Bill Jemas left Marvel comics to form his own company.
What does his new company deal in? Marketing cultural product. I remember seeing Chuck D. back in 1993 at the University of Pittsburgh. Talked a lot about Africa, and about black politics, and black economics. He dropped a sentence about an agency he wasn't quite able to put together with Ice Cube and some other folks, then talked more about black power.
Now there are a whole lot of folks my age who owe their livelihood to Chuck D. to some degree. I am one of them.
But Chuck D. knows a helluva lot more about music and the music business than he knows about black politics, or black economic power. If he'd have spent his time talking about the agency he wasn't able to create, rather than half formed ideas about black power, he'd have gone a lot of the way in producing those 10000 leaders he talked about back when Spike edited an edition of SPIN Magazine.
Reading this article about Jemas though made my head spin. Think about the branding opportunities within hip-hop, and black produced electronic music forms alone.
I'm sorry, I should've been clearer. Jemas, as far as I know, is not black. I am fairly sure he is white, though I am making that assumption solely based on his previous job title. While I think you may be right about blackfolks not having the juice to cater to their own tastes, they have the cultural capital to mold the tastes of others--through the type of company that Jemas is starting. I think it is at least worth considering.
In writing a paper for an academic conference I reread Cruse's work THE CRISIS OF THE NEGRO INTELLECTUAL. In it he talked about something called "THE NEW INSTITUTIONALISM." Now to a political scientist like me, this phrase originally meant something TOTALLY DIFFERENT. And as many times as I've read Cruse before I am surprised that I didn't catch it earlier.
New institutions to take advantage of our growing cultural capital are essential.
Posted by: Lester Spence at September 21, 2004 01:50 PMJemas is White?
Then 360ep's just looking to pimp 'hood aesthetics, I fear. An additional number of Fitty Cents and Terrell Owens will make more bucks playing the fool.
FWIW, I'm a TO fan!
But, if they did make it a point to avail their capital to empower entrepreneurs in disenfranchised communities, I'm all for their success. A final point; Blackfolks (lol) already drive the cultural references for America and have been doing so seemingly forever. (Can you imagine American music without the contributions of Black artists?) The problem is, Blackfolks don't get paid!
Black communities represent tremendous sources of capital but they've yet to comprehend one of the secrets to wealth acquisition and consolidation is through the recycling of money, labor and resources inside the 'hood as many times as possible. I don't want to go off on a tangent, but one unanticipated negative outcome of desegregation is that we've abandoned our institutions.
Posted by: MIB at September 21, 2004 02:24 PMAs 360epm deals primarily with comic book properties I don't see them pimping anything but superheroes. But I do think that this model could be used to take advantage of the most powerful resource that black people have--our popular culture production.
Posted by: Lester Spence at September 21, 2004 03:05 PM
I believe the thoughts Chuck D. conveyed on the music business also applies to Black political/ economic power. Blackfolks (to use Cobb's term) have very little authority in the music industry to even cater to our own tastes. The dilemma isn't one of content, but of institutional ownership. IMO, Blacks (and Americans in general) do not understand American-style commerce as the country evolves from an industrial to an information milieu.
It's good to see brothers (and sisters) like Jemas start their own companies. They're taking footsteps in the correct direction. Yet I still wonder about the customers 360ep will ultimately service. I hope they're beyond acting as purveyors of the New Black Aesthetic; identifying a popular Black celebrity-trend and then diversifying the 'product' into lunch boxes, etc..
Posted by: MIB at September 21, 2004 12:02 PMOr, primarily brokering demographic appeals to mainstream corporations seeking new niche markets. What I'd like to see is companies like these applying their experiences and resources toward developing the microeconomies that exist in predominantly Black communities.