a16z Podcast - a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan!

Episode Date: September 2, 2019

"You cannot be IN it... and not be OF it." Dapper Dan a.k.a. Daniel Day shares his remarkable history and story of defining an era of fashion and cultural influence in this special episode of the a16z Podcast — based on his conversation in San Francisco (also available as video here) with a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz around his memoir, Made in Harlem. Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the early 1980s, remixing luxury brand logos into his own designs for gangsters, athletes, and musicians — dressing cultural icons from Salt-N-Pepa and Eric B. & Rakim to Beyoncé and Jay-Z along the way. Going on to define an era, Dapper Dan’s work has been featured in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Met, The Smithsonian, and more. But he began as a hungry, fast learner in Harlem who became a gambler; spent a brief stint in a foreign jail where he nourished himself with reading; and then studied the market to build his fashion business, trendsetting the concepts of logomania and later, influencer marketing. Today, Dapper Dan has a unique partnership with Gucci and reopened his boutique in 2017. From “the struggle” when not given the privileges and opportunities that others have to the struggle of building and then losing and then reinventing oneself again and again, this special episode offers inspiration for all kinds of makers — including the power of “studying the game”; the power of listening to your customers (not in the cliché way!); and the power of cultural influence… and voice. photo credits: Alain McLaughlin

Hi everyone. Welcome to the A6 and Z podcast. Today's episode is hosted by A6 and Z co-founder Ben Horowitz, interviewing special guest, Dapper Dan. Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the early 1980s, remixing luxury brand logos into his own designs for gangsters, athletes, and musicians, dressing cultural icons from Eric B. and Rakeem to Jay-Z. He went on to define an era, and his work has been featured in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Met, the Smithsonian, and and more. But Daniel R. Day, aka Dapper Dan, began as a hungry fast learner in Harlem, who became a gambler, spent a brief stint in a foreign jail where he nourished himself with reading, and then studied the market to build his business, rising to the top, falling to the bottom, and rising again, reinventing himself over and over. The conversation is based on an event that we hosted for the launch of his memoir, Made in Harlem, where throughout, Dapper Dan shares inspiration for all kinds of makers, from the struggle, especially when not given the privileges and opportunities that others have, to the power of studying the game and the power of listening

to your customers, but not in a typical way. To what cultural influence and leadership really means, especially because, quote, you cannot be in it and not be of it. It is a story of the OG hustler and spans 70 years, with the first 30 minutes of this episode focused on his growing up in Harlem, visiting Africa, and cultural influences at the time, and then 30 minutes in going into his trendsetting in fashion, including the concepts of Logomania and later influencer marketing. And finally, the story ends where it begins, with reopening his boutique and his partnership with Gucci, which involved the power of voice, including that of Black Twitter. So I'd like to thank everybody for coming out. And this is probably one of the most difficult

introductions that I've ever had to do because how do I explain Dapper Dan? That's like almost impossible. And, you know, I didn't know who Dapper Dan was really, I knew Dapper Dan, but I didn't know until I read the book. Dapper Dan made in Harlem. And so I thought to introduce him, there were a couple of things that were sent to me leading up to the event that were like right on point. We put like a tweet out and this came tweeted back from David Dawswell. Is David Dawswell here? Oh, all right. What's happening? Thanks for coming out. So he tweets, such a legend. When I was young, I thought his name was a term. I didn't know he was a person. And then the second one is from my business partner, Mark Andresen. You guys know Mark? Softreads the World. He invented the browser, all that. So Mark's from Wisconsin, and he didn't really know anything about Dapper Dan until he read the book.

and he sends me this. He says, I read Dapper Dan's book. I got a couple of reactions. One, he is an actual entrepreneur and an innovator, perennessee, tech twice over, once screen printing onto leather, the other using a hospital badge machines to fabricate credit cards. Number two, similarly, in another life, he'd have a major national, global apparel brand by now worth billions of dollars.

And I was like, yeah, that's right. So that's Dapper Dan, and without further ado, I welcome Dapper Dan. Thank you. All right, well, let's get into it. So the book starts with Harlem in the 50s, and that was like a very different Harlem. the Harlem that you grew up in, then the Harlem that came after it, and for sure the Harlem of today. So what was that like?

Well, the Harlem that I grew up with was a village. Now, the Harlem you find today is like a little city. The difference between a village and a little city is like, I grew up, I'm the first generation of the great migration that came from the South. So when my family, my mom and my pop got to Harlem, they were still, and it sounds crazy, they were still horses and buggies in the street. Wow.

So cars hadn't quite gotten. Yeah, it wasn't many, but they were there. All the neighborhoods was comprised of mostly in Harlem, even though it was sectional, you see, like, want this neighborhood here, everybody to be from a particular part of the south, and the next neighborhood, a particular part. So people knew each other, so that's a different kind of community.

I think the most warming, thoughts that I have a Harlem Man is like 11 o'clock Sunday morning. 11 o'clock Sunday morning, you see everybody leaving out their houses, everybody converges on the church. And my family went to the church. We had a little storefront church we used to go through. The congregation was like 23 people, and 18 of us was in the same family. Right.

And we called it Hallelujah Sunday. Because, you know, even though we was poor, I think nothing made me. me feel as good as, you know, leaving church on Sunday, you know. We was poor, so food wasn't plentiful back then, but we used to, you know, after church you get them meals. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And today, that still goes on today. Like, the big churches on Sundays, they still serve meals.

But, you know what, the most significant thing about Harlem that you won't see today in Harlem was that I grew up with the diversity. You know, I didn't even realize. how diverse Harlem was until I began to travel places like Detroit, Chicago and like, I always had different ethnic groups

as friends of mine, you know? And I think that cultural part, that like gumbo of culture was what made Harlem the way it is. So then, you know, your father came to Harlem when he was just 12 years old. You know, it's like

it's hard to imagine because we tend to think that you know, slavery was a long time ago, but, you know, it's been like maybe 153 years. And my father left home when he was 12 years old. My father was born in 1898. That's 33 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. My father's father was born a slave and laid a free. So when my father came here, this is the reconstruction era in 1910 when my father came to Harlem.

