EYL #25 Hometown Hero

An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States

Leave now.

Under President Trump, America's laws, border and families will be protected.

Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Hey guys, welcome back Earn Your Lisia episode twenty five century, quarter of a century, quarter of a century. So today's a very special episode.

A special now, yeah, very very special, very bad, but I'll give some some background.

So, first of all, thank you for your support. Earn Your Lesia podcast is one of the top business podcasts, not in America, in the world global now in six months. It's very humbling. It's very rare to be in the top five percent of all podcasts in the world when it's over nine hundred thousand podcasts. So first and foremost, we cannot do that without you guys support, So thank you,

But I'll give you a quick background.

So Simone Mayor is an entrepreneur and she also is part of Curly Girl Collective. So Curly Girl Collective they have an event called curl Fest. So curl Fest is a festival that is done every year in New York City. To actually expanding, we'll talk about that. And previously in previous year they've had up to thirty five thousand people come to the fest.

So that's that's like bigger than basketball arenas.

No, it's huge, it's the biggest. It's the largest natural hair festival.

In the world, in the world.

Yeah, and I would probably say one of the largest hair festivals, right, I would assume period something alone.

Yeah, period period.

So it's like the Coachella. It's like the Coachella of natural hair.

Yeah, and natural beauty. We like to say natural beauty because it's broader than just hair.

But wait, we love that the part that she's from the town of Green No, no, get to that.

So it's very it's very rare to have a top podcast.

It's very rare to have up to thirty five people, thirty five thousand people come to a festival and have one of the top festivals in America, in the world. But it's extremely rare to actually go to high school and grow up with somebody. So we all come from the same neighborhood. We all went to high school together. So congratulations and yeah, as I said, it's extremely rare that you know, we can sit here and have this conversation. She's doing big things before us, long before she was

Hometown hair Homecoming Part two. We have valid one. It comes home coming party for sure.

So yeah, we come from a special place.

Man.

A lot of people are doing good things. So yeah, that's dope. It's really dope. So first and foremost, thank you for coming.

Welcome, Welcome. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

So we're gonna we're gonna jump right into it. As I said, the natural If you're not familiar, the hair care industry is huge. It's a billion dollar industry, right, especially black women's hair. I think it saying. I've read somewhere that the haircare industry, black women make up eighty five percent of the dollars that are put into the haircre industry.

Right, it's huge. It's like billions of dollars. Right.

So for years it's been on the side of changing your hair like perms and relaxers and things of that nature. But now it's been a shift in the culture and in the world really where now people are moving away

So as a young girl growing up, like, can you talk about the.

Psychology of hair and how hair really plays a major part in women's lives and yeah.

Self esteem one.

So the psychology of hair, that's a big one. So I'll give you a high level idea. So for black women here is bigger than just hair, right. It represents skewed perceptions of beauty that we have been fed since we were two years old.

It represents, you.

Know, everything that the society deems as innately black or African, as unkempt, not beautiful. All of these things, from our dark skin to our kinky hair, our nose, our texture of our hear, all of these things have been we

Of absorb these type of ideals.

And you may not even know. So for hair, for Black women, especially, It represents a lot of pain. Sometimes it represents beauty what we consider beautiful, what men or society or the media considers beautiful with us. So it's yeah, it's it's more than just hair. And I say that all the time that Curly Girl Collective, even though it says curly or the or curl Fez is presumably about hair, it's much large. It's a much larger conversation. Curl Fez

Yeah, because I mean systemically for years and we're eighties babies and we set this kind off camera, but the image of beauty has always been a European ideal. Yea, it was straight here, it was very slim, so like when you were growing up, it was Barbie dolls and it was sports illustrated magazines and none of the women look like you. And over the past i'd say ten years,

Yes, slowly changing the conversation. And we still have some ways to go, yeah, for sure.

So let's go into some numbers. So, as I said, eighty African American or black women represent eighty five percent of the beauty industry, even though we're fourteen percent of the total population of the United States, right, So and then also they estimate the black hair industry at two point five billion dollars industry and that's not even including wigs.

Yeah, so it's kind of undervalue because it doesn't include wigs and weaves. And you know, we have mothers and we have sisters, so we know, like that's a huge part of the industry. It's expensive extensions, braids, all these things. The amount that it costs to put these things in your hair, right, So from a beautiician standpoint, and the amount of money that is sold in those salons, like

The Absolutely, we have a huge.

Power in what we end in the beauty market, and it isn't until now that we're actually using the power to change the conversation of what we want to see on the aisles represented in the media and changing the definition of what is considered beautiful. It's not until now we're seeing that we use our own power to make that shift.

Yeah, because even I was surprised by some of the numbers. So they said that relaxes are down twenty six percent, so people are moving away from that, right, but there's still so India imports six million pounds of hair to America. China imports one point five million pounds of hair.

It's a lot to American, it's a lot of here. So that's a lot of hair, right.

So it's it's really interesting because like I said a lot of times, other coach, they don't fully understand because it's different, like they the hair upkeep is different, right, So like, what do you think the average cost of maintaining here?

Because it's expensive either way.

Even if you go natural, you still got to maintain naturally, right, and then if you if you're not natural, then you obviously have to maintain that as well. So I've seen I've heard women say five hundred dollars a month, six hundred dollars a month, seven hundred dollars a month. Like what would you from your friends your personal experience, what have you seen as far as.

Like average just buying natural hair products a loon or hair products a loon, you can spend several hundred dollars a month.

I think that's easy.

It's the average product is maybe between ten and twenty five dollars.

So what product are we talking about? Like what are we buying? Is it like shampoos or conditioners? Like what are we doing?

Shampoos, conditioners made specifically for your hair type, curling creams, twist out creams.

