that?

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Speaker 1: And we'll like, yeah, of course we have breakdancers. Of

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Speaker 1: course we didn't know any breakdancers. But it turned out

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Speaker 1: that ewalkdrew out of breakdance and Pat somehow got Saysa's

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Speaker 1: studio keys and we like filmed this commercial with them

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Speaker 1: there and I think they paid us like twenty thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars for it. At that time, like we were billionaires,

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Speaker 1: Like that was like more money than we had ever seen,

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Speaker 1: and we were just like yes and able to do

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Speaker 1: another issue.

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Speaker 2: Having gotten a taste of blue chip advertiser money, Pat

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Speaker 2: and Adrian had an appetite for more, but they felt

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Speaker 2: that the magazines rough around the edge of aesthetic was gating,

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Speaker 2: so they reached out to a Life, the independent New

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Speaker 2: York culture brand to help Who's eponymous streetwear line and

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Speaker 2: Rivington club sneaker boutique defined downtown cool.

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Speaker 1: There was other magazines coming out and they had better

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Speaker 1: ads than we did, nicer paper, all this stuff, and

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Speaker 1: we're like, man, we want to step it up, but like,

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Speaker 1: how do we do that and then you had a

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Speaker 1: place like a life that opened up. And meeting those

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Speaker 1: guys is when Massive fel really changed for the better

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Speaker 1: because my vision was an experience was just really limited.

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Speaker 1: I knew I liked better stuff, but I didn't know

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Speaker 1: how to do it that original A Life crew they

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Speaker 1: were like a generation older than me. They'd had like

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Speaker 1: real jobs in publishing, could like really make shit happen.

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Speaker 1: So many people I felt were just like full of

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Speaker 1: shit and didn't have like the life experience to back

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Speaker 1: it up, and those guys did, especially Rob. They were

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Speaker 1: able to take like the Iraq crew and a lot

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Speaker 1: of those early photographers and mix that up and put

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Speaker 1: some dope content together. Making those guys do the creative

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Speaker 1: directors of Mass Appeal at the time was awesome.

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Speaker 2: With a Life in the mixed creatively, Mass Appeal became

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Speaker 2: a more sophisticated product, both for consumers and advertisers alike.

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Speaker 1: As soon as we made a few bucks, we got

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Speaker 1: an office, and then a Life helped make the magazine

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Speaker 1: cool to bigger advertisers, and once we stopped work with

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Speaker 1: them at that point, we kind of had to figure

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Speaker 1: it out. Been around in photo shoots and creative directors

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Speaker 1: and all this stuff to figure out how to hire

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Speaker 1: our own and we kind of had the recipe down

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Speaker 1: and then we're like, okay, you know, we could do

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Speaker 1: this six times a year. It became a little easier.

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Speaker 1: At the time, there were probably like one hundred, you know,

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Speaker 1: advertisers like the Stucy and the Vans that supported things

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Speaker 1: like mass Appeal. I mean that's just so important, you know,

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Speaker 1: because without those companies, I think it couldn't have happened.

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Speaker 2: Support from other independent brands was instrumental in keeping the

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Speaker 2: lights on it Mass Appeal, but they would need to

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Speaker 2: start landing corporate advertisers if they really wanted to grow.

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Speaker 1: We started kind of upselling it to the Cools and

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Speaker 1: the Scions and the Fords, and we started getting like

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Speaker 1: real advertisers. I remember when we did like a million

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Speaker 1: dollars in revenue for the year, and I was just.

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Speaker 4: Like, dude, I'm a millionaire, like you know, And yeah,

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Speaker 4: obviously there was nothing left of that million dollars, probably

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Speaker 4: less than that after paying everybody, but that just felt

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Speaker 4: really really good, Like I felt like we made it

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Speaker 4: on average, probably did like one hundred thousand dollars in

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Speaker 4: ads per issue.

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Speaker 1: We always just plow it right back in because there's

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Speaker 1: always something that needed to get you know, we needed

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Speaker 1: a phone system, we needed a graphic designer or whatever.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's always a list of shit that needed

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Speaker 1: to get bought. You know that that never ended.

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Speaker 2: As the overhead grew, the team found creative ways to

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Speaker 2: increase their ad revenue. Going out of business was not

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Speaker 2: an option. So without any other recourse, and in order

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Speaker 2: to stay cash flow positive, Pat and Adrian were forced

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Speaker 2: to make some ethically questionable moves.

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Speaker 1: We had all these people that needed to get paid,

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Speaker 1: and the only way we could bring in more money

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Speaker 1: was by just saying that we printed more copies than

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Speaker 1: we did. So we did a thousand copies, and then

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Speaker 1: two and then five, and then we'd go after these

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Speaker 1: like real advertisers and they're like, we don't advertise with

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Speaker 1: anybody that prints less than fifty thousand copies. So well,

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Speaker 1: we do fifty thousand, and then of course we're like,

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Speaker 1: well wait a minute, if they'll pay eight thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: for that, they'll pay sixteen thousand if we say we

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Speaker 1: do one hundred and twenty five thousands. And then it

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Speaker 1: just kept going up. And up and up, and it

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Speaker 1: just became more and more unbelievable. The printer was cool

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Speaker 1: as shit. You would give me like fake receipts if

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Speaker 1: somebody asked for it. Forget just how many were printed,