He was 12 years old, but at 12 years old, And 10 and 12 years old, young blacks was leaving the South because they didn't want to put up with that. And that's what made Harlem so unique. In every aspect, what made Harlem unique is that we had the most revolutionary-spirited people that you could find. The ones who were not going to tolerate like the Jim Crow and the hangings and things that was taking place in the South at that time. And so do you think that's one of the things that made Harlem such a center of culture was that the people who came in. out where the people are strong as well the other parts people are coming

out to Harlem? Yeah, when you look at when you look at like the what happened to us with the slave trade first you get captured I read in LaRole and before the Mayflower

they talked about sharks used to pick up the slave ships on the coast of Africa and just follow them across the ocean and that's how many slaves are thrown all So you had to survive that middle passage. Then your family had to survive 300 years of slavery, all right? And then you had to tolerate the Jim Crowism.

And so we had the most strongest blacks that were leaving the South to go north. So I'm a product of those powerful people. So when I got, the people who were in Harlem was the ones that stayed and put up with it. That wouldn't go back. They were really the strongest of the strong. So I learned from the, The people who were the best hustlers, and people like my father's, who were the best workers. Because my father worked 15 years straight for the city, and he was never absent, and he was late once,

and that was the great snowstorm of 47. Wow. Nobody was at work that day. And that's because he walked to work. It was snow was deep. Wow. Wow. And you and your father had an age.

incident that changed your life in Ripley's department store. Oh, yeah, that was like, growing up, like, even a, well, a neighbor down the street from me used to laugh at us a lot because they was just doing slightly better than us. And a lot of the times, I had holes in my shoes, man. So we used to put paper in our shoes to keep our feet from touching the ground. Then we got more innovative when we stopped using linoleum because it lasts one, right? But one, one day, man, my feet was hurting so bad because the borders of the shoe could not no longer hold the whole linolemen, right? So I think I was like about eight and I come on and say, Mom, my feet is killing me.

Mom, my feet is killing me, man. And before my mother could say anything, my brother was there. You said, don't worry, Ma. You said, come on. I go with my brother and we walk four blocks. I never forget, we walked four blocks from a hundred ninety-nine, no, a hundred-nine. to 124, 4 or 5 blocks. He turned the corner and it was a goodwill there.

So we were in the goodwill. And my brother said, you see any shoes you like? I saw some nice mahogany split toes with the tassel. I said, I liked them right there. He said, try them on. I said, they feel good. You say, okay, pick your shoes up.

I'll pick my shoes up. He said, put them in the rack. I put them in the rack. He said, let's go. That probably wasn't fair trade there. Oh, boy. I will never forget that. But, you know, as your time, you know, all our clothes was hand me down, right?

Yeah, yeah. But my brother, right older than me, he always got the first pick. You know, so he had the best clothes from Goodwill's, right? Yeah. So I wanted to go to school, man. I wanted to be fly, you know, I really wanted to be sharp. I could stand up front of the school with the girls and everything in front of the candy store.

But my brother wouldn't let me wear his clothes, right? So I had to sneak him out. And he got to the point where he was sitting by the door where I had to go out so I couldn't walk out with his clothes on. So what I did, I had my two best friends. But my two best friends, Herman and Thurman, I told Herman and Thurman,

wait outside the window. And I would take his clothes and I'd drop him outside of the clothes. window. And I go in the hallway and change them, right? But then, by the time I'm 13 now, right, my father's going to take me to get my first suit. I'd never forget that. No, no, 13 I was already hustling about 11 years old. So we've gone to Ripley, Ripley Department Store, and my father's going to buy me a suit on credit, right? And I said, wow, I saw a charcoal brown suit with pinstripes. Say, Daddy, you want to give me a

He said, he going to pay on credit. But I had just learned mathematical equations to tell, you know, interest time, rate and see how much he's going to pay. And then when I read the contract, I said, Daddy, don't buy it. This is going to cost, they're going to charge you two when they have time with the suit board, you know?

So we're coming down the steps from the store, and this is the moment that changed my life. And we're coming down the steps from the store, and my father stopped me, and he looked in my eyes. I saw the tears well up in my father's eyes. and he said, boy, don't you know you could read? You could read, boy.

You could read, but, you know, I'm saying, I'm seeing how emotionally you get, and I'm seeing the tears, well, and what happened was my father only went to the third grade and he had to teach himself how to read. Because you all know, during times of slavery, and back then, you know, it was against the law to teach the slaves how to read,

and my father only got to go to the third grade, so he had to teach himself how to read. And from that point on, I learned something. I say, man, no matter what happened or what kind of fix I get in, I'm going to read my way out of it. And that ended up being the key to almost everything you did after that.

So how did you get into hustling? Life is about the tools that you get based on how you come up, you know? Yeah. It was seven of us, me and six siblings. and my mom and dad and three bedrooms, you know. So my father, in all the relationships like we have people that's aunty, so-and-so,

but, you know, it's just that, it wasn't a blood relationship, but the communal relationship that you take on those titles, right? But the ones that were, in my neighborhood, they were all hustlers. My father's, the only one wasn't a hustler, right? but my father used to have poker games

what we call rent parties a rent party a rent party is a circle of people this one week this one give a party you have a poker game you know

they have red rice chicken collard greens and they sell dinners you know like that so when my father when they gave their poker game and I used to stay up

every time my father went a hand this is the first time I was exposed to gambling every time my father went a hand he'd take all the change and put it in my pocket and I was just staring at the clock couldn't stand up no more and take it away

so the first exposure I got to anything was like gambling and I became a real proficient like that but I had an uncle Eddie Henry just him and my mother right Eddie Henry had ran away when he was young and he had joined

he had joined the circus and was one of them guys yeah one of them guys Join the circus. I mean, this is... Yeah. That era. I've heard that story, but I never knew anybody did it.

Yeah, he was a handyman. They had him doing like running errands, but he hooked up with the, the magician told him all these kind of tricks with the cards. So Eddie Henney taught me them tricks. So those tricks helped me out later on in life. You all hear a lot about them tricks later. So, anyway, the Harlem that I grew up in, we are, I'm the last product of a generation that saw Harlem without a drug epidemic. I'm growing up in the 50s, the drug epidemic didn't hit to the 60s. So the first part of Harlem, you see, was like numbers, the number game policy.