I can list what we call it. We call it product junkies.

In a natural hair world, that I could have a full closet full of natural hair products and I get access to a lot of them, and I'm still in the beauty supply store buying products, trying to find new things that work with my our hair. And part of that is because, especially for natural hair women, we're relearning how to work with our hair after years of not being able to use it or or understand how to make our hair look beautiful when we walk out the

Leads to us.

Yeah, you said something very important. You said that you know, we're the biggest consumers of hair right the United States and Black culture for sure, but we don't have any We don't supply it though, which is kind of weird, right, Like you would think that because we use it so much, that we would actually have independent agencies and companies coming out with products to supply. Why do you think that's not happening in our community.

To supply hair or the hair products vote.

We do have some black owned hair products, and we try to promote them as much as we can we don't have as many in the mainstream as we would like because of a number of reasons, access to capital to be able to produce products at the level and at the scale that you would need to to get it into the big stores. However, Target and big brands are seeing the need for that, and you see the change.

You'll see right at the end cap.

You'll see hair products made by one person, a black woman, like let's say Eating Bodyworks, for instance, made by a young black woman when she was sixteen years old, in Target, or all sorts of other things. There's the Shamee Moistures of the World, also made by black men. Richard lu Dennis.

Yeah, I mean yeah, we actually researched that as well. And one of the things is that, yeah, like you said, Target, Walmart, they're all starting to incorporate natural hair products.

And even other companies.

Are like Loreal and Revel, but like Loreal, they own dark and lovely in their own carter daughter. They bought Carroll's daughter in Reveel. I think Cream of Nature they own. So that's a little discouraging on a certain level, right, because it's like the kind of question. They're catering towards black women's hair from black companies, but they don't they own those companies, so they still are control of the marketplace, even though I mean it's good that they're starting to

I think how my friends became my business partners and started this was a little serendipitous in a way. I've always been kind of passionate about diversity and black people and all of these things and creating avenues for us, and so it's always been kind of something what of a passion of mine. And how we came together, it was just like minded individuals. And when I say that, I mean reaching out to our network. I didn't know there are five of us in Curly Girl collective. Two

That we couldn't get from googling reviews on a hair product, right, So.

We did that and then twenty twenty eleven was our very first event. We decided to bring it to the masses. We didn't have really any experience. Three of the members weren't advertising. I come from an IT background, another member came from risk management background. And what we all had a vision and we felt like the energy in this room and this small apartment in Brooklyn that we came randomly came together. There are other people out there that

It was great.

Maybe three hundred people came and nothing but family and friends and friends of what was.

The first event?

Like what was it?

It was called Collective Expression, still my very favorite event. We randomly, somehow got a nice high rise duplex in Manhattan for free, just by reaching out to our network and communicating. And we didn't put a deck together from pictures from the Brooklyn apartment. We didn't have anything. We had an idea. We had pictures of what we could do. We had some emails where we co called a bunch of sponsors and our connects, and one.

Of them stuck.

We did some groundwork.

We did some groundwork. Yeah, we got the place for free. We didn't have any money.

All of the sponsors said no, and so one sponsor, Miss Jesse's, was the only sponsor that said yes.

She came.

They brought their whole entire crew, brought products for everybody that came. We had what we call a big chop at the event, which a young lady who had a natural perm cut off of her hair.

At the event, Miss Jesse's did that. It was great.

We had raffles, it was just a great photo ops, all sorts of things, and it was just a really great experience. And from then that's where Curly Girl Collective kind of was born. And for the next few years we had small events three hundred and two hundred people, and then twenty fourteen curl Fest was born.

And from there, so.

Now we're gonna go into into carol Fest and how it actually blew up. All right, So we got the backstory, and I'm glad you said that because people a lot of times even with our podcast. They're like, oh, how did y'all just blow up overnight? But nothing happens overnight, right, They just see the success and they think that it happens overnight. So they see thirty twenty thirty five thousand people coming to your events and they're like, how did

You just steadily grew it.

So you said in twenty fourteen, that's when it that's when everything changed.

Right, Yes, So how did it?

Because we're gonna talk about the festival because this is this is another top We talked about hair, but I think the festival industry within itself is a very interesting topic didn't cover because festival is huge right now. Look at Coachella, Essence Festival. It's a bunch of different festivals happens. Yeah, it's a bunch of Yeah, Governor's Ball, there's a bunch of different stuff.

No, no, what's it called the Jordia Miami Smoking Loud, smoking, rolling loud, rolling loud, rolling lou in loud.

So it's a bunch of different festivals right now. And obviously it's a business, it's an industry. People are obviously making money, but do it if they weren't making it?

Right?

But it's a process to go to that, And a lot of times people get intimidated because they see something like Essence Festival right shout out to Essence, But Essence is a huge brand, so they look at it like, well, I can't do that because Essence already has millions of dollars in their bank and they you know, they have millions of influences and people, so little old me can't

Sure?

So at twenty fourteen was the first year that curl Fest came.

We thought up the name.

It really just came because we didn't fit in any more New York spaces, right they were capped at three hundred. There were men that wanted to come, there were more people. They would sell out in minutes and we had to demand we had a strong brand at the time, which is also very important people would recognize our brand, the Curly Girl Collective brand.

Prior to that, were you're doing it in like club? Where were the events at health.

Various spaces in New York I don't have the name, but they were very They weren't really clubs but lounges. Right. We had one at TAJ Lounge in twenty first that was that was a great event. Yeah, and it was great, and we had really good feedback with that, and we we were we pride. We were proud of ourselves with our creativity, and part of what we felt made us

Right, or that's pretty that's pretty good.

Yeah, those are like at that time, it's like real following, right, you can reach.

