2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Session A:
Hip Hop - Extending Culture to V-Commerce and E-Commerce
Hip Hop is more than a musical trend. In economic terms it represents huge clothing sales, millions of concert tickets a year as well as an endless array of paraphernalia. Hip Hop is at the core of youth culture and it is not surprising to find that a growing list of web enterprises have emerged to reach this audience. Can Hip Hop turn into E and V-commerce? Will Hip Hop kids turn into broadband customers? In this session, we will explore with leaders in the field, the entertainment and commerce strategies of the Hip Hop sites on the Net.
Chas Walker, Principal, hookt.com
Selwyn Hinds, Chief Creative Officer, Executive Vice President and Editorial Director of 360hiphop
Garth Trinidad, Chocolate City
Michael Schultz, Imajimation
Claude Brooks, C To The B Productions
Maxie D. Collier, Publisher, Son#1 Media, Moderator
Charles Walker currently serves as the CSO of Hookt.com, the online e-commerce and contents site that focuses on hip-hop culture. After attending the University of Michigan, where he earned a Bachleor of Science in Mechanical enigineering, he went on to Harvard Business School where he received his Masters of Business Administration. As an enigineeer by training Mr. Walker went on to work as a biochemical engineer at Bristol-Meyers Squibb in Indiana, where he working in new product development engineering and marketing. During his time with Bristol-Meyers Squibb he was granted a patent for designing innovative instruments to be used in hip replacement surgery. He also gained experience in production, auditing personnel and inventory control among other things. In 1987 Walker made his move into the business field when he was recruited as an associate with Bankers Trust where he worked in conjunction with the Management Buyout group in London. This prepared him for his consulting position in 1988 with Citibank International, Abidjan, Ivory Coast. There he developed a country fund concept aimed at facilitating private capital flows to West Africa. Later in 1988, Lehman Brothers recruited Chas as a generalist Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Finance associate. During his tenure there he executed numerous transactions in M&A, debt and equity financings, financial advisory and restructurings. At Lehman Walker grew to serve as a Senior Vice President and senior member of the Leveraged Finance Group, and served as a member of the investment committee of Strategic Resource Partners. Through Strategic Resource Partners, Walker structured and marketed the fund to prospective investors and negotiated the commitments worth, at least, $75 million. From 1996 to 1997 Walker evaluated over 30 transactions and made six bridge loan commitments with the SRP. Aside from Walker's employment in the business world, he is also a founding partner of Williamsburg Equity Group (WEG), an investment company that specializes in real estate, gaming and leisure investments. WEG led to the structuring and capitalization of Motown Café-Las Vegas with Boston Ventures and Gotham LLC. Chas serves as a minority partner in Mowtown Café, a shareholder of Gotham LLC and is an investor and director of Intercontinental Life Insurance Company, the largest insurance company in Senegal. Prior to his work with Hookt.com, Chas served as Managing Partner of East 46th Street Partners. EFSP advised in financings totaling $26 million. Walker structured and negotiated joint ventures and strategic alliances with Malaysian, Taiwanese and US based corporations.
Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is the Chief Creative Officer, Executive Vice President and Editorial Director of 360hiphop. Prior to joining 360hiphop, Mr. Hinds was the Editor-In-Chief of The Source. Mr. Hinds began his career at The Source in 1995 as Music Editor. Under Hinds’ editorship The Source more than doubled its circulation, becoming the number-one selling music magazine on America’s newsstands, and the most respected print media voice for the world’s most powerful and pervasive youth culture. Mr. Hinds’ editorial work gained further recognition when The Source garnered its first National Magazine Award nomination in the category of General Excellence for the year 1999. Mr. Hinds is an internationally recognized expert on hip-hop music and culture whose commentary has been featured in print, television and radio, including BBC, CNN, BET, ABC, NBC, MTV, The New York Times, and The LA Times. Mr. Hinds is also a well-traveled lecturer and has delivered speeches and conducted forums at several institutions, including Princeton University, The S.I. Newhouse Communication School at Syracuse, and Northwestern University. Prior to his work at The Source, Mr. Hinds wrote extensively for The Village Voice, where he received a 1994 Writing Fellowship. His articles and criticism have also appeared in Vanity Fair, Spin and Vibe, among other periodicals. Mr. Hinds is a graduate of Princeton University with degrees in English and African-American studies. Currently, he is working on his first book, Gunshots In My Cookup, Bits and Bites of a Hip-Hop Caribbean Life, to be published by Pocket Books, Simon and Schuster in 2001.
Maxie D. Collier, Son#1: Mediamaker-Author-Entrepreneur Maxie D. Collier has fifteen years of publishing experience and over ten years of film and video production experience. In the mid-80’s, he founded a successful desktop publishing company and published a quarterly magazine serving the mid-Atlantic region. He began his television career in 1990 as an employee of Black Entertainment Television (BET). While working at BET, Collier began writing, producing, and directing short films and music videos, with his eye on feature films. In 1993, he produced the award-winning short supernatural thriller, Mind Games. Then finally, in 1996, Collier co-produced his first feature, Detention. And later the same year, he wrote, produced and directed the feature, Hacks. In October 1998, he launched the highly popular DV Filmmaker’s Website (www.dvfilmmaker.com) and self-published The DV Filmmaker’s Handbook, a book considered "the definitive guide to digital filmmaking." In June 1999, he licensed the book to IFILM, one of the Internet’s leading online distributor of short and feature films. Maxie briefly worked as Senior Editor for IFILM during the company’s formative period. In October 1999, he left his position to formally launch Son#1 Media, a media company specializing in quality content that educates, inspires, and entertains niche markets worldwide. As a result of these unique projects and experiences, Collier has become a popular guest speaker at film festivals, conferences and schools across the country. Additionally, he has been an instructor for the prestigious UCLA Extension where he initiated digital filmmaking workshops and classes that are proving to be some of the programs most popular curriculums ever. Collier is currently working on Paper Chasers, a documentary film about hip-hop entrepreneurship that follows Collier and a group of friends as they travel across country interviewing hip-hop business owners finding success in music, film, fashion and the Internet. The film is financed by Next Wave Films, an Independent Film Channel company. The project will be supplemented by PaperChasersTV.com, a website devoted to the business of hip-hop culture. Additionally, a revised edition of The IFILM DV Filmmaker’s Handbook will be published by Lone Eagle Press in November 2000. The Paper Chasers Handbook, a guide to hip-hop entrepreneurship, will be published in the summer of 2001.