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Speaker 1: Like we couldn't even distribute that many, you know, so

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Speaker 1: like Tower would keep taking you know, I don't know

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00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:49,600
Speaker 1: what they took, fucking five thousand copies and send us

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Speaker 1: the half of them back like a year later. And

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Speaker 1: then at that point we did have real distribution. But

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Speaker 1: you know, MASSI Appeal is never like a newstand magazine

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Speaker 1: like it would be on some newstands and you know,

385
00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:01,680
Speaker 1: Barnes and Old what was cool, Like we couldn't afford

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Speaker 1: like the front window placement, and even we could have

387
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Speaker 1: like what about it, you know, like it's like a

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Speaker 1: very niche thing. I mean, that was definitely like a

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Speaker 1: house of cards waiting to fall down, just because it

390
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Speaker 1: had to keep going up because we had no other

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Speaker 1: way to increase the revenue or we would have just gone.

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Speaker 1: Our business.

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Speaker 5: Money was always very tight.

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Speaker 1: We used to have this peel box we would always check,

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Speaker 1: and I swear to that it was never any fucking

396
00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:29,720
Speaker 1: money in it. We'd wait in line for twenty minutes

397
00:20:30,160 --> 00:20:32,639
Speaker 1: at the post office and be like, sure, you don't.

398
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Speaker 5: Have any mail for us, and maybe a check fell off.

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00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:37,879
Speaker 1: Could you check again? And it was very stressful to

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Speaker 1: make payroll and just have the cash fload. Even though

401
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:44,280
Speaker 1: we were doing good, the cash will never kept up

402
00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:48,000
Speaker 1: with anything. So, you know, growing just meant that next

403
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Speaker 1: month we have any less of the cash that we

404
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Speaker 1: needed to run the business. So whenever we had an

405
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Speaker 1: opportunity to kind of hustle or away into a little

406
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Speaker 1: bit more money.

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Speaker 5: We would take everything from just.

408
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Speaker 1: Blatantly lying about how many copies we printed with the circulation,

409
00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:06,439
Speaker 1: to like Scion would send us these mailers and I

410
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Speaker 1: think at that point, I don't know how many hundreds

411
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Speaker 1: of thousands of magazines we said we were printing.

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Speaker 5: They would mail just like, you know, all the inserts

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Speaker 5: to the printer, and the printer's like, what do you

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Speaker 5: want me to do with all these things? Weally just recyclele.

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Speaker 1: And so at the time, the cigarette companies were still advertising,

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Speaker 1: but at the same time they had to give all

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Speaker 1: this money to anti smoking causes, and a big one

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Speaker 1: of those was the Truth. So the Truth and the

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Speaker 1: Truth dot Com was funded by tobacco companies to stop

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Speaker 1: kids from smoking.

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Speaker 5: If the Truth knew.

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00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:45,000
Speaker 1: We had cigarette ads, they would never have anything to

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Speaker 1: do with us again. And at the same time, if

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Speaker 1: the cigarette companies knew that we had Truth ads, they

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Speaker 1: would want nothing to do with us because it's like,

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00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:55,399
Speaker 1: even though they're funding them, it's kind of their arch enemy.

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Speaker 1: So if we took money from the Truth, there's no

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Speaker 1: way that we have money from sigare and helping.

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Speaker 5: But you know, they both were like, we half down

430
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Speaker 5: to the back cover or we're not doing it. So

431
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Speaker 5: we printed half the magazines with one back.

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Speaker 1: Cover and the other half with the other back cover,

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Speaker 1: and then just prayed that they wouldn't see it.

434
00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:17,920
Speaker 5: And uh, I think the statue limitations was over. We

435
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:18,840
Speaker 5: got away with it.

436
00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:28,639
Speaker 2: Mats Bill was getting big, maybe not Rolling Stone or

437
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:31,159
Speaker 2: XXL big, but the book was fat with ads and

438
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:36,440
Speaker 2: its audience was growing. However, growth necessitates change, and Adriane

439
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 2: was struggling with alienating the core graffiti guys that he

440
00:22:39,359 --> 00:22:41,439
Speaker 2: had started this whole thing for in the first place.

441
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:45,199
Speaker 1: I was kind of torn between two worlds because like

442
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 1: all my graffiti friends would be like, dude, you guys

443
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 1: sold out. It's a fucking clothing catalog and I hated

444
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: hearing that. But then at the same time, like I knew,

445
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:56,359
Speaker 1: like to grow we had to put product reviews in

446
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:58,560
Speaker 1: there and shit like that. We were also like, like,

447
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: we're not in a bubble either, so we're seeing, you know,

448
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:03,200
Speaker 1: if there's advice and a fader and what else was that?

449
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 1: Like flaunt We knew we kind of had to have

450
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:09,800
Speaker 1: our own niche, but not get like too crazy into

451
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:12,400
Speaker 1: anything else. I feel like we're good at like finding

452
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:14,919
Speaker 1: great people and then giving the trust and the autonomy

453
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: to do.

454
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 2: It, and just then quite unexpectedly, one of those great

455
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,040
Speaker 2: people would actually find them.

456
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:26,879
Speaker 3: So one day I just called them. I got their

457
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,880
Speaker 3: voicemail back when people had like answering machines, and I said, Yo,

458
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 3: I'm a huge fan of your magazine. I think it's beautiful,

459
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 3: It's come a long way, keep doing it.