Right, So, and we just reached out to our following and we at that time we had maybe two sponsors that said yes for curl Fest. It was a concept that we put time and effort into creating what we wanted to see in the space.

And yeah, that was it from there.

From going from the first curl Fest, which guarded maybe fifteen hundred people at most, we were ecstatic about that. It grew exponentially over the years to the next year maybe four or five thousand, the next year seventy five hundred, and then the following year was about twenty thousand, So we did a huge jump, right, and last year it was about thirty five so and we attribute.

A lot of that to just social media.

Branding, reaching out and pitching to appropriate press, and also being true to our vision. I think what is very transparent and unique about Earlier is that we are the creators and we are the customer. We know what the customer wants to see at the event because she is me and I am her. So we listen to our customer and then that's part of what makes us authentic. And that authenticity is transparent to our customers as well.

So you said branding, right, because that's very important, right, And even with your logo you said people identify.

We talked about it.

We did a social media episode a couple of weeks ago, and I said one of the things that I said was that people are more likely to attach themselves and follow a brand than an individual person. And I kind of used my Instagram page versus earn leigious Instagram page where earn your legions growing at a faster rate than my personal Instagram page, And it's just human nature. I think people are more likely. So who, how did you come up with the brand? How did you push the brand?

Like?

What was the backstory on neck? I know you said that some of you guys had background in marketing.

Right yep, most of the most of the Curly Girl Collective had a background and advertising of some sort and melody. She's the creative director and that's what she does for a living. At the time, she was a creative director and would do commercials for various.

Companies like home goods and all these things.

And she was the top creative director in New York on the on the East Coast, and she would make it her duty also to make sure that there was representation in outside of Curly Girl Collective in just the general media and any kind of project that she put her hands on. And so we were blessed to be able to have a good mix of talents within Curly Girl Collective already. So sh it was her vision to make sure that our brand is represented what we wanted

There was not a space, and we created one. Right.

There was not there was, There was not and still isn't a natural beauty festival dedicated to women of color. It doesn't exist. We created that space. There wasn't a events at that time catered for women of natural hair with natural hair in twenty eleven when we started Curly Girl Collective and we created that space. So it was more just listening to our audience, hearing the need. Where there's where there's a need, there's a market, right, So we listened to that and push forward.

And we saw you said on the first event, you had one sponsor say yes missus Jassic carrec up until now this year's how many.

Sponsors we got maybe thirty five or forty, thirty.

Five or forty. So at this point the sponsorships just coming in and you guys have to figure out who matches the brand or how do you what's the process of getting sponsors and saying yes, this matches with our vision and I'm not sure that this matches.

So Gia is the sponsorship director on our team as well, and we put time into creating packages and decks and put that together to identify what our our worth is and we actively reach out to brands.

Still it is a.

Little easier easier with quotes to get brands to pay attention to us now because of our history, but we still actively outreach to brands, whether and you, and we're moving trying to leave broaden the space, so our not just beauty brands, moving into trying to get telecommunication brands, right, alcohol brands, transportation, all of these things, all of these different industries, and it's sometimes it's starting from scratch right start,

So you mentioned it DAK, right, because a lot of times people don't know. We actually recently found out what the DAK was. We didn't know what the dark was, right. So DAK if anybody's not familiar, it's like a one page or two page or it's just a it has information like how many people come to your event and the demographics of your event and stuff like that right where you you present it to companies, and it's kind of like a one page of like a resume, like pretty much.

For you, that's a fair comparison. It's like a resume.

Yeah.

So but this is all stuff that a lot of times you just learn on the fly. You don't know how to do it right. So that's just one of the things with our show. We weren't just trying to educate people as much as possible because, like I said, even us, we're still learning stuff as we go.

Right.

So you put together that right, which I just kind of explained what it is. But you can google and kind of get templates on how to make a deck. What's the process of reaching out to a company, because you can just eat randomly, email somebody or call somebody, But like, how do you get in front of it? It's hard, especially the larger companies. Right, how do you break the gatekeepers and get in front of somebody that can actually make a decision to sponsor your event?

Like, how what's the process?

So there's there's no cookie cut away to do it right, It's a long process from just cold calls and cold calls going into LinkedIn and finding people in that business that you can speak to, networking, reaching out to your network. There's no easy way to get in front of the right person to be able to say yes or to find interest in your brand. It is a process that you have to massage. It took us years to get a yes from Target. Target is one of our biggest brands.

Period.

So y'all, y'all hit numbers that they couldn't ignore. Right, you have thirty five thousand people in the park. We have to pay attention.

These are qualified leads, right. These are people that are not here to see a music brand. They're here because they want to talk beauty.

That is your customer.

That's so incredible, Like there's no featured artists, Like, it's y'all on stage. It's y'all in thirty five thousand people and y'all getting busy up on stage. I want to go back to something really quick, because I think people kind of have a misconception about how these festivals work, the amount of time you have to put in right, so you're not just thinking of in May, hey we're going to do this festival. Right, Like I kind of we got it behind the scenes. We said, like how

Absolutely, yeah, when one is over, maybe there's a couple of weeks. But even even in that those couple of weeks, we're still doing a lot of follow up from the year prior, from the festival that was a week ago. So it literally takes a year. There are months that really start to pick up. And I would say I would be yeah, I would be lying for I said anything less than a year. It's that it took to really from beginning to end to flesh out at full festival.

Another thing I wanted to ask in regards to marketing and getting sponsorships, you said you had mentioned that you reached out to the press, right, so do you have a PR firm that you work with or like what's the processidentther thing that we're learning about as well, like how do you what's the process of reaching out to press? How do you determine which press you should reach out to? Like what's that process?

So we don't have a PR firm.