That used to take place, and everybody used to bed on numbers. And then it was like, they had people who had maybe drinking problems, but they were functional. Right. It was nowhere near like the drugs were. Then in the 60s, when the drugs hit, and then we start seeing all the drug dealers with all this money, all the shiny things that we wish we had. And then they, we started drifting away, drifting away. And then a drug, it went from a, the street game, the street thing went from a number culture

to a drug culture, and that's when Harlem changed. We never used to have to lock our doors. Nobody locked their doors until the drug epidemic hit. And that changed the whole complexion of Harlem. And I got caught up in that because of the lure, me and all my brothers. My sisters never did nothing wrong, but me and all my brothers got caught up in that. And I remember it was June 19th, 1967, I got busted for selling drugs. I got out three months later with probation,

September 27, 1967, the one of the assassins, alleged assassins from Malcolm X was in there, Johnson 3X Butler, right? And what I observed, he was in lower A1, I was in upper A4, so it was tears, and we had to pass by. And I saw all respect that this man used to get and the way they treated him.

And did he get respect for allegedly Killing Malcolm X, or was it for a different thing? It was a different town. Like Malcolm X today, the Malcolm X these young people in here know today at the time was, there was a schism that was taking place in the nation of Islam, right? So to the Bulgar people with Elijah Muhammad was still alive, Malcolm X was considered a traitor. Martin Luther King was considered an Uncle Tom.

So history has showed that that wasn't true. It's just that these men chose a path that was the right. path to choose. They were idolized them because people didn't really know what happened. But anyway, the story is like, when I saw that respect he got, I said, I might go to jail again, but I will never go to jail for doing anything like that to my people. Yeah. And that's what changed my life. So that was nice, that was 1967. When I got out, I went back to school. I was 23 and then. I went back to school, high school. That was like murder, being on the bus going from Harlem.

Oh, man, because I'm seeing the young kids that I'm going to high school with doing the, making the mistake mistakes I'm making, I'm coming out of it and I'm seeing them go into it. I said, oh, man, it was hell. So I started writing for a newspaper, 40 Acres in a Mew, a student newspaper. And then I got real revolutionary, and I said,

you know what? I had, from writing for 40 acres in the Mew, I was offered a scholarship over the summer of 16. as an intern at Columbia University. Either I take that or I can go to Africa and study in Africa with 40 acres of the mule. Scholarship to Columbia, go to Africa. Yeah, but I want to go to Africa.

Dr. Henry Clark. I want to find out what happened. So Dr. Henry Clark said, one day you said at the paper, right, we tend to think of ourselves as victims all the time. So one of, me and one of the students, we always have these conferences every week, with a different scholar, Dr. Henry Clark,

Dr. Ben Jockman, all kinds of scholars used to come through. And so Dr. Henry Clark, he's the one who mented Malcolm. So he's at the paper one day, and one of the students like myself on the editorial board asked Dr. Henry Clark, he said, if we are the first people on the planet and we had chosen people, why are we going through what we're going through today?

And Dr. Henry Clark says, that's because of a transgression we made before Europeans came into our life. He never elaborated on that, so when I was going to Africa, I went looking for what he was talking about. You know what? That took a little bit of the anger away, you know, and gave me like a focus and said, I'm going to find out what's wrong. Because whatever it is, that's wrong, might be what's wrong with me. Right.

And when I say, me, us. So I had to figure out a way to get to that. So when I went to Africa, I traveled. like, it was fortunate for me. I'm in Harlem. Martin Luther King is alive. Malcolm X is alive. All that energy.

I go to Africa. I'm in Ghana, Kwame Nukumo with the Pan-Africanism movement. It just got disposed. Then I get to Tanzania. Nieri is governor, is the president. And I get to Kenya,

Jomo Kenyana is together. So I got all this energy, and we study in Afghanistan. I say that in Tanzania, I say that Curasini International School where they were training South Africans to fight in South Africa. So we were

like a really radical group. And even the Urban League had gathered money, had gotten Pan American Airlines to donate the airfare for the seven countries we were going to visit in Africa to

us. And when we got to the airport, they didn't, the state department, the United States government, didn't know how radical we were. So when we got to the airport, the State Department put pressure on Pan American Airlines, and they canceled our reservations. Oh, wow.

They withdrew the reservations, but then a black philanthropist put up with the money at the last minute so that we can go on this trip to Africa. You know what that philanthropist was? No, they never found out who he was. I guess he didn't want the State Department to know. So when we get to the first leg of the trip in Ghana, or Karana, our passports disappeared, right?

And the passports turned up at the State Department, at the United States Embassy. So we go there to pick it up. We didn't find out to later on that it was the CIA agent following us around. Because this was the time, 1968, well, I mean, young black radicals wasn't going to Africa. Yeah. Yeah. Not without a CIA escort.

If you go to the library and you read 40 acres in a mule, and you can see it at the Schoenberg Library on Michaelfilm, and you see the things that we were talking about. To give you an example, I wrote an article in 1968 when they was building the state building, the state building in Harlem. In 1968, I did a study on that state building and found out what this plan was about.

Constance Baker-Mondley had mentioned that plan earlier, but the state building was the first building they was going to put in Harlem to start gentrification taking place. So I had got a prototype of that state building and I put it on the front page of 40 acres of the me and I made

it look like a Trojan horse to let people in Harlem know and this is 52 years ago to let people in Harlem know that gentrification is coming to Harlem and when you go to Harlem today you see gentrification don't kick in so that's how radical we were and how

advanced we was, and we were all young, like, all from 18 to 23, but we had so much energy. We had all these revolutionary and these Dr. Ben Jockman, all these scholars coming in and talking to us. Now, when you were in Africa for the fight in Zaire, which was later... Oh, yeah. That was really interesting. Now, I went back to Africa on my own in 1968, because I went with a group. And when we went that, a group, wasn't no hotel things.