460
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:34,679
Speaker 2: That's it.

461
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:35,960
Speaker 3: I wasn't expecting anything.

462
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 2: Sasha's call would not only inspire Paton Adrian to keep

463
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:42,240
Speaker 2: pressing forward, but it would also give them a game

464
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:43,120
Speaker 2: changing idea.

465
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:45,920
Speaker 3: They called me up and said, we know who you are,

466
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 3: and like, you know, why don't you get down with us?

467
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:49,200
Speaker 3: And I was like, you guys can't afford me, man,

468
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 3: And it's cool. Just keep doing what you're doing. It's

469
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 3: all good, man, keep going, And so they kept going.

470
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: I knew that we did not have good writing in

471
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:58,879
Speaker 1: the magazine. He was a good writer, and it seemed

472
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:00,359
Speaker 1: like he got it them up.

473
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 3: One day they hit me up again and they said, yo,

474
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 3: we want you on board. And I was like, all right, well,

475
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:06,920
Speaker 3: let me think about it.

476
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 1: We met up like just you know, here's the key, Yasha,

477
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:12,439
Speaker 1: you drive that part of the magazine and nine time.

478
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't really even know the guy. I

479
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:15,960
Speaker 1: knew of him, and you know, Madam wants or something,

480
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:19,000
Speaker 1: but he's just one of those people that is intelligence

481
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 1: and kindness. If you just tell like, this is someone

482
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 1: I want to be associated with, here's somebody I want

483
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 1: to work with.

484
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 3: I thought about it. I said, well, I think you

485
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 3: need someone who is you know, I wasn't that old,

486
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:32,399
Speaker 3: but I was older at that time, and I wasn't

487
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 3: fully plugged into everything that was going on. My interests

488
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 3: were a little bit more diverse. I said, here's what

489
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:39,880
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do. I'm gonna make myself the editorial director.

490
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 3: And as a young man, who I think would be

491
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 3: great for the job as editor in chief. And his

492
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:44,640
Speaker 3: name is Noah Callahan Bever.

493
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 2: All Right, So, as I intimated earlier, I your trusted narrator,

494
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 2: actually worked at Mass Appeal for about two years as

495
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 2: it's editor in chief, and for several years after that,

496
00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 2: I moonlighted as editorial director while I was catching exit

497
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:04,159
Speaker 2: Vibe and later Complex. As I mentioned, I knew Sasha

498
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:06,239
Speaker 2: because I had been his seventeen year old intern at

499
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 2: Ego Trip and he'd helped me secure my first paid

500
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 2: job as a fact checker at Vibe back in nineteen

501
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:13,560
Speaker 2: ninety seven. So when he reached out during the summer

502
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 2: of two thousand and two and asked me to come

503
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 2: on to run the day to day of the editorial

504
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 2: operation at Mass Appeal, it was an absolute no brainer. Sure,

505
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,640
Speaker 2: they were only offering me a cool sixteen thousand dollars

506
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 2: a year salary without benefits and essentially no editorial budget,

507
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 2: but I was all the way in. Sasha was my

508
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 2: mentor and the opportunity to work with him was everything.

509
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 2: And beyond that, I was so enamored of the camaraderie

510
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:38,480
Speaker 2: I had witnessed within the Ego Trip family that I

511
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 2: couldn't wait to emulate it and build my own team.

512
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 2: Of course, given the total lack of resources besides the

513
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,920
Speaker 2: awesome art team of photo editor Angela Boatwright and designer

514
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 2: Sally Thurr, that meant assembling an all star squad of

515
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 2: unpaid interns. Honestly, in retrospect, the talent that we brought

516
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 2: together was phenomenal. Acclaimed YA novelist Mary H. K Choy,

517
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 2: genius CC Brendan Frederick, longtime Complex editorial leaders Jack Erwin

518
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 2: and Justin Monroe, Wu Tang, doc producer Kerry Graber, Hoonigan

519
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:13,400
Speaker 2: co founder Brian Scotto, and Billboard's deputy editorial director Damian Scott,

520
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 2: amongst so many others.

521
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,679
Speaker 3: What I saw in mass Appeal was what I was

522
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 3: aspiring to do with Ego trip.

523
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 1: You know.

524
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 3: It's Spike messengers and guys who sell weed and like graffiti,

525
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 3: hip hop, clothing, all these things that are like commonplace

526
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 3: now put together at a time before the Internet was

527
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 3: really rocking. That was how I lived. That's how I

528
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 3: saw the world. I didn't just love hip hop, I

529
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 3: love punk, I loved skate, I loved all this shit

530
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 3: that now, if you're a kid of color, in New York,

531
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,119
Speaker 3: it's not weird to be into it. So I was like,

532
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 3: this is cool to be a part of this. How

533
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 3: can I help shape it?

534
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: It worked out. He ran with it, he got the

535
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 1: writing better, improved it. Every collaborator like made it that

536
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: much better. And then you know, once we had like

537
00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 1: the contributors, you know, the Rocky Owls and all that stuff,

538
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,239
Speaker 1: and the Estevons and like that's that was when it

539
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: was like tight.