We do everything a lot of I say ninety percent of everything ourselves. And Shariz who was as one of the members as well. Who's house is pr We would do anything from press releases, paying for that right, reaching out cold to and and creating. You have to create the story for them. Press is looking for content, but you have to make yourself feel attractive to them and

Right.

Yeah, the Forbes article, the business behind and the growth, right, But we wanted certain press we want to get unless they said yes to a story that they felt was attractive and related to their audience. So it depends. Huffington Post came and covered the event. Uh, it's great that we're the largest and you know natural Beauty Festival.

That's a pitch that we can use.

You know, you guys have a great podcast, you know, the top podcast right now so in business, so that's that's something that people are interested in. So it's really just finding out what is going to be attractive to that specific press. Line it up, create that pitch and send it to them and they will pick it up. Not every time you would get a lot of notes. You may get a yes, we get we got a few yeses, and as you get more yeses, the more yeses are gonna come.

So you actually make you write an article and send it to them like the articles already written or the format of the articles already written.

It's more like a pitch that so we'll put like there's a decon of pitch. Sure, but it's it's not a formal deck. It's it's an informal deck. And you have a conversation. I want to pitch this idea to you. I want to pitch this idea and this is the this is the spin on it. This is the largest festival in the world run by five black women.

You need to have this.

Okay, I'm interested, tell me more right. Then you have a conversation about Okay, this is what we can do.

They want to work with you as long as it makes sense to them.

But you have to get that door open. So for for if there is a media avenue that tends to like great true stories or stories about women or stories about you know, you know, overnight successes, whatever the case may be. That is where you need to to reach out cold sometimes and say I have a story for you that I would like for you to run and and more often than not, if they're interested.

That's dope. Now's a lot of gyms right there. Use for information, that's the thing we try to giveing on podcasts. Use for information that people can use. In a lot of times people just don't know, Like you don't know what you don't know? Right, That's what Cole. I'll ask guests like you don't know, you don't even know the questions.

Actually to get the answers exactly.

It's so much misinformation and just not not a lack of information that people So yeah, we thank you for that. So all right, okay, moving towards the festival, right, So these festivals cost a lot of money to put on, Like roughly ballpark figure, like how much would a festival like at this point in your development, how much would that cost?

Can easily cost a million dollars to throw the festival. Yeah, between a half a million and a million dollars it probably takes to throw a festival.

So you guys have thirty five thousand last year. I'm assuming right this year, you probably would be expecting more.

Right.

Is that the why we the venue has changed from a park to Randoms Island.

There were a number of factors of why we changed to Randoms Island. Mostly it was our surrounding safety. We kind of outgrew the space and Prospect Park and we wanted to create a save space where we can control the number of attendees that come in.

There were their young children there.

I don't want that to go over their heads. You outgrew thirty five thousand.

Yeah, we outgrew.

We outgrew the space that we were in a Prospect Park for sure, and so we had to find a space that would accommodate everyone safely.

Okay, So all right, so it costs let's say a million.

So what's the process of Like what how do you raise enough money to cover that? Because obviously I would assume you have to like pay in stages, or you pay all up front, or you.

Pay like no, you pay in stages.

Like what's the cost?

What's like, So, what's some of the costs that's involved in running a festival?

You have securities, you have permit fees, you have security, you have the venue space, you have all of the requirements that are dictated by the State of New York, from the number of porter partties that you have to have down to the number of fireguards you have. These are big ticket items that add up, and every single thing in a space like a park, you have to pay for e Nothing comes there but grass, so you have to bring your electricity right down to the every signage,

Staff t shirts for the staff.

You know, meals everything. It's just stages, sound, and there are permits. There's a long list of permits to have in in Prospect Park and as you get bigger, those permits get bigger as well.

Earners. What's up? You ever walk into a small business and everything just works like the checkout is fast, their seats are digital, tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before the line even builds. Odds are they're using Square. We love supporting businesses that run on Square because it just feels seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor at a pop up market, or even one

Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratches from the California Lottery players everything. Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off field play that made the difference on the field.

Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now, Coach, one more question play than new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine ers and Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery. A little play can make your day. Peaceply responsibly must be eighteen years or older to purchase plate or claim.

This is why it takes a year.

So you're doing this in stages, like you're not doing it all in one month, obviously, like you might do Okay, we're gonna do the lightning, We're gonna lighting we're gonna do the porter parties, we're gonna do all that.

And it's like a stage.

Yeah, for most things like rentals and we have a lot of tents and stuff like that. We put a deposit down and we pay as we go. Yeah, it's not a one time thing. And sometimes sometimes the checks don't come in at the same time that your bills

When when we make these decisions.

So you said that three of the girls the founders have backgrounds and advertising and marketing. You're in it. Does anybody have a background in finance? Like, are y'all just figuring this out as you go?

You know what?

No?

And I am the finance person. Yeah, I do the book.

So I've always I had a conversation with some young girls the other day and they struggled with one thing that they struggled with was trying to figure out what they were what they can do their role. And what I told them was find out what exactly you're good at and lean into that.

Right. So I've always just been good in numbers.

I've always been good with logistics, and the role came to me and where I felt the need in Curly Girl Collected. I didn't come into here being an accountant, but I was the best with the numbers and figuring out the logistics and the permits and all of those things were my wheelhouse. That's what I do as good operations. Yeah, direct the operations.

So let me ask you this, what's the revenue model? Because we're never going to apologize for making money in business. That's what we're in business for, right. We want to support all kinds of businesses, but especially black business. But people they're looking at the festival like, okay, a million dollars, that's a lot of money.

That it goes out. How is it profitable?

Like, what's the revenue model as far as to make money from a festival just in general? Festival in general.