We stayed with families, we did live-ins, everything like that. You know? So, in 1973, I went back, and I, because they had Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, the Romo in the jungle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my hustling skills kicked in. Wasn't selling drugs, but I was a professional gambler then. So I go back to Africa for the fight.

George Foreman gets busted in the head. You know what? And training. Why did he's training? Yeah, Muhammad Ali, Ali was training. So I said, man, I got to stay here a month and a half, wait for him to get well. Yeah. So I'll say, you know what?

but I might just travel around again. So I stayed in Zaire for a while. Then I went to, back to Lagos, Nigeria. And then from Lagos, Nigeria, I went to Liberia. And so, in Monteviria, Liberia, I had a Fulani Taylor. And that's where the whole concept for me

getting involved in fashion. You know, I'm going to tell that story. So, come back. I'm hustling again. It's like, as I mentioned earlier, you get these tools when you grow up poor, and you use these tools. But as you move along, you start learning things.

But in 1968, when I came back from Africa, I was in the Panther Party, Nation of Islam. The Panther Party had got really radical. You know, they had us like, we would have to study the Battle of Algiers where young people was kicked. kicking the dope dealers down the steps and just cleaning up the city

and at that time the drug dealers was considered the blood suckers of the poor those are the reasons that we were doing so bad so the people, Nation Islam was moving on the drug dealers Panther Party was moving on them then father, the head of the

five percent of all of them was zeroing in on the problem with drugs because that's what had the devastating effect The reason that they were doing that because everyone during this time knew what Harlem was like before drugs. But the second generation that grew up with a drug culture don't understand what we were like before that happened. I refuse to go back and get drawn into that. So that's when I got into what it's called. Let me give you an idea what you learn in Harlem in the streets.

You learn the paper game. That's credit cards and checks. You learn how to do that illegally. The pay. But the con game. Everybody know what that is. Everybody in there has been con in some kind of way. No doubt.

Yeah, the con game. You know what I mean? And so these are all the things that we learned from a professional. So I definitely wasn't going to get involved with anything that's going to be detrimental to the community. So I said, you know what? I'm going to study this paper game. Yeah. Yeah, the paper game.

So I devised, credit cards. Yeah, credit cards and everything. So I devise this method to buy, which I create my own credit cards. Yes. Yeah. So I was a bank official. Me and my friends, all of us, Muslim, but broke away from the National Islam for the same reason. I never accepted the concept of a biological devil.

So it wasn't suitable for me in the nation of Islam. I couldn't accept that part. So we come across this credit card scheme, so I'm the one to initiate the scheme. So now we go in country hopping. Catch a plane here, we go to St. Thomas, St. Croix, Aruba, Venezuela. You're spending these folks' money like it belonged to us.

Yeah. We leave Barbados and we go to Venezuela, and we in Venezuela and some soldiers pulling guns out on us, right? And I'm looking at Khalid and his face is getting all excited and I said, damn, what's wrong?

I don't even know what's wrong. I wanted to know why the soldiers was taking us into the bush anyway. He said, man, they were going to kill us and rob us. So we got back in the car, we went back to the airport. That was the second warning. Now we get to Aruba, right?

Then all of a sudden, I'm trying to call my friend and I can't get them. And then I see these cop cars Then we figured it out, they're looking for us. They had already got one other two friends, so I didn't know where to go. I'm on the island, I didn't know where to go. So I started ripping up all the receipts, and I'm on the beach ripping up the receipts.

Next thing I know they pull up on us, and I didn't see freedom for nine months. Man, you do not want to get in trouble in a foreign country, please. Please. And so for nine months, all I did was read, read, read, because that was my out. Read, read, read. When I got out of that idea, then I became more proficient at that. More proficient at the paper game. I got really proficient, and I made a lot of money.

So, and then the paper game ended up, like, weirdly leading you into the fashion game. Yeah, I used to make, everybody listen. Know when to hold them, no one to fold them, no one to walk away, and know when to Kenny Rogers. You never count your money while you're sitting at the table. There'll be plenty of time for counting when the deal is done. That was my philosophy. So after I made the money, I told everybody who was down with me, man, quit that.

And you were up on the laws, too, though. So you knew there was new legislation coming, too, that was going to make the paper game more dangerous. Yeah. The banking system had not figured it out yet. Yeah. So there was this loophole. And even if you got caught, you would get just 90 days. But we never even got caught.

Making credit cards. But when they changed the law, I said, that's it. I ain't doing that no more. And you never go back when you do something wrong. But while all this is taking place, I'm doing all this spiritual reading. And so my mind is constantly changing. My mind is constantly changing. I'm looking for a way to really fit into society.

You don't want to, I just want to be, I just want to be regular. I just want to be normal. I just want to be, you know, buying to this American idea. But what's also working in my head is the only, you know, the fact that I didn't have the privileges and the opportunities that other people had. Right. So after the paper game, I buy me a brand new Mercedes-Benz. Pay $42,000 cash.

Right. You know. With paper from the paper game? From the paper game. And then I said, I'm going to drive. around for a while and figure out what I want to do. And then I said, you know what I'm going to do? I knew all the gangsters.

I'm going to open up a store and sell to them. And with the gangsters, you knew they had money and, like, clothes, in a way. You knew about that market where nobody else did. Yeah, I knew all. Every gangster in Harlem, I knew them because I used to break them. Yeah. He used to call me Gambling Danny.

Yeah. Because I studied everything. I learned from the best gamblers that was in Harlem. and then I read all the books on gambling so that I can have even a better perspective. And I read John Scarnie. John Scarnie was the World Authority on gambling. I read all his books.

And when it came to Hustling, I read Hustling and Khan men. He studies the Hustle game like people could study the computer science game. Listen there. If you want to get an inside look of what my mindset was and what my skills was, watch the movie with Robert Redford. and Paul Newman, The Sting. The Sting, yeah.

The movie, you got Ten Academies War. And if you can pick up on the move that they made in The Sting, then you're a gifted hustler. It gives you an idea of what the hustlers who came out of the South was like, right? And it involves gambling, and it involves a con game.