540
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,880
Speaker 2: Yep. We reimagined the magazine, keeping its downtown New York

541
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 2: City perspective, but with an eye for broader culture and

542
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,400
Speaker 2: a particular interest in emergent hip hop. And we tried

543
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 2: to make it funny without being cynical or ironic, and

544
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 2: we brought in a host of columnists, from Ricky and

545
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 2: Estevan to House of Pain's Danny Boy to Ari the

546
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:26,919
Speaker 2: Rugged Man. Prophetically, our first cover would pair Nas with

547
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,399
Speaker 2: his estranged mentor large professor, and then we had stuff

548
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 2: like fifty cents guide to Guns and Bad Brains, bassist

549
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 2: Darryl Jennifer's ruminations on navigating golf courses as a black

550
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:39,679
Speaker 2: punk rock icon. Oh yeah, and we also had one

551
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 2: of the first feature stories written on Kanye West, the

552
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 2: story and photoshoot of which was featured in his Genius

553
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 2: documentary on Netflix. It was an insane, stressful and chaotic time,

554
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 2: but honestly speaking, at least for myself, it was some

555
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 2: of the best days of my life.

556
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:58,399
Speaker 1: Things were just just just rocking, and we would get

557
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:03,679
Speaker 1: ads for the first time. We really had like budgets

558
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 1: to do stuff, and we can pay photographers a little bit.

559
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:08,679
Speaker 5: We could have read better equipment.

560
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: We always put everything right back into the magazine, but

561
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 1: we were able to really elevate it from just like a.

562
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:17,360
Speaker 5: Magazine that had pictures.

563
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: Of graffiti in it to something that's really spoke to

564
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: the culture of the time. In two thousand and four,

565
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:29,160
Speaker 1: we started being ready to branch into other things. We're

566
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: already starting to get a little bored just doing the

567
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: same thing every day for eight years. At this point,

568
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: our friend Paul paints these giant advertising murals in la

569
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: and we're going to be out there for an ASR

570
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: trade shows. Let's go see if something like that could

571
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 1: work in New York. Using like the mass appeal connect,

572
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: Paul learned how to paint these giant walls.

573
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 5: For a company called Artifacts that was like one of

574
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 5: the only.

575
00:28:55,360 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: Companies that still painted these big mural advertising walls. We

576
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: had this skill that was kind of like a direct

577
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: next step from from graffiti, but really had nothing to

578
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: do with graffiti other than that it was painted on

579
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: a wall. But the graffiti writers and us could recognize

580
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: that it's kind of the same thing. We just knew

581
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 1: that if you hit a good spot like comedy, people

582
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: would see it, and obviously advertising is the same thing.

583
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: So we're standing at Paul's house in La getting drunk

584
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: one night and we're like, dude, you should come to

585
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: New York and paint one of these and I bet

586
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 1: we could sell it to the advertisers of Mass Appeal.

587
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 1: And he wasn't you know, that crazy about it at

588
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: the beginning, but we kind of convinced him and he

589
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: let us borrow one of his photo albums. He had

590
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: these graffiti photo albums of you know, like four x

591
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 1: six prints of all the work that he painted for artifacts.

592
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: So we took it back, scand the whole thing and

593
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: just put a colossal logo on it and pretended like

594
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: it was all of art work and started sending it

595
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: out to all the magazine advertisers. It was really tough

596
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 1: going at first. Those big vinyl banners were really big

597
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: and nobody was painting things anymore. But Rockstar Video Games

598
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: kind of saw the light and they were like, Yo,

599
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: this is really cool. Could you guys do a test one?

600
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: And we just want to make sure that you guys,

601
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: can I actually paint something like this. They didn't believe

602
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: that that was our work. And the thing, Paul flew

603
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: down painted this one all by himself and they loved it.

604
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 5: And then we must have done like thirty of them in.

605
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: Every borough of New York, all just you know, illegal style,

606
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: just going to the like a building arms, giving a cat.

607
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: He would paint your wall, didn't know anything about permitting

608
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 1: or any of that stuff, and mostly got away with it.

609
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 5: The New York Times caught windows. It did a really cool.

610
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: Article on us, and you know, the floodgates just opened

611
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 1: in a way that it never did with Maxacre.

612
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,239
Speaker 2: With Colossals out of home marketing angle, Adrian, pat and

613
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 2: Paul had tapped into a new, deeper well and we're

614
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 2: ready to run the table.

615
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: Within six months, We're like, holy shit, this is the future.

616
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: There's something new and cool and just this energy here.

617
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: There were so many magazines out at the time. There

618
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 1: were not any other colossals on artifacts. They only cainted

619
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: for like the big entrenched companies like the Lamars and

620
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: the Clear Channels, they didn't have any of their own walls.

621
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: So we knew from the graffiti side of things that

622
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: the locations are what's important from the very beginning, where

623
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: like we have to get our own walled, and we

624
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: were able to get a few.

625
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 5: Of them, sell them, and it just it just took off.

626
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: Things are going really well doing it for about eight months,

627
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: and then you know, all hanging out on Paul's birthday

628
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: one night, and then the next morning.

629
00:31:54,960 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 5: I get the worst call of my life.

630
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 2: Being a graph writer well familiar with the tunnels, Pat

631
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 2: knew his way around the subway. On his way home

632
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 2: from Paul's birthday, late at night, Pat found himself on

633
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 2: the wrong side of the station, headed to Queen's rather

634
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 2: than Brooklyn, So he decided to jump down off the

635
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 2: platform and crossed the tracks to the proper side. Tragically,

636
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 2: Pat missed a step, slipped and touched the deadly third rail.