It's not a complex revenue model, but we make you know, this is the first year that we are have a fully ticketed event. So some of the revenue comes from ticket sales and a large portion of the revenue comes from sponsors. So it yeah, it is a very expensive event. So being mindful of our costs is something that we have to do on a daily basis.

That's me, that's my role. I'm saying no all day.

We can have a million and one beautiful things at the event, but everything costs money and it you know, so we have to be able to put make sure that we put ourselves in the position that we're not at a loss. And that is something that would be you know, my responsibility in my role to make sure that we we are in the in the black.

So this is really quick, Like so I'm hearing this like this has taking a year to do, right, and you're the operations directive for a Curly Girl collective, But this isn't like are you doing this full time or because I know you do a lot of things outside of this, right, and people always they ask like, oh, how do you have time to do this? How you have time to do that? Like you're running a full flag festival and you have another career and I always see you doing community service.

It's like it's very difficult. Hopefully this year it will be my full time. We're moving towards that. We have one member that has made that jump, and so we're moving towards that it's five of us, so it's not as easy to be able to say that we can support, but we're that's what we're scaling for. That's what We'll have another curl Fest in Atlanta. We're trying to make the event more of a weekend or a week long

Yeah, there's a Sunday.

Sunday Scape Party.

Yep.

We're exploring a couple of different other revenue streams as well from all of our merchandising, food and beverage and all sorts of things that we haven't really put a lot of energy into that we're that we are moving towards as well. So it is it is a lot. It is not easy to have another full time job and try to create and run two festivals.

It is a stretch.

If I were to say, if I were to give advice to anybody, it would be to know when.

You it's okay to ask for help.

We have been doing this on our own for a long time, and so much that we get to a place every single year that everybody stretched beyond you know, we do a lot of people and would look at Crowfest and think there's a big corporation behind it, and

We have a.

Sustainable product and doing research and trying to get more revenue streams in so we can make this our full time and only thing and nurture it like.

We need to.

Yeah, ot know where So all right, so yeah, so the next segment we're going to talk about scaling, because that's the that's the next level evolution.

All right.

So now in the last part, we want to talk about scaling because you've established a very strong brand and you've done events in New York, but now you're taking the show on the road, right, But before before, before I had to just a random question knock on ward. Hopefully this never happens. I don't know if it has happened to you. But in business, we always prepare for the worst possible case scenario. So you spend a million dollars was on a festival.

If it rains, it's.

Rain shine event, And yeah, we it's it is the nature of having an outdoor event and something that we we worry about and we loose sleep about and hasn't happened. One year, it did happen, and we were somehow we're able to change the date to a later date and it actually didn't rain that day, So that happened maybe three years ago. But there, Yeah, there are a lot of horror stories that we.

Don't want to think about.

Like you know, Governor's Ball just recently had to cancel their Sunday because of lightning and evacuate everybody.

So and there's no refund for that. No, it's just you're done.

You're done.

You have you can get certain some refund for certain things. If you have cancelation insurance.

Would you sell tickets and then you got sponsors they already paid too, So it's not that bad.

I guess it's bad. Yeah.

I mean, as far as from a money standpoint, you don't lose that much money. Could you already the day of the event, you already probably made your.

Money, right, But if you had to cancel the event do the lightning, that's a whole other situation. If the event didn't even happen, because lightning is another thing. So it rains, Okay, it's not the greatest experience.

You move on.

If it's lightning and the patrons can't come and the event doesn't happen at all, that's a whole another bandwagon.

That's when you've got to get like cancelation insurance.

That's when you have to you should have cancelation insurance regardless, and that's when you may be able to recoup some things. You know, sponsors would probably want their money back or some case, but you have to.

Yeah, that's where cancelations.

Cancelations, But that's not gonna happen.

What you have to prepare for.

You prepare for it.

Like I said, we prepare for everything. So cancelation insurance, Okay, I wasn't aware of that. That's that's interesting. So they have they have insurance for those kind of situations.

Exactly, and y'all knew that, like what all y'all learned that on the.

Way we learned that, we learned that we didn't. Yeah, we learned that within the last few years. Is actually a lot of these things that we learned as as the event grew, it became more from a small outdoor picnic to actual festival with a whole another list of logistical things that we didn't have to deal with before that we have to deal with now.

All right, So the brand is scaling right New York City is July twenty.

Seventh, July twenty seven.

Road taking it to the city of Atlanta.

To the city of Atlanta in the fall of this year. We're very excited about it.

We made that jump.

We've been talking about it for a long time and we're doing it. We are having an event on the twenty eighth, right after curl Fest called.

Roller Set twenty eighth of July.

Twenty eighth of July that would be at the Lafrax Center in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

We're excited about that too.

So, yeah, we're scaling, We're we're we're putting our feelers out there making sure that we have a place here to stay, So that's.

What we're So how do you how do you know?

Like cause you said even internationally, you thinking about going internationally tool, So like how do you test the market? Like do you do small events first to see how hot you are? Or you just jump in and just say, like, how do you know? Obviously you see you see your numbers like on Instagram or definitely can see your numbers. That's why we check our numbers. We know, like our biggest market is New York, our second business market, the biggest market is Atlanta.

That's what you do too, Like, yeah, I would say proceed with some level of caution. You have to do a little bit of jumping into This year, we did an event, a small event in South Africa to test that market.

And it was Afro and beats right, yep.

Afro and Beads. It was great.

It was a brunch series a few hundred people and attendees and it was great. So we're testing that market. Hopefully you'll see a cral Fest in South Africa soon.

Yeah, So how did you do the South Africa thing?

Like they knew Instagram and stuff like that, right, So you had people in South Africa already or we.