It's the epitome of everything you want to know about the inner workings of the streets and how other things, in drugs, how you can make money. So in this thing, right, this is an older black guy. So the black guy, he dies. He can never play, he can never make the big sting. Yeah.

You know? It was always his goal to make the big sting. So when Robert Redford and Paul Newman come and say, man, you're all white. Y'all can make the big sting, you know? And one of the guys he con had killed him. So Robert Redford is going to avenge that. And then the whole plot emerges from them. But the sting comes right out of the book,

Hustlers and Kahn so you can get a really good view of that if you want to know what Dabadan, that portion of Dabedan's life was like. I'm a good guy. It's just that this is what happened to my life. If you march backwards in my history,

this was what's opening to me. This is the advances I could make. I took advantage of all the opportunities that were available to me. This is not an apology. This is the so that you understand me. Anyway, so fashion. So I thought that I could go and open up a store.

I said, you know what? People with high aspirations, they want everybody to know that they're moving up the ladder. So hustlers and everybody like that, especially hustler. The main thing they used to like is furs, diamonds, and gold, right? So I know I couldn't mess with them diamonds and gold, because that's a whole new study.

got to go into there. So what I did was I started reading everything that I could find out about furs. Right. So it just so happened. I left the paper game, but there's two guys that's still in the paper game, right? They use certified check machines.

And so when people like yourself want to sell your old fur, and you're advertising the paper, they say, yeah, we'll buy it. And then you show up with your fur and you get one of the special-made certified checks. You hear that. You need to take Bitcoin, Venmo, something else.

Don't take that sort of them. So I'm with these guys. So they're going to sell me the furze. So they had the fur, they bring it to me. They take them out of the line, right? They traded the big check for. Yeah. So I go down in the furrow district.

This is when I meet Irvin Chakins, my Jewish friend. So Irwin Chakins takes the furze out, and I say, hold up, man. Maybe I need to be making these furze with you instead of me buying hot furs. So me and every chakens hooked up, I started reading everything and studying everything with the fur game. And then what I did was I did my research, and it was only three black furriers in the country. It was one called, he was the most popular, a black furrier in New York, and it was two in Chicago. And I went and visited all of them, see how they operation work. And I come back and I started doing the furs.

But what I thought was that I would be able to buy, and every place, other clothes, when I wanted to do other clothes, but all the manufacturers I went to that sold luxury goods, would not sell to me. Okay. And why, and they just went to sell to you? Because they just wouldn't sell to me. I'm not going to, you know.

All I can say is that they sold to people who wasn't my color. So that was the intention. So anyway, so that wasn't working out for me. but the furze was working out for me but fur is a seasonal item, right? So I'll start going to this a furrier in New Jersey

called a fur factory and he was selling furze to me another Jewish guy he's selling fur to me and I was doing good off those furze way he said listen my son and my nephew are opening up this company

and they're going to be making leather jackets I say oh okay cool he said go see him his son and his nephew is Andrew Mark they're cool they was almost like young black guys I say, yo, what's up? Like that, you know? No, they're just cool right there.

So we, I'm buying these leather jackets with the opossum lining from them, right? Yeah. So I'm paying $400 for the jackets, and I'm selling them for eight. My competition was the most popular store in Harlem called A.J. Lesters. A. Lay Lusters is selling the same coat for 1,200.

So I'm smoking them, right? Yeah. One day, a guy comes with his friend who had already bought one from AJ Lessons and he was proven to his friend these are the same coat, so he came to me where he got this from, right? You say, I told you, man, that guy got so hot

he went over to AJ Lessons and had a fit. Oh, yeah. AJ Lessons goes down to Andrew and Mark and tell him Andrew Mark if you sell the dappadam, I'm not buying from you anymore. So they cut off the supply. You know? When I go down to re-up, down to Andrew Mark

and I'm to get some more jacket. They say, Dad, we got a problem, man. I can't sell to you no more because A.J. Lusters say, if I sell you, then they won't buy for me no more. They have six stores. You only have one. Yeah. I'll say, oh, man.

I didn't even, you know, I didn't even debate the issue with them because they told me, well, we will let you continue to buy, but you've got to take the label out. You know, the label is everything. Yeah, yeah, you can't do that. So I got mad, and I just left, and I came up town. Now, when I left, when I was on that trip in Africa, and I was in Monrovia, Liberia, I went down to buy me some artifacts.

And when I was buying these artifacts, right, you got like the way I dressed and all, because I was, you know, super fly. He said, I like the way you, he said, I like what you got on. I said, I like the artifacts. I said, you want to trade? He said, yeah, I went up and got all my luggage. I took All the clothes that I took on the trip with me

I came back down to the marketplace And I exchanged all my clothes For artifacts and for him to make me clothes You know, with African-style material But Harlem-style cuts And that's how I came back And that always stayed with me So when Andrew Mark and them did that

I said, you know what man? Hold on I'm gonna figure out how to do this myself So I'm downtown and some Senegalese Africans selling from Senegal, Wolos, and they're selling these stuff on the street. I gave my card, I said, you know anybody? So tell them, come see me. Right?

And so first I got one, then I got two, then I got four, then eight. Right? I was up to 23 tailors. All from Senegal. Yeah, all from Senegal. I'll never do that again. So anyway, so I had these Senegalese tailors. And I need something new, right?

Now, I'm working with furze. I'm working with leather, and the guy comes into the store one day, and he got a Louis Vuitton pouch. And is that that's Little Man? Yeah, Little Man. This was the Kingpin in Harlem. The guy was Jack Jackson, and he was in Harlem. Jack Jackson is the one who told on John Gotti's brother Gene Gotti

that got him that 50 years. But the pouch is Little Man's boss's pouch. Yeah. Right? And he got all this money. He got $100 bill. And I look at that pouch, I say, damn, what is it about this pouch? Ain't but $6 worth of vinyl.

Yeah. You know, this Louis Vuitton pouch, you know? But everybody's excited. I said, wow. So it clicked in my head. Now you got furs, diamonds, and gold. Now here's symbols. Yeah.

