JANUARY 26, 2010
OKLAHOMA CITY
Over the past weekend, I was in Oklahoma City sponsoring a small show, Meditation along with OKC based Group Fly Clothing. The headlining act was rapper extraordinaire, Jabee.
I road tripped it up to Oklahoma City with my friends, Info Red (who also performed)...
DJ Niro...
and Mando, the (big, bad, evil) promoter.
As the guys were doing their thing, I was focused on doing mine - which was to get as many people as I could to get to know my brand. I set up a small table for sales, passed out cards and passed out a few freebies too. Jabee and all of those who performed did a GREAT job of pumping energy into the crowd, this made doing my thing that much easier. C'mon, let's check out some of the people I met...
This is Desiree. She was the first to buy a FFB shirt at the show. I hadn't even unpacked and displayed my shirts yet when she came up to me and asked for the FFB pattern. After I settled in, I sold her the shirt and she immediately wore it! After the show, she joined us for dinner at IHOP. Here's to you Desiree, thanks for repping that FFB! And c'mon...Dallas isn't that bad AND YOU KNOW IT!
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After a night of pancakes and laughs, the next day we headed on over to TREE & LEAF CLOTHING. Tree & Leaf is a little boutique shop that allowed Group Fly to set up a pop up shop.
To the left is Jabee and to the right is his best friend, Vernon - the head of Group Fly Clothing. More on Vernon and his brand in a bit...
These two are Vineasa and B. Ave. They were at the show the night before too. Vineasa was being whipped around all day and night by Vernon. You see...Vineasa is Group Fly's intern and we all know whipping interns is allowed! As for B. Ave, I honestly don't remember what he does, I just remember him being a cool kid. And who doesn't wanna be a cool kid?!
These two are Eduardo and Luis Ramirez. They're new FFB fans and I'm sure that they will be repping proudly in OKC! Check out their blog and see the weekend from their point of view.
This is Chris Cao. He was officailly announced as the newest member of the Group Fly team during the show last night. His duties will mainly be creative direction / production. Before joining Group Fly, he actually had his own brand, Blooprint. But now he's off that. Welcome. To the. Future. Chris.
After hanging out and showing some support to our friends from Group Fly, we headed on over to CiCi's Pizza, hung out at the mall (Info Red needed to get a Starbucks (evil empire 2) fix) and hit up Wal-Mart ((evil empire 1) to buy some towels - everyone forgot to bring a towel. We all stayed at Jabee's place and he wasn't gonna have any of that towel sharing bullshit) - Don't we roll hard?
We then headed back to Jabee's place so that him and Info Red could begin work on their upcoming EP.
As I was sitting around and bullshitting, I took notice of Jabee's creative talents. In my opinion, it's always cool to see the final product, but it's EVEN COOLER to see the process! Check out this Jabee track before it's even a track...
After Jabee's place. Him and Info Red gathered up everything they worked on and headed on over to aDDLib's place to record. I was all musiced out, so I went over to Vernon's place (aka Group Fly HQ). Vernon showed me his process, future designs, future packaging ideas and shared with me the deep meanings and roots of his brand. Me and Vernon instantly connected because we share the same drive and determination on how to run our brands. I talked to him for like 2 hours straight with no awkward breaks in-between about not only our brands but about life too. He's a multi talented guy - He not only runs Group Fly, but he also has a dayjob as a minister, produces beats, raps (his altar ego as a rapper is OB-1), does graphic design and to top that all off, he has a family and does P90-X! Anyways, just check out Group Fly!
So after Vernon's, we all met up and had some dinner. After dinner, we headed on over to Khanh's house party. Khanh is Jabee and Chris Cao's friend. Click HERE to see a picture of him. If you don't want to see his picture then watch the video of Jabee freestyling at the party below...
After the party, we just headed home. On the way home, me and Niro got into a huge discussion about the corruptness and lies of the world that we live in. I think our discussion lasted like 2 hours. It was pretty mind boggling shit. Niro even gave me shit to research so that we could discuss in further detail in the future. It was that deep.
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On the last day, we ate at the highly regarded Pho Hoa Lien Vietnamese Restuarant. It was the shit.
All in all, it was a GREAT TRIP! I met and made new friends with so many people! Big thanks to Jabee for letting us crash at his place and making us all feel like celebrities when walking around just about anywhere in OKC. Jabee is that NEW ISH!!! He stays off the drugs and alcohol and has a good head on his shoulders. Download his mixtape Mick Boogie presents Must be Nice HERE and you'll come to find the things that have happened in his life that helped mold him into the driven / humble / creative person that he is today.
Also...don't forget to check out the RANDOM section to see where we detoured when heading back home to Dallas.
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