637
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: You just don't expect that to happen, you know, I

638
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 1: had just never had my life turned upside down literally

639
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: from like one hour to the next, like everything was different.

640
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: I had to go to the morgue and that was

641
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 1: that was fucking horrible, you know. And they didn't show

642
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: me his body. They showed me a polaride of his body. Remember,

643
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: I broke down crying. Like the next like three weeks

644
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: or just like a blur, you know, uh, just dealing

645
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: with Dad, you know, going to his girlfriends and then

646
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: the funeral. I must have been uh, he was like

647
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: twenty five.

648
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 5: You know.

649
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to deal.

650
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 2: On top of dealing with the passing of his best friend,

651
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 2: Adrian also had to deal with running their shared business

652
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: and what was once a fun, creative outlet was now

653
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 2: a daily reminder of Pat's death.

654
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: Once I was back in the office, having to be

655
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: there with the business, like having to take over like

656
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: his stuff and call advertisers, and I was like it

657
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 1: just felt like so real to try to like sell

658
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: an ad And then people would ask me, well, where's Pat,

659
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: And I'd be like, he's dead, and and you know

660
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: they didn't say it, but like, how are you calling

661
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: me for an ad? And I didn't want to be

662
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: calling him for an ad? But like like I had to,

663
00:33:55,600 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: it was it was just so fucking uncomfortable and so shitty.

664
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 2: In the years after losing Pat, Adrian also lost his

665
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 2: passion for mass appeal. With social media and blogs providing

666
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:11,800
Speaker 2: new competition, not to mention a collapsing economy, the landscape

667
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 2: was changing and mass Appeal wasn't equipped to compete on

668
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 2: top of it. Colossal continued to scale organically, and eventually

669
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 2: Adrian could no longer justify splitting his time, so one

670
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 2: day he made the hard decision to shutter Mass Appeal.

671
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: My heart was not in it as much anymore. And

672
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: then we had just started Colossal when Pat died. I mean,

673
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: it wasn't anything, you know, but we quickly kind of

674
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 1: saw that, like, hey, this has like better legs than

675
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 1: mass appeal does because blogs were coming in. Social media

676
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:53,439
Speaker 1: was like all this stuff, like like it was very

677
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: clear that print was on the way out, and you know,

678
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: like there's no like riding this into the sunset, you

679
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like it's going to get ugly.

680
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: And by the time I shut it down, it was

681
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: time to do so. And you know, magazines were failing

682
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:12,359
Speaker 1: left and right. It's tough because I was still you know,

683
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:17,359
Speaker 1: somewhat young and inexperienced and only knew what I knew

684
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:19,439
Speaker 1: from doing this one thing. You know, I didn't really

685
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 1: have like a big support network outside of it, or

686
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: my experience of that to lean on. You know, it's draining.

687
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 1: It's like being in like a you know, like a

688
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 1: bad relationship or something. It stops becoming fun to go

689
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 1: to work. And I waited too long to shut it

690
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: down too, just for my own pride. So advertisers were canceling,

691
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: distribution was going down. We didn't have money to print

692
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:45,400
Speaker 1: even like the like bullshit number of copies that we

693
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: actually did print, you know, so that got less, you know,

694
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 1: expenses kept going up. Like it's obviously it's clear to

695
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: everybody that they're on a sinking ship. I'm proud of

696
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: how how we handled that because you know, we told everybody,

697
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 1: we're like, yo, let's put one more really off some

698
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 1: issue out managed to so much ads for it, and

699
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: we were able to pay everybody, you know, like I

700
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: don't think there's I mean maybe one or two people didn't,

701
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: but he don't pay the printer. And like most like

702
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:12,359
Speaker 1: when companies like shut down, there's a lot of piss

703
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 1: off people in the wake, and we didn't do that.

704
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:16,920
Speaker 1: You know, we we didn't plan it got like super

705
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: long term, but we were like, you know, let's let's

706
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: let's finish this one up and make it make it special.

707
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: So we did that, and then uh obviously told everybody.

708
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,839
Speaker 1: I feel like Colossal kind of absorbed the remaining mass

709
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 1: Appeal staff.

710
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 2: Adrian focused on Colossal, Sasha pursued documentary filmmaking, and the

711
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 2: descendants of my administration eventually all dispersed, and the mass

712
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:49,799
Speaker 2: Appeals we knew it was no more. Sasha, now a

713
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 2: free agent, partnered with a production company called Roadside and

714
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 2: began to cut his teeth in documentary filmmaking. However, after

715
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 2: a few years, he got the hunger for more and

716
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 2: contemplated his next chapter.

717
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 3: I got to a point with Roadside where I was

718
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 3: becoming antsy, and that usually comes every ten years. I

719
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 3: want to try to do something else. So there's a

720
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 3: guy named Philip Leed's former graffiti artist, hardcore dude, hip

721
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 3: hop guy. He approached me. He was like, we should

722
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 3: start a creative agency or something. Let's figure something out,

723
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I'm open to that. It's like, you

724
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:22,560
Speaker 3: should meet my friend Peter, He's got a company called DCON.