I say, it's the symbols that's making that's popular. So I went to study all about the symbols and stuff, and I figured out the signs, behind textile printing and all that. Yeah. I say, if I could take them symbols and make them look like that bag and have them walking and out looking like luggage. And at that time, at that time, Louis Vuitton, Gucci,

they didn't use the symbols like that. Nobody, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, none of them, D. And let me tell you, all your future designers and stuff, I never ever went to a runway show where you see people, you know, the models in it. I never went to one until I did the deal with Gucci. I didn't want to know what it looked like when it's finished. I wanted to know how it was made.

So all I used to study is technology, fashion technology, fashion construction. And I would go to all the trade shows associated with garment construction. So I begin to teach myself everything about textile print. And then in addition to that, what I used to do was like when the industry was moving from the United States to China, when everybody was going offshore, when the unions, this is very important, when the unions tricked everybody into constantly asking for raises, but they didn't put pressure on the corporations that were producing the goods, but the prices was rising, they said, look, we can move our factories offshore, which end up in China, and then still get the same prices that we sell goods from here. So all the industries was moving to China. Well, this is the same time I opened up my store. So now I'm going to auctions at all these businesses, these factories that's closing down, and I'm learning things. I would get to the auction early and walk around

like I knew something and listen to the auction, you know, listen to the people who buy the machines, see what they'd be saying about machines, ask questions. And I'd be the only, like, black guy in there. I learned all about the different types of machines associated with the industry. Right. And I bought them in, and I started bringing them to my location.

Yeah. So I end up having a three-story building on 125th Street and a 2,000-square-foot factory on 120th Street, all in Harlem, all run by me and my Africans, right? Yeah. And your design process was also very different in that. You spent time with the customers in a way that the guys in France never would have thought of. Yeah.

My approach to fashion is like you see designers, they come from their ideas. And that's good. They approach it like they're painting a canvas. And that's good, you know, because that's a thing. input, but what I've always done was to embrace the culture and translate the culture. And how I did this is like, when my customers came in, I asked them how they feel about this self. How do they want to look? Now, I got all this fabric. This is your P.I. I'm printing everything. You know, whatever design you want, everything. But now the creative process kicks

in. How do you want this to look on you? And we sit down and we discuss how you want to look. So now I got all this input from all these people coming out of my community. And so this is the infusion of ideas that's taking place between me and those who want to be transformed because clothes transformed me. And I know how it feels when they got them nice outfits on. So what I did was I continued that process.

You hear that. All these entrepreneurs, you hear that. Okay, good. So it's an important part. In doing that, I come up with all these different ideas. Where's a person who designs for themselves, if they mess up, if they make something wrong, then they stuck with a collection. Now, I got two pluses in my favor.

I got fabrics that I'm making, and that fabric can be anything. Once you have a garment, that's all it is, is that garment. So I got that working for me, and I got the fact that I'm getting all this input from the people from my community who have these ideas. but I had to remind them. I know you got ideas, but everything in your mind might not look good on your behind.

Now, I'm shifting. There's a shift now from the hustlers, and then it's the birth of hip hop. Perfect timing. Now I have my personal collection of influences, all to make. So I got this creative idea, I got the knowledge of textile printing, right? I have upcoming influences. So I got all this working for me.

Now, what's missing? I needed a social vehicle. Your MTV Raps. Now you're on television. I got all the components that I need to be successful, right? But I didn't have permission to use those labels. Right? So I'm making all this stuff

And I'm under the radar I got all the rappers and everything Now Then the athletes start coming Got all the black athletes and stuff Then Mike Tyson comes to the store He's with Naomi Campbell when she's starting out Now I'm getting all this attention

On top of that Mike Tyson gets into a fight With Mitch Blood Green in my store Next thing, it comes out Monday night football and they're up in the helicopter, you know, over the Yankee's thing. Down there somewhere, dapper dance, 24-hour boutique, ha-ha. You know, it's like they're making a joke out of it, but now everybody knows.

So the brands say, who the hell is a dapper dan? The next thing I know, hip-hop is moving on, moving them. the OMTV is bursting out so all this attention I'm getting all this attention now and now there's something very

particular is happening with the major European brands the luxury houses they are bankrupt for ideas yeah you know so you couple that with what I'm doing

and then it becomes notice say wait a minute So what I did with these symbols is to create this new idea which they named after me which is called Logomania. So today

you see the reason Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi every major brand is using the format that I use. When you go to the store, look around, look at the artists to have logos all over.

And now, That's what I gave birth to, that idea. So that was the infusion that the luxury brands used. So now, here's the plan. First part of the plan work like this. Cease and desist. Sease and desist. Next thing I know, the brands is coming to my store.

Seizing anything with their logo on it, giving me a letter to desist what you doing now. They all started reading. You all started reading. That's part, that's part one, right? Kept reading. Every time they come, they're taking all my merchandise and everything, so that's costing me money. In addition to that, right? Tommy Hilfiger starts going to the hip-hop clubs and giving out Tommy Hilfiger jackets. Yeah, you know, giving them on, Tommy Hilfiger jackets, right? Figured out the influencers were, yeah. He figured it out early on, So now that infusion is coming from outside.

The pressure is coming from the brands, right? The next thing they do, your MTV rep, Ted Demi, was the producer of your MTV Rep. Me and him had a tight relationship. Ted Demi told me, anytime you want, you just call me, I'm sending a film crew to you there because this is the birth of two things. It's hip-hop hair, fashion hair,

this is the other side of the coin that's moving on. They go to Ted Demi and tell Ted Demi and tell Ted Demi, if you show anything that Depo Dan wears, we're not advertising with you. And that's when you started seeing the blur on what the rappers was wearing. Right. So now they're raiding me.

You know what I mean? They blur in. The next step is to give the contractors. So what the first door that opened was, I remember when Jam Master Jay came to the store, he said, Daft, man. Adidas just gave me a crazy deal. You remember seeing Dan, you know,

He came in with a big gold chain with a big gold Adidas shoe on there. And that was the beginning, you know. That was the beginning of a thing. Then L.L. Kool-J, then Fubu comes about. Fubu. For us, by us? Yeah. Who said that?