Had people in South Africa. Tracy was living there for some time and people did know about curl fests in South Africa, so that was great and they wanted to work with us, and there was If you don't know, there's a lot of conversation and unrest around natural here in South Africa especially, there's a lot of laws right going on, the schools, all of that. So it's a hot topic and they need that and so we want

You got people coming from all over the world to New York for the event, right, What are some countries that are represented.

Out the curl Fest.

We've had people from Brazil, from Ghana, from lots, from London, all across America. We have surveys that show, you know, where these our attendings are coming from. It surprises us every time that we see people are traveling, and it also lends to the to the fact that there's a need that exists. You know, there's nothing out there like that. People are coming just for the feeling. They're not coming to see a show. They're coming to feel what it feels like to be in a place where everyone around

So all right, So Atlanta, Atlanta is definitely happening. That's happening.

It's happening where else where else are you are? Do you have any other ideas and you think about growing going to.

Yeah, we'd like to do a crow fest in the Caribbean. We'd like to do there's a couple of low hanging through We love to do a curl fest in London and a curl fest in Africa could be in Ghana. There was a whole back to Africa movement this year. This year is the year of the Return in twenty nineteen, four hundred years from slavery, so it's a big deal. There was something called Afrochella and Ghana this year which was huge. So yeah, we want to we want to be able to.

Make those things.

That's dope.

I love that you're thinking globally because I was just telling Troy the other day, like we got a DM from somebody from Saudi Arabia. He lives in Europe. Shout

Over the world content and multiple of cultures too. Everybody has an idea, yeah what beauty is. So like, just to expand on that narrative is important.

That's important. Shout out to the UK. We're going to do something in London. We're coming with you, coming with you, that's a fact. We're going to Jamaica.

And I think Jamaica's on top of the list.

I think it's a nice Yeah, shout out to some own.

And Troy of both Jamaican So.

Shout a DR shout at the We are number two on the podcast charts in DR.

Oh really, number two podcasts.

Surprise Man, Lord of the Slums, Fernando, shout out to him. He was a guest. He's from d All. He's doing his thing in Jersey right now. He's a real estate mogul. So yeah, shout out to Dr MANH. Yeah, I gotta brush up on my Spanish. Got a few more Dikman trips. That's gonna happen, all right, So how can the people contact you? How can they, you know, get in information on the event? Yeah, what's your social media handles? All that stuff?

Okay?

So social media is Curly Girl Collective on Instagram c U R L Y G I R L C O L l E c T I v E. And then on Twitter is I Love CGC and Facebook is Curly Girl Collective and follow us. We have tickets dropping again soon. We look out for Atlanta tickets dropping our roller set. We have a lot of surprises, a lot of sponsors, a lot of giveaways. Other events that we haven't even announced yet are coming down the pipeline.

So yes, haven't been and when when's the event in New York?

What day is that against July.

Twenty seventh on Saturday. And Randall's Island, it is Randall's Island is accessible by a car or pedestrian walkway because a lot of people do confuse it. Now there's a lot of islands in New York governance. So it is Randall's Island, very close to Harlem, and you can walk for one twenty Fish Street right over, a fifteen minute walk and you reach the islands. And our roller set is a prospect park and a roller set, a roller skating rink called a FRAC Center and Prospect.

Park, and it's men are welcome as well, right.

Men are more than welcome. We more men are more than welcome.

So much that we have we have seen within the last couple of years our demographic change and our men attendance has definitely increased. So we have features and sponsors just for you men. We have products just for men in our gift bag. So you're more than welcome. Bring your children, bring your wives, find a wife.

Kids under that's a boy. Kids under six are free.

Kids under six are free. Yeah yeah, oh look at that and yeah, we have giveaways.

So you may win a free ticket to curl Fest if you follow us all of that.

It's gonna be huge. It's gonna be huge.

Yeah.

Now, definitely we got to talk the week. Definitely do some collapse for sure, because I think that you know that that's dope.

I like I said, we like it.

And this is a hometown This is a hometown homecoming. Part two.

Yeah, actually, actually someone, this is the second time I interviewed someone. I want to tell that story too. So I have a public I had a public access channel. No, I still do a story on that. So I had a public access channel. And when I first started the public access channel. Shout out to Mike, he didn't fully understand why I was doing public acts. He was like, Yo, you should just go to YouTube and we're not monetizing

So it's just dope.

So I always tell people that you don't just start at the top of the mountain. You have to work your way up. And no matter what, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if ten people are listening or a million people are listening. The most important thing is just getting content out there, valuable content that can help people.

So you know, that's crazy that you said that story, because it's like so honest, Like people have grown up with us. We'll be like, yo, Rashaw was the quietest guy. I'm like, really, he talks all the time. They're like, nah, he's always quiet. And now I'm listening, like they listen to you. Now it's like, Yo, this guy sounds ceasy, right, that's all I used to say. I'm like, nah, listen, he doesn't start trust me. And now they get to see you. That's dope that you said. That's so. That's well.

You have to talk when it's important to you're talking.

It's important to you know.

But shout out, shout out to Atlanta. We're gonna break some some some news right now.

There go.

Okay, if you follow us, you know that we we were testing our reach and we were doing networking events all over. So we did the first networking event two months ago in La and it was super dope. That was just random pop up, like two days before. We just announced it and we packed out the venue and it was dope. And then we was in Brooklyn two weeks ago and I was crazy. You can see the footage on Instagram. There was too many people in the venue.

Yeah, you're officially alumni now, so yeah, everybody comes, Yeah.