725
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 2: The Peter in question was Peter Bittenbender, the proprietor of

726
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 2: the agency and record label DCON, a hip hop obsessed

727
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 2: creative entrepreneur who in the decade previous had grown DCON

728
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,439
Speaker 2: from a decad a dream into a thriving operation. Peter

729
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 2: had actually started his career going in a completely different direction.

730
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 6: I went to school for restaurant hotel management, trained chef,

731
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 6: had zero intent of ever entering the entertainment industry. My

732
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 6: last year of NYU, I made a film that was

733
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:53,879
Speaker 6: called One Big Trip that ended up becoming quite successful.

734
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:56,320
Speaker 6: It was a DVD on one side and a CD

735
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 6: on the other, and we got music from like Hieroglyphics,

736
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 6: it was Direct Classic five, it was Dilated Peoples, etc.

737
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:03,799
Speaker 1: And before we know.

738
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:05,800
Speaker 6: It, like this thing became the sort of like cultural

739
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 6: touch point with this doc and this soundtrack. But before

740
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 6: we put it out, I had to come up with

741
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 6: a name for a company. And my business partner at

742
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 6: the time, Jason Goldwatch, who directed that film, he was like,

743
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 6: let's call a deconstruction company. But people just kept referring

744
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 6: to us as DCON basically for about ten years Decon

745
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:25,400
Speaker 6: operated working with artists, whether it was Farrell or Kanye

746
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 6: or Ludacris, doing two things, either helping artists produce content

747
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,280
Speaker 6: or helping them put out their music. At some point,

748
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 6: brand started to take notice of what we were doing

749
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 6: and they're like, oh, if you're making content for this artist,

750
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:41,359
Speaker 6: we want to do stuff similar to that, so let's

751
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 6: hire you. So like the Microsoft's of the world and

752
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 6: the video game company started hiring us.

753
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 2: Besides the advertising work, Decon would more its branding culture,

754
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:55,959
Speaker 2: releasing revered records by Alchemist, Rock Marciano and perhaps most significantly,

755
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 2: Jay electronicas Exhibit A and Exhibit C.

756
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 3: So I mean, Peter, hey, man, you don't know who

757
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 3: I am. So I know you are. You know what

758
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:06,080
Speaker 3: are you guys trying to do it? But we're trying

759
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:08,319
Speaker 3: to start this agency. He's like, listen, man, I got

760
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 3: you by five years, Like, why don't you just join DCON.

761
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 3: You save you some time and some effort. We can

762
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 3: crush it if we get together. I was like, all right,

763
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 3: fuck it. I wound up coming to DCON, which at

764
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 3: the time was a record label and a creative agency,

765
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 3: and they had done a few videos and some commercials

766
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 3: and stuff, and we started to do stuff in TV.

767
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 3: You know, me and Peter started talking and he's like,

768
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 3: what's up with mass Appeal?

769
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 2: After laying Dorman a few years, the mass Appeal name

770
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 2: had becomes something of legend. With Adrian's blessing, Peter and

771
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 2: Sasha decided to resurrect it.

772
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: Sasha just hit me up out of the blue and

773
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: was like, hey, uh, if I ever want to do

774
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:48,719
Speaker 1: mass Appeal again, do I have your blessing? And I

775
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:50,839
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, of course, man. You know, I think

776
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: I still have a couple of hard drive sitting around

777
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: or something. And then I guess he talked to Peter.

778
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: I thought nothing would ever come of it, and then

779
00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 1: a couple of months later he's like, yo, I got

780
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: this thing going, and really.

781
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:03,880
Speaker 2: Mass Appeal was up and running again, but with a

782
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 2: refreshed approach thanks to the help of Peter's agency experience.

783
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 2: The initial plan was to relaunch the magazine and website,

784
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,400
Speaker 2: as well as to rebrand Decon's existing assets under the

785
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 2: Mass Appeal moniker.

786
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 6: It was just an obvious thing, like let's change the

787
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 6: name overnight to mass Appeal because it's just such a

788
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 6: stronger consumer facing brand.

789
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:23,840
Speaker 2: But there was a final piece of the puzzle that

790
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 2: would take the reborn Mass Appeal to the next level. Nas,

791
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 2: a Grammy Award winning musician, entrepreneur and friend of Peter

792
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 2: and Sasha, who had actually appeared on our first cover,

793
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:39,400
Speaker 2: caught wind to the brand's revival. At the invite of

794
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 2: the duo, the former Mass Appeal cover star decided to

795
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 2: get on board and help ID eight and create a

796
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:46,840
Speaker 2: new and evolved vision for Mass Appeal.

797
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 7: Peter anew from hanging out in New York. I always

798
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 7: liked them is where a chill dude, but had this

799
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:57,439
Speaker 7: I or the tiger type of spirit to go get

800
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:01,239
Speaker 7: it and do great things. And Sasha for years and

801
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:03,959
Speaker 7: we grew up in the same area in Long Island City.

802
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:06,879
Speaker 7: We come up in the same place. I knew where

803
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 7: their hearts wat when it came to the art form,

804
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 7: to what they felt about pop culture, what they felt

805
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 7: about people, what they felt about hip hop, and they're

806
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 7: my kind of guys to get into this with. I

807
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 7: think we have a synergy and people can check the

808
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 7: pedigree and see that we're concerned about what's really happening

809
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:30,120
Speaker 7: in real time and what's pure and what's honest. And

810
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 7: people that moved the needle on things in major ways.