For us, by them. Do your homework. Do your homework. So Fubu comes in. L.L.L. KuhuJ. wears a hat for a photo shoot that he was doing for the gap. Yeah. Bam, takes off. Everybody see that. Fubu starts. Clock in numbers.

So now, the next idea, now, listen to this, next idea. This was our opportunity, right? Now I'm gonna go to that next. I got 23 people working. I got a three-story builder. on the 125th Street, 2,000 square foot factory on 120th Street, so this is all money that's going out, right? So, one day, Fendi comes to the store

with the marshes, seet and desist order. I got a jacket, a full-link coat, look like an aqua-sculum coat with tuxedo black mint color, black planjeet leather with all the black on black Fs on it, soda my y'all. Anybody know who she is? Sotomayor. She's a Supreme Court justice.

At this time, she's working for Fendi as one of the lawyers for Fendi's. She comes in the store with the team. She said, that jacket, that coat is so amazing. He belonged downtown. They don't take me downtown. They take all my clothes. Downtown.

So these raids kept raiding me broke, and raiding me broke, and I kept losing money. On top of that, the most critical thing is now, you know, I started out with the gangsters. But now, because of the drug culture, it's imploding because they're fighting against each other. And when they couldn't find each other to fight late at night, they knew the Abidane was making money. So 2.31 morning, I'm sitting in my van, and these drug dealers who would no longer make money was struggling. attempted to kidnap me, I fought them off, and they shot me. And today, that's why I have a bullet at the base of my neck.

So what happens is, and that's why you might hear me say, you cannot be in it and not of it. So after that, I had to figure out, you know what? I had to start all over again. I went from a table and sell them clothes out my car to a three-story building with 23 people sewing. Five family members working, you know, in a big factory where I'm doing the cars, because I did cars, everything. Anything you wanted with symbols on it, I give you all the symbols you want any way you want.

So I'm doing all that. So all of that vanishes because, you know, my payroll was $12,000 a week back then. That's $48,000 a month. I'm just with the workers, $48,000 a month. and then I had rent on the three-story building and rent on the factory. So all I was adding up. But my passion for my work is because we was like a family.

So even when I got shot, I'm laid up for a month. I'm still paying them. So that's one month is $50,000. So all is caved in on me. The next thing I know, I'm back on the sidewalk. with a little table like this selling t-shirts

but I said to myself you know what? I'm going to come back so I remember when my daughter said Dad what's wrong with Daddy she never saw me like that I laid up for like three months just wondering what I was going to do next

and then my wife said we got to do something so I made iron on Chanel T-shirts and went on a hundred 25th Street at the table like that there. I'm counting tourbusters. I counted 144 tourbusters that came through. I ain't sell one T-shirt.

I said, you know what, I'm gonna figure this out again. At the time, guests came out, right? Yeah. I started making these little outfits for girls, these little guests with the little, like a chairleader skirt and nice little tops with the guest symbol and the skirt and the symbol match with that little guest what on it.

Yeah. And I started selling like 30 or 40 them a day, straight for six months. Next thing I knew, I had another 100,000. You know, I'm calling Africa. So now I got enough money, and I build me up another little team. So I still can't go off the radar. So my nephew there, I get my little nephew there, me and them hit the road. All right.

So because I knew all the gangsters, I would drive from New York City to Chicago. hitting all the black cities. Let me tell you a trick. I could tell you about this one. I had a friend worked for Fubu, so I knew what their distribution was, so I went to every place they was at. Going west, and I come back

and did the same thing going south. I struggled. Next thing I know, I had all this money again. Yes. And then I was stable. And in addition to that, something new took place with the rappers. Now the rappers got money.

They forgot all about me, though. No, I can't say that. Jay-Z didn't forget. because he came up age and what they would do is this gave birth to what you call the stylist today all the artists are working with stylists now

so the stylus was the mediated between me and them I didn't like that but I worked with that anyway but I think by the time I'm getting ready to come out the underground we had this big gap right so from the time this is important from the time that

they raided me to the time that I came back all these black brands, these minority brands, emerge. But what they did not do was study the game. They didn't do no reading, no studying. And so they took the luxury idea that I created for us and took it downstairs. Right, right? One thing you never see me do, I never made no gang power for an area.

I never did anything associated with that. I try to keep it on a luxury level. So they made it so that anybody can have it, anybody can do it, and then it went down. So between the time that I went underground and all these brands emerged, they all collapsed, but this time is giving all the brands

besides Tommy Hilford, because he's the first to peep it, all the other brands start kicking in. Even Ralph Lauren, because that's why Ralph Lauren opened up Ralph Lauren's sport and got that black model Tyson. All that was to the lure to bring us in. So now we lose all.

All of that time, while these minority brands is emerging, but they don't understand how this is supposed to be marketed and all of those crash, that give the luxury brands, that gave the luxury brands time out to step in and do exactly what I was doing. But charge you way more. And so that's where we're at the day. But they made a mistake, my partners, and the best guys out there today, Gucci created this jacket

that I created in the 80s for Diane Dixon the difference now as opposed to when I first started is that now I have a voice and I didn't know I had a voice but that voice was black Twitter Yeah

Black Twitter Black Twitter Black Twitter said uh-uh That's dappadans You know No, that's dapper dance Black Twitter went in, right?

Yeah So the next thing I know My son is up age now My son said, Dad Gochie want to talk to us First we got all these entertainers And all these bigwigs calling us

And say, man, yo dad man Gucci's trying to get to you through us Right My son say, Dad, Gucci, want to talk to you? No, child, I don't trust them. I haven't been raided like crazy, but I'm going to talk now. I said, they want to raid me again. Hey, they ain't going to find me.

Don't give me my number. Don't you say nothing. He said, no, dad, they want to really talk. I said, oh, yeah? I said, oh, you sure something? He said, yeah, man. I said, tell him, come to Harlem. They came to Harlem.

I said, damn, they're serious. They came to Harlem, we ironed out this deal. They said, we know that the world knows who you are. Yeah. Now, he said, and all these brands are paying you homage, but they're not paying you. You're going to change that. Yeah, that's great. Right.

