FlickChix

F*ck Donald Trump.  Roll up. Courtesy of FlickChix

You may already know Love.Char through her sultry themed Instagram photos or seen LifeofLanie in one of her many YouTube vlogs and beauty videos.  Separately, sisters Char and Lanie have grown and leveraged their social media platforms to explore aspects within the music and entertainment journalism industries, as far as styling on set for music videos or interning at The Fader, but their platforms have also provided interesting entrepreneurial opportunities.  Char parlayed her popularity into merchandise appropriate for her cool, curly-haired lifestyle selling lighters, rolling trays, hair picks, and hair products. Lanie, on the other hand, has utilized her talent for graphic design and web development to make custom websites and banners for other social media personalities, while also designing a makeup box: Sweater Weather.  Together, they have teamed up to launch FlickChix, a one-stop shop for custom lighters.

"Char and I started FlickChix because it was the perfect way to join forces.  I'm a graphic designer, and Char had already been selling lighters with her pictures on it.  You rarely see lighters with eye catching graphics on them, so we decided to create some with the intent of people collecting them and displaying them when the lighter fluid runs out," says Lanie.

so me and my sister @lifeoflanie just launched @flick.chix, your one stop shop to dope ass custom lighters. order yours today!

A post shared by High, I'm Char (@love.char) on Aug 21, 2017 at 5:42pm PDT

Rather than buy another generic Bic lighter in a color you've undoubtedly had several times over, not to mention letting a friend steal it, head to FlickChix for a unique lighter experience. The sister's inaugural collection is politically charged, featuring a vintage Barack Obama and a sinister President Trump, although collections will change periodically.  FlickChix also offers a custom lighter service. Perhaps you wanted your own special lighters for an event or your own brand.  Customers can submit their own photos and designs, and FlickChix will create that one-of-a-kind lighter.  Your shopping for dope ass lighters begins here. Spark up in style.

C//C for ITR: Entrepreneurship and Indie Labels

Today, we pick up the conversation with Cautious Clay regarding his involvement with a young, DC record label, Proper Vibes. The traditional framework of the music industry where an artist is signed under a record label has limited artists' ability to control his/her sound and act.  Before the disruption of the internet and music streaming services, like Napster, Spotify, and SoundCloud, artists had to rely on the financing and connections of major labels to distribute their music.  As a result, artists have had to relinquish some of their artistic freedom to acquiesce to the more popular or mainstream sounds those labels try to capitalize on; however, what we've seen over the past several years is a shift in control.  Artists of all popularity have begun to cut out the intermediary record labels to start their own independent entities to distribute their art.  Not only have large independent labels, like Jay Z's Roc Nation or Top Daw Entertainment, risen to prominence, but the accessibility and innovation of the worldwide web has enabled emerging artists to form their own collectives to promote their music.  No longer is it necessary to have support from bureaucratic executives looking to take advantage of musicians, all it takes is a click of a button to make your content accessible to everyone. 

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MY: You opened up for Lido right?

JK: No, no that was Keylow.  He actually lives in this building, too.  He’s a chill dude.  He runs Musx, which is a promotional company.  It’s a music app, it has a pretty big influence.  They just did a showcase with Moving Castle, which was pretty cool.

AY: It’s funny that you mentioned that.  I think in the EDM community there’s a culture of doing things on your own.  Honestly, you guys are pushing your art and product on your own.  You have Proper Vibes and this app you just mentioned, it seems like there is this big underground community of people doing things on their own.

JK: Yea, for real.  I mean really that’s the way it is.  It’s so funny because even only being a producer for a year and a half, I feel like I’ve seen the gamut of just the major leagues to doing your own thing to being an instrumentalists and not even knowing how to produce, like I’ve seen this all since my freshman year of college and it’s just been crazy.  I feel so fortunate to be at the position I’m at right now because I’ve worked with people who work at Warner, you know, but at the same time I wasn’t producing at the time.  And then you have these people who are not even linked to that who are just making it on their own and their just doing it.  They organize their own bookings, their own shows, their own publishing; everything is just them and it’s just crazy to me.  It sounds novel, but I think it’s really cool to think about.

MY: Touching on that, what has it been like working with Proper Vibes?

JK: I help organize some of the events with Proper Vibes, but Proper Vibes is nothing but family, they’re great guys.  They have just been a platform for me to have a community that can work around each other.  We kind of work together and make our own stuff.  We started off in very much a similar way, I’d say, like Moving Castle.  It’s just a really cool community for us to throw shows and events.  I mean, we are a record label, too, but I’d say we are more so kind of an events entity right now.