811
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:35,319
Speaker 6: NOAs that I had known each other for a few

812
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:37,719
Speaker 6: years prior to relaunching Mass Appeal, and we've been talking

813
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 6: about stuff to do together when we ultimately partnered. The

814
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 6: reason it happened is Kasasha respected the work we've been

815
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 6: doing at Decon, and so did NAS because I'd done

816
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 6: a music video for him and I shot some other

817
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:50,400
Speaker 6: content of a record label and we have relationships with

818
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,399
Speaker 6: artists and we have NAS. But let's keep the core

819
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,479
Speaker 6: of what mascacill stands for, which is storytelling, but let's

820
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 6: do it in the ways more traditional. So let's have

821
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 6: a magazine, let's have a website. For the first couple

822
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 6: of years we produced the magazine, I was so proud

823
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 6: of it, like as somebody who loves the graphic design

824
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 6: and loves like printed materials. We brought back the magazine

825
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 6: that didn't end up working out, which was a good

826
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 6: thing because that wasn't our path. At some point we realized,

827
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 6: like the brand is more of a storytelling vehicle. Let's

828
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 6: be less boxed in and how we tell those stories.

829
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:20,800
Speaker 6: And that's when we started to pivot more into content.

830
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 6: Let's work with brands et cetera.

831
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:27,880
Speaker 2: As Massi Peple moved into longer form content, they secured

832
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 2: partnerships with CNN Films, TBS, Netflix, and Showtime to produce

833
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:37,320
Speaker 2: documentary films and series. These included Fresh Dressed, a documentary

834
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 2: about hip hop fashion, Rapture, a multi part series that

835
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 2: profiled a swath of budding MC's, and an epic four

836
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 2: part docuseries about the rise of Wu Tang clan of

837
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 2: Mikes and men.

838
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 6: Let's bring in some directors and some creatives that we

839
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:54,439
Speaker 6: really like and let's become that engine. How are these

840
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 6: stories that led to us producing like Rapture, where we

841
00:42:57,120 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 6: developed a bunch of directors that we still work with

842
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 6: and you know it. Frush Dressed, which was his first documentary,

843
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 6: which took us to Sundance and kind of taught us,

844
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 6: I guess, sort of the ins and outs of the

845
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:08,320
Speaker 6: content business. But this was his first time like directing

846
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:11,320
Speaker 6: a project in us, like producing something of this scale.

847
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 2: As the team's film division started to make some noise,

848
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 2: it enticed Nas to deepen his involvement and try his

849
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 2: creative hand in a new discipline, starting with Your Watching

850
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 2: Video Music Box, a doc celebrating Ralph McDaniel's pioneering rap

851
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 2: video show and then Supreme Team, which examined the infamous

852
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 2: Queen's drug empire. NAS rebranded himself not only is one

853
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 2: of the top five lyricists of all time, but now

854
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 2: as an acclaimed documentary filmmaker too.

855
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:37,400
Speaker 1: He was excited.

856
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:39,479
Speaker 3: He had ideas, he wanted to do it, He wanted

857
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 3: to be involved, He want to talk to Route and

858
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:44,879
Speaker 3: so it just made sense. And same with Supreme Team.

859
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 3: Like he's referenced Supreme Team in his rhymes. He grew

860
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:51,800
Speaker 3: up in Queens. He understands the weight of the story.

861
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 7: From unsung heroes to the most popular cats out there.

862
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 1: We're very interested in their stories.

863
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:02,879
Speaker 7: We're interested in and Ralph McDaniels because how important he

864
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:06,240
Speaker 7: is to the culture. And he's the first person bringing

865
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,360
Speaker 7: New York City the faces of the artist they loved.

866
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,360
Speaker 7: The kids were not seeing these people until Ralph McDaniels

867
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 7: put them on Public Assets Channel. It just felt like

868
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 7: a match made in heaven. I was honored.

869
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 3: You know, he's someone that those folks and I put

870
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 3: in quotes. Trust you know, you're not dealing with like

871
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 3: regular people on the street. You're dealing with serious heavyweights,

872
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 3: and I think that because Nas has referenced them with

873
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 3: a level of respect for distance. At the same time,

874
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 3: I think they appreciated his reporting. He's being a documentarian

875
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 3: in his rhymes, mentioning these folks talking about their legacies

876
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:48,880
Speaker 3: and their dynasties. So that's another project that simply just

877
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 3: made sense that he was enthusiastic about. So I think

878
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 3: he himself is surprised, but he's surprised in a way

879
00:44:55,160 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 3: where he is really happy with this new direction that

880
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:01,839
Speaker 3: he's been, you know, messing with.

881
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 2: As mass Apeel looks to the future, they continue to

882
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 2: seek ways to expand their impact. Kicking off at the

883
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:13,839
Speaker 2: end of twenty twenty two, Mass Appeal began a multi

884
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 2: year celebration of hip hop's fiftieth birthday under the title

885
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 2: hip Hop fifty, orchestrating a litany of content and irl

886
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 2: activations that have only just started to be revealed. So

887
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 2: hip Hop fifty is a.

888
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 6: Global movement to celebrate the fiftieth aniversi of hip hop.

889
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 6: The goal is that this becomes that large scale global

890
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 6: celebration of hip hop culture that lasts for multiple years.