For sure, so you're gonna be able to talk to talk to them. It's gonna be dope, man, you know. And like I said, Atlanta, that's our second biggest market. That's like our home home away from home. So we got to show up to Atlanta. We gotta do it right in Atlanta. And then right after the Hills of Atlanta. I think Toronto, Canada is gonna be next, but we're gonna release information on that later on. Right now, we focused on Atlanta. So yes, yes, hit the website, get

Patreon dot com. It's moving. Shout out to our new members, Adriana and Lejellica. Uh, we just had a conversation with Dejon today. He's a part of our armed forces about you know, things that he wants to do and how we can help him. So shout out to him, and shout out to Brenda in the Bay area, who is Uh, she's got some connections that she wants us to to like, shout out to the Bay Yeah, Capitalizing coming, We're coming to should we tell.

Them not the date yet, but we are coming to Oakland.

Yeah, we're looking at the end of August to come back out to California. So we going to Oakland for sure, La, We're coming back out there. Patreon dot com Backslasher Angie a Leisure. If you want to support the podcast, it's different tiers. It's five different ones. It ranges from two thousand on up. So feel free to join that any level and continue to support the merch.

Proud to Pay that's what that's when the late great, that's what he championed, pro to Pay. Like I always said, we're going to give you the information for free. But like all things in the world, you know, the podcast, it takes money to run a podcast. It takes money to go to Atlanta and do these different events things of that nature, and go to Oakland and meet entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

So, you know, Proud to Pay that's something that you know, Patreon allows us to do and we we appreciate everybody that is buying merch that you know supports on Patreons.

It's just more and it's growing. It's growing, right We started with two members and now we're up to thirty six, So keep supporting. Like what Sha said, you know, hit any leisure dot com. Our merch is up there. We got a new campaign we're gonna be doing very soon and we're gonna be releasing actually taping it now, but we're gonna be releasing very shortly. So thank you for your support. You know how we love y'all.

Yeah, and before we leave, book Tip of the Week is The Richest Man in Babylon. That is that's a good book. It's a finance book, but it talks about, you know, a lot of common practices and uses that anybody can can you utilize, So I highly recommend that book.

And one last thing, one let's thing. We got a shout out. Since this is our beauty episode and we're talking about natal here, we got a shoutut the state of California. They were the first state to ban discrimination based on natural heir. So shout out to California. The Crown Act, that's the name of the act. So the Crown Act. They've they've been discrimination against natural heir. So shout out to California.

Yeah, and shout out to the town green Berg. Yes, Like I said, we all know each other. It's the second time we had a guest that we grew up with val shout out of Valencia. She was the first, Simone's the second. So we got to bring more people that we know personally on as well. We know everybody personally, but this is you know, high school. So yes, once again, thank you guys for rocking with us. We will see you next week. Peace Peace.

Chris Brown dropped the album this week number one album in the country, thirty six songs. I'm not did you listen to anyone? Not bounce fan, But he made some social media like Chris, I'm not saying saying that you probably didn't listen to it, and it's thirty six songs, the one with Drake got they heard that one Nicki Minaj one is kind of weak, right, and you listen to it. But he had some social media news. He made a comment that of course some I wouldn't say

Don't want to miss quote him, but he said something along the lines of I believe that he only it's interested in black women were good here.

Yeah, night women.

So he did say the night skin part, and people took offense to that, and I questioned just the thought of what good hair is. So to see people offended by it was interesting because I'm like, well, what what What did he say that was offensive in the sense that he said good here?

But then I had to think, you know, I just thought about, that's a good skapegoat that he can use, like y'all tripping.

I never said it was like what I'm saying, but I used to say, what's good here?

Simply right?

But when he says, well, what if there's no such thing as good here?

So just the concept of good here is flawed in itself.

Right, So we we grew up in the era where we right like straight here and black whatever that is good here? Right, So like I could see why women of a certain age would be offended, And then I could see why women of a certain age like a lot younger or not because they're like, we grew up in a culture where every hair is good. And like that's why I said, like, when y'all change the narrative on it now, it's like it's.

I think I think it's still like you because women stand you understand what it means.

You understand what it means.

Yeah, it's a tough one.

He's not taught. I mean I would say this in jest, he's not. I don't believe he's talking about kinky kois good hair.

I learned this, so this is something too. Like doing the research for this this interview was there was like grades of hair like four, four, three and two when I was like, I.

Had no idea, but not talking about for that's the curliest, right, that's the kinkiest.

And the reason is so difficult, and this is like going even deeper into the researcher was that because the oil can't travel from the scalp to the end of the hair, so it's it's tougher.

To right, right, And that's why people of the European straight here, they tend to have to wash their hair often because the oil does travel from the scalp to the end, so it's greasier, easier.

So that's why they have to wash their hair every day.

And you don't hear a lot of black women wash their hair every day.

They don't even want to get their hair what a lot of times?

Right?

Well, yeah, I mean and that that that is shifting as well, especially with natural hair, to change that whole, you know, because water is actually the the best moisturizer for any hair, and it's free.

They had this video this girl was like she washed her hair with shampoo, didn't wash it with conditioner, then left leaving conditioner then oil, and.

Then I'm like, that's normal that.

She was like, it takes eighty three dollars a month just to buy the products and she's doing that all yeah, and it's like, yo, that's crazy. But men are so like that eighty three dollars a month for the products, right, if we think about it, right, most guys I know get a haircut every week. Well, that's a haircut, it's the same, it's the same price week. You should be tipping your barber twenty five. Well I paid thirty five.

Really, that's a lot. That's very expensive.

That's one hundred for you spending morning the woman on natural hair.

It's not outrageous. Have special hours, oh you gets the whole barber.

I can't. I can't afford to go to Saturday more. You're around for five hours.

Those days are done here.

Nonsense, Like I can't I need to get nine o'clock in the morning on a Thursday. So we have a special relationship. So you got to pay people for that. You gotta pay. You got to overpay people.