So they came to me with this partner. came to me with this partnership deal, let's say, this is what we're going to do. We're going to allow you to open up a store in Harlem, beautiful store, Atelier. No more store. Atelier, you all got that? Yes.

You're going to allow you to open up an atelier in Harlem, and you're going to be able to do what you've always done, produced a deal. Only thing is without fabrication, and that's going to be a partnership. In addition to that, we're going to have a dapper-dan line, and we're going to partnership on that, and that's going to be distributed around the world

and you get a percentage of that. And so, and that's the deal I made, right? And it was working fine. Then there goes another boo-boo. But before we go to the boo-boo, let's go back to Louis Vuitton. Soon as Gucci gives me this partnership. Louis has been number one for years.

all of a sudden Louis brings up Virgil Right now You know that's a reaction Because Gucci put me in And we got a collection ready And we're shooting it out Louis Vuitton

Reacts to that By going to get Virgil And they don't have a collection So you know it wasn't pre-plan But a reaction, right? And that's good because We're getting in these spaces Which is where we need to be

but before that two important things happened first there was Gucci Ghost a great kid great idea and he was doing some of the things for Gucci that I did right but he wasn't quite dappad and then Louis Vuitton

went and got Supreme because Supreme is connected to the millennials so they go get Supreme right but what the public did not know when Supreme made the partnership with Louis Vuitton

when they initiated the line and everybody attended this show was issued the letter stating I want you all to hear this in the back stating that this whole collection is inspired by Dabada.

So do your homework and find out. So here it is everything that has come out of Harlem this creative force associated with hip hop that's circling the planet. Now we've got We got two things. We got one, number one, is our ideas of fashion has encircled the world, right? Two, our musical platform has encircled the world. The only problem is hip hop has gotten their money through trials and tribulation, but we are not making any impact in fashion. Because of what we did from the time I closed down to the time I got this partnership. We didn't approach that right. So now all the brands got the power

But now it's slipping away It's slipping away because they're making mistakes So when Gucci made a mistake It wasn't intentional in my opinion They made a mistake and did the black face That was another boo-boo Now I got to represent who I am and where I come from So I had to tell Gucci I said listen man

I'm a black man before I'm a brand How are you going to do something now? You've got to come back to hollow again And explain what you did So they came back to Harlem again, and we sit down. And what I did was I organized all the people that I could find in the corporate world, those who are responsible for the mechanical way that corporations work, and those responsible for cultural inclusivity. So that they can come along and organize a plan by which we can have a presence in Gucci.

so that this doesn't happen again, and we're represented right. If you want to read about it, it's called a change makers program by Gucci, and with it, so far they didn't hire two vice presidents. They got programs to recruit young black designers or minority designers in this huge program. Now, if you look and see what's happening, the world is becoming a community now. People are flying who never flew before.

People are visiting countries. So the world is getting smaller. People are more familiar now with our culture than ever before. So we have to be represented in them places. What people have to realize here, man, you don't have to do like I did and start from a table. We need to be inside these corporations on a higher level so we can take advantage of the opportunity to see how they run

and how they work so that we can do these things for ourselves. Yeah. So last question, because this is such an important point that you made, when you decided to work like you could have gone the other way they sued you put you out of business you could have said well like we're going to get rid of Gucci we're going to sue them into the ground

but you kind of took a lesson from what you learned in Africa when you visited Kenya to Jamaica and then Uganda with Edia Amin yeah very good point so when I everything I did nothing that I've done

has been by accident it's all been done through research. So when I went to Africa in 1968, I studied how they handle their government and their industry. So when I was in Kenya, I stayed with Chief Richard Karani, and he was equivalent to like a borough president, right? And what he taught me was that, like, what Jomo Kenyatta did when he became president, like all the colonial land and the colonial houses that they had, he reappropriated the colonial house. And what he did was he take this colonial house, and he'd give it, there's two major tribes in Kenya, the Kikuyu and the Lua. He said, okay, you're a Kikuyu, you live here. You take this out.

You're a Lua, you live here. So he split it up so that there be this unity. The next thing he did, and the most important thing he did, which is what I implicate and I talk about in fashion is that, Joma Kenyatta told all, because the economy was dominated by people from outside, basically in East Africa, they're Indians. So Joma Kenyatta told the Indians that are in Kenya. He said, all you all have to have an indigenous

partner in your business, or you cannot do business here. Right? So that set the framework for Africans, indigenous Africans, to learn how to run these businesses. Right. And Nieri did something similar to that. But Idi Amin in Uganda did something that was devastated the economy.

So what he did, he kicked all the Indians out. And so you didn't have nobody inside that could take over the industry and the economy collapsed. So this is what I was thinking about when I approached the thing with Gucci. If we are to move up and move forward, we have to be in number of,

rooms to see how these multinational corporations work before we can start building on our own. So if somebody tells you, this is important now, and somebody tells you, oh, man, we can start our own business. Tell them, go get a table. And let me see you do it. Tell them, go get the table, let me see you do it. Now, what's so important about that, now, say they go, say, oh, yeah, then they get big-headed, and they go get the table, right?

Now, you know, every 20 or 30-something years, we get a powerful cultural platform. You know, we've had jazz, calypso, rock and roll, all these powerful platforms by which the whole world embraces our music that we can take advantage of. But they don't last forever. Hip-hop will morph into something else, you know. But now, what's happening with hip-hop today, which I've seen happen with rock and roll, is that other people, learn how to empower themselves with our culture. You know what I'm saying? And that's nothing wrong.

And that's going to happen whether you like it or not. You know, so what we can do is when we get these platforms that we can take advantage of our culture, then we have to be able to utilize the vehicles that are get our culture around the world by which we can make money. So while you sitting on that table, Gucci, Louis, Fendi, and all of them are taking elements of the culture and moving it around the world by using, by using influences that are representative of our culture. So that's how this works.

So we get a chance to work from that. Now, as the culture moves, it changes. People adapt to it. So you've got to keep going back to the source from which the culture come from, building on that and take advantage of that. And if you don't do that, you're not paying attention. on that note thank the legend

thank the legend