891
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:38,400
Speaker 6: So we launched it last year and it's dozens of

892
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 6: different partnerships with different companies that have either historically been

893
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 6: deeply connected to hip hop or we see as a

894
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 6: great extension like Carnegie Hall, for example, isn't a brand

895
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:51,799
Speaker 6: that's been connected to hip hop culture, you know, but

896
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 6: they're a place that hip hop should be celebrated.

897
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 2: Another brand extension the team is focused on moving forward

898
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,760
Speaker 2: is broadening their global flop print. Mass Biel has begun

899
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 2: to look to open offices outside the US, with an

900
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 2: eye on Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, and India, with ambitions

901
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:10,360
Speaker 2: of sourcing local musical talent.

902
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 6: At some point, we realized we cannot truly be one

903
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 6: of the voices of hip hop if we're just thinking

904
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 6: about hip hop from a New York's sensibility. Had to

905
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 6: look at telling stories that were bigger than just in

906
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 6: our backyard. And when we started to talk about different

907
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 6: places we could park the mascil flag, one day, I

908
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:28,880
Speaker 6: just suggested India because we got a script for this

909
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 6: movie called gully Boy, which is the story of this

910
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 6: artist Divine, who ended up being our first artist we

911
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:35,000
Speaker 6: partnered with in India. But it's kind of like the

912
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 6: eight mile of India, Rags to Rich's Super aspirational story

913
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 6: of this artist, Divine, who came from the slums of India.

914
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 6: It came in because Nas was his favorite rapper, so

915
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:46,160
Speaker 6: they wanted Nas to ep the film we partnered with.

916
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 6: Divine started partnering with other artists and India very quickly

917
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 6: and went from like where do we go?

918
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 1: What are we doing? To like India.

919
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:02,400
Speaker 2: Today, mass Peel drastically different from the downtown graffitisine it

920
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 2: started as, but even as the brand branches out into film, television,

921
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 2: and music, it's commitment to telling authentic stories rooted in

922
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 2: hip hop culture remains the same.

923
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:15,799
Speaker 3: We do film, we do TV, we do podcasts, we

924
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 3: do marketing, we do advertising, we do a bit of everything,

925
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,360
Speaker 3: and it's become a brand that has real legacy.

926
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: I think it's awesome. I'll be watching Netflix like one

927
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:29,800
Speaker 1: in the morning and see a fucking massive heel logo

928
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:31,800
Speaker 1: and the show that I had no idea what was

929
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: going to be there, and fucking puts a smile on

930
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 1: my face like a proud parent. I think it's awesome.

931
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:39,439
Speaker 3: For the longest time, we didn't have people who could

932
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:43,440
Speaker 3: advocate for certain stories, and I feel great about what

933
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 3: we've been able to do. In terms of telling these

934
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:50,440
Speaker 3: stories at a high level, real polished, real thought, real

935
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 3: art direction, real consideration, great archive bal like I think

936
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:57,920
Speaker 3: we brought that to the game, and I don't know

937
00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:59,760
Speaker 3: who else is really doing what we're doing.

938
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:08,399
Speaker 2: For more than twenty five years and over its many iterations,

939
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 2: Massapeel is retained at potent through line a reverence for

940
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 2: documenting outsider culture and investing in the most dynamic creators

941
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:18,760
Speaker 2: of tomorrow. From the days of celebrating their graffiti gods,

942
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 2: to birthing a definitive canon of documentary films, to developing

943
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:25,760
Speaker 2: a roster of musical talent, to now spearheading the fiftieth

944
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 2: anniversary celebration of hip hop and taking the brand global,

945
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 2: Massafield remains dedicated to finding culture's most important, untold stories

946
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:37,799
Speaker 2: and platforming them with care and consideration. When Adrian and

947
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:40,359
Speaker 2: Pat titled the magazine way back in nineteen ninety five,

948
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 2: they did so with tongue in cheek, an ironic nod

949
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:44,840
Speaker 2: to their fringe Passion project.

950
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: But over the.

951
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 2: Years, from Sasha opening the editorial aperture to Peter and

952
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 2: NAS's work securing broadcast deals around the world and blasting

953
00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:56,240
Speaker 2: the content to every home. Together, the team has willed

954
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:59,320
Speaker 2: mass appeal in all its authentic glory, from the tuose

955
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 2: recesses of downtown Cool to today earnestly living up to

956
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:07,320
Speaker 2: its name. And so now not only is the money,

957
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,839
Speaker 2: but also the fame and the respect growing like mass

958
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 2: appeal from Idea Generation. I'm Noah Callahan Bever and this

959
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 2: is the All Angles Podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode,

960
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 2: please don't hesitate to like comment DM or tell a

961
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 2: friend to tell a friend about Idea Generation and the

962
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 2: All Angles Podcast. We can't do any of this without

963
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 2: your help, and honestly, your support means everything. We do

964
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 2: this for you, and we can't do it without you.

965
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:48,920
Speaker 2: This episode was brought to you by Will Packer. Executive

966
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:52,359
Speaker 2: produced by John Valachick and Helena Ox. Original music by

967
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 2: Valentine Fritz, Edit and sound mixed by Nonsensible Production, and

968
00:49:56,280 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 2: hosted by me Idea Generation founder Noah Callahan Bever. Idea

969
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 2: Generation's All Angles is a Willpacker Media podcast