But you're spending more than the woman who's doing the natural hair.

Absolutely not women paying one hundred dollars to get their hair done.

I'm just talking about the ship that can the I'll keep of it.

You gotta get your hair done.

That cost ye, and that's crazy, like that can range from two hundred to two thousand. Yeah my own, Yeah, that's not outrageous.

Two thousand dollars at your hair done? What are you talking about?

Not a haircut? Like if it's like.

That's still a lot.

But somebody is like, like you got Cardi B's hairstyles. I mean, but he has to have he has clients too, because he's not always going to do huh like these.

People chargings possibly.

And weaves and all that. That's tough, man.

So you don't feel so back to Chris Brown, let's go back. You don't feel that anyone should have a right to be offended.

I think women should do have a right to phil offend it. I understood why they were offended because like I said, I'm thinking from a demographic demographic of women who grew up with thinking that their hair wasn't good enough, and I think they do have a right to phil offended.

Do you also feel like every person should have a right to their own preference?

Yes, I had. This conversation is a good conversation. I spoke to a young man, he's twenty three years old, right, and I said, what's your preference? And he said, light skinned women with long hair, right. I said why, And he's like, you know, I just think that I'm attracted to him. I said, that's funny because your mother looks nothing like that. No, no, no, no, but I said, that's the first but no, look, hit me out. That's the

Right?

Yeah, perception of what you think beauty is change from what you grew up seeing.

So let me play Devil's advocate, because lgs like, oh atract what if you?

Okay, what if you there's different characteristic or different features that you may be attracted to. Right, So let's let's say somebody is attracted to a more curvacious woman. Right, that's more black in Spanish? Right, No, no, what I'm saying. But naturally a natural, you know what I'm saying. So what if what if somebody likes more full lips, that's black women, right, they like those elements. But what if they like long, straight hair. That's not that's more European, right,

Even the things you describe, the characterisists you describe, those are all features of black women, he said, Wait, let me finish, Let me finish. Whereas at a certain time, those things will look down upon the full lips, look at her big butt, like she has big chested. Now this culture that is accepted, that is what is preferred.

Whereas like exactly, but so I'm saying that's champions right, So now, but that's it.

Then what does that do to our women? It's celebrating them. It's not. I think it is not because now the woman who doesn't look like them, or can I use you, doesn't look like you, it's being championed where it's like, yo, she's had this the whole time, you feel me.

No, no, no, no, I think that supermodels for years, for supermodel for years, you have to be one hundred pounds. You can't have any curves, you can't have. That's like what they look, right, that's the look that has been put out. It's still being put out. So I think to not not. I mean there's some changing it, no, but I'm just saying the majority model they look like, right, So that's

I think that's a celebration of accepting different body types. I think that's true. What you're saying, I think is a thing.

I think you have to I think there's nothing wrong with the preference. However, you really have to get clear on the on the reason why you have this preference, and preference is not an innate thing. Preference is something that has learned behavior. So what Troy was saying is I agree with and not that you're attracted to your mother, but she is the first representation of beautiful to you in your household. And a lot of women also find the first representation of what a man should be in

Women, why is that?

But why is it that you feel the kinky here is not beautiful? Also that question as well. You may it may be hard to admit, but a lot of men who say my preference is long here, straight long here on black women also feel like the India Arias of the world are not beautiful, or there are kinky here, short hair is not beautiful, And it begs the question as to why do you feel that way? What is authentically black on a black woman is considered not beautiful.

You know, black.

Features on on on white or non black women is treasured for some men, right looked at as a trophy piece, And these are black features. So the Kim Kardashians of the world that have this curvaceous figure are black features or you know, or dark skin or on non black women, or for whatever reason, champions on not black non black women. And I think it really is a deeper question as to why, and even within ourselves. I'm not just on

So yeah, that's but also.

I think it's all about I think a lot of people, Yeah, that's that's that's programming.

But then also I think that we have to get away from that standpoint of that, like there's no one look for black people because you go to like even in Africa, right, like you go to East Africa, Somalia, their hair is real curly and more straight, where if you go to Senegal their hair is very kinky. They're both black, like you know what I mean, But there's different There's black people with blue eyes.

My son is black. He has blonde hair, naturally blond hair, so but.

It's more of a regressive trait. While he has blue eyes and blond hair. It's not authentically African or black feature. They're obviously mixes and races gives us recessive traits, and that's why we have black people with blue hair, blind eyes,

Else, it's like color is Jamaica.

It's different.

It's different though too though they were always going to track to something that's different. So all of us have brown eyes. He has blue eyes. Naturally, it's just different.

Let me look at him.

But I mean, it is, it is.

It is something that obviously, racism is very real, and racism, the effects of racism, it's ongoing. It's not just because you pass a bill and you're allowed to vote doesn't mean that psychologically what has been done for a long period of time is still it's still going on. And as you said, even in Jamaica, a lot of times people are bleaching their skins. Yeah, that's obvious, Like you're saying like that, what is going on with that? So, I mean, you know, it's it's a deep topic that

Becoming normal us, right, yeah, now, but what he's saying is one hundred percent because like as a husband, like when my wife is doing natural here right, and then like she my daughter will see that that that's beautiful. So like you won't know the effects of what you guys are doing right now, but it generationally you'll come back to look at this moment, like when you were saying India re, I remember when she was doing that,

High School, I would hope.

So, yeah, that's the vision is for us to be change agents in the beauty industry, in the space. So thank you, thank you, thank you for having me.

All right, Jisell, you can stop it now.

An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christine Noman, the United States

Leave now.

Under President Trump, America's laws, border and families will be protected.

Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,