AY: How receptive has the community been towards your events?  Are you getting nice turnouts and growing a fan base as well?

JK:  Oh yea, we are definitely growing a fan base.  We’re going in a positive direction, which I think is great.  I think there have been some logistical issues over the past year that we’re working out, but it has been nothing but positive.

K-Swiss + Diplo + You = "The Board"

K-Swiss, the brand synonymous with the game of tennis, and DJ Diplo are collaborating on a new project entitled, "The Board".  The world renowned DJ who has worked with many of today's mega-stars will lead a collective of 100 creative and connected people who will help redefine the K-Swiss brand.  Members accepted to The Board will gain access to experts in design, branding, marketing, and business as they traverse a six-week curriculum program.  The experts will educate members of The Board who will then be tasked with applying their creativity and new knowledge to the K-Swiss brand in areas such as sneaker design, brand positioning, and other business development opportunities.  It will be interesting to see who is actually selected to become a part of this endeavor as well as how much power they will have in terms of the direction of the company, but I do applaud K-Swiss for creating an interesting solution to an image problem that has nagged the heritage brand for years.  Check out the video for the program below. 

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

Let's face it, we all can't be Beyoncé, but we can eat like her!  After participating in the "22 Day Nutrition challenge" with Mr. Carter, Beyoncé has decided to team up with her long-time trainer, Marcos Borges to create a new company called 22 Days Nutrition.  Based off the premise that it takes 21 days to break a habit and an additional one to signal a fresh start, the company will be delivering plant-based meals with no gluten, soy, dairy or GMOs to homes.  The meals, which are priced from $9.76 to $16.50, will be delivered once a week with the option of purchasing up to three meals a day.  Check out the statement by Queen Bey herself on the impending venture below.

"I am so grateful that I took the challenge and credit Marco with leading by example.  He is the most energetic person I know and it's all because of his decision to live a healthy lifestyle.  He came up with a great program to get people motivated to make better nutritional choices.  All you have to do is try.  If I can do it, anyone can.  I am excited to partner with him."

Jay Z's Foray into Music Streaming

It's no secret that the music industry has changed.  The way in which we consume music is different.  The days of the prominent record stores are long gone and so is the era of purchased music downloads.  In this past year alone, track and album downloaded purchases dropped by 12.5% and 9.4% respectively.  What's taking the downloaded purchases place? Streaming.  The introduction of companies like Spotify, which boasts 15 million subscriptions, and SoundCloud are redefining how music is listened to and how it is consumed.

Having been vocal about the evolution of the music business in past interviews, Jay Z has jumped into the fray by purchasing Aspiro, the parent company of two subscription streaming services, WiMP and TIDAL.  The $56.2 million offer, which has already been approved, represents a 59.1% premium over the company's closing share price.  The proposal was made through one of Shawn Carter's subsidiary companies, Project Panther Bidco, with the intention of expanding and improving upon the two companies' technology and services.

Project Panther Bidco, Ltd ("Panther"), an entity controlled by S. Carter Enterprises, LLC ("SCE") is pursuing a possible acquisition of Aspiro AB ("Aspiro"), based in Sweden. Aspiro is a media technology company in the forefront of the ongoing redefinition of music consumption. Through the subscription services WiMP and TIDAL, Aspiro offers a complete experience of higher HiFi quality. The platform encompasses audio, video and integrated editorial features. 

Panther believes that the recent developments in the entertainment industry, with the migration to media streaming, offers great potential for increased entertainment consumption and an opportunity for artists to further promote their music. Panther's strategic ambition revolves around global expansion and up-scaling of Aspiro's platform, technology and services.

The acquisition is subject to shareholder approval. As such there is no guaranty that a transaction will take place.

WiMP was initially founded in 2011 as a direct competitor to Spotify.  Although it has been unable to reach the volume Spotify has, it does have a current paying subscription list of 512,000 users.  Moreover, WiMP provides a unique video syndication platform, RADR Music, which presents videos and live performance footage to online media enterprises.  Rivaling media behemoth YouTube, RADR is an interesting element to the Aspiro portfolio as it could be used to expand upon Jay Z's current cultural website Life and Times.  TIDAL, while similar to WiMP, is for the music purists, combining High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos and a uniquely curated experience.

Although the specific details of the change to be implemented have yet to be disclosed, there is much work to be done in terms of transforming these companies into being actual competitors to the already popular streaming services.  Things don't get any easier when you consider the re-launch of Beats Electronics' streaming services by Apple in the coming months as well.  Jay Z, forever the business man, continues to diversify his ventures in ways that expand upon the foundation he has built.  Stay tuned with InTheRough for more developments on Aspiro.