The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Richelieu Dennis Talks Essence Festival; Online Criticism, Target Boycott, Black Businesses +More

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Richelieu Dennis Talks Essence Festival; Online Criticism, Target Boycott, Black Businesses. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Lauren LaRosa is here as well. and we got a special guest in the building He has so many titles. Well, ladies and gentlemen, yeah Richard. Oh god said But I was gonna say he's the executive chairman of sundown group of companies. That's right. We have rich dennis. Yes It is a group of companies. Tell them some of the companies are rich and well, good morning. Good morning Good morning As I was saying earlier feels like you know every couple years, you have to talk to Mike, talk to the Mike. You should know every couple of years. No, I only do this like once every two years when I come explain myself to you.

Um, but, um, so Sundial group of companies consist of Sundial media group and media and technology group. Uh, so that's essence refinery, 29 Afro29, Afropunk, Beautycon, and a few other media assets. Sundial Financial, which is New Voices Fund, in which we invest in businesses, one of the largest investors in black-owned businesses and people of color.

So that's the, and then the consumer. We have Sundial Consumers, so some of you guys know us for the brands that we've built, like Shea Moisture and New Indian Heritage, and Madam C.J. Walker, and now some of the newer brands, like Alafia and some of those things so so we we we play across the

The economic landscape of culture and also if I'm not mistaken you said Afrocon I mean afro tech Afropunk Afro punk okay, and a beauty con Okay, I'm just making sure man the reason The reason I wanna stress that is because you said you gotta come in here every couple of years to explain yourself, but I want people to know who you are and I want them to know how important you are to a lot, not just yourself, but to a lot of other black companies and black bodies.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've invested in, probably at this point, well over 100 black businesses. probably at this point, well over 100 black businesses. We've focused in on, we started with a keen focus on women-owned black businesses, and then we spread that out to men. So we've invested in and helped build companies

like Myel, Honeypot, Square, Squire rather, not Square, Squire, Solo Funds. So we go across everything from consumer to deep tech, right, with the lens of trying to solve vexing problems in the black community, investing in businesses that solve vexing problems in the black community, investing in businesses that solve vexing problems in the black community. We see ourselves as building the cultural infrastructure and monetization engines that allow us to keep ownership of our intellectual property as a community and to build and scale businesses

that can then reinvest back in the community. One of the last times I was here, not one of the last times, but the time before the last time, I came in here and we're talking about me selling Shea Moisture. And I said to you guys, I'm selling this company because I am going to unlock wealth that's never been seen in our community before I'm gonna invest that wealth back In our community and you did it. I did that right six years later seven years later

Not only have we done that we've now had four or five exits that have delivered more than a billion dollars Wow back into black families in this country. So very, very proud of the journey that we're on. And, but every once in a while, you know, we don't get it a hundred percent right. But what we do do is come back and fix it and get it a hundred percent right. So that's. What's the clock on the journey?

And I do want to say it's very important. What you do and have done is so important and even more important now. When you see all these DEI initiatives getting rolled back, when you see these fundings, when you see this funding for these black organizations and black companies getting cut, all we gonna have is us.

That's it. To invest back in each other. That's it, that's it. And part of that is if you don't create wealth, we don't have us to invest back in each other, right? Then we're constantly needing to have other people support us to, I mean, look, you know, we've got changes in healthcare coming, right?

We've got changes in our abilities to get an education. It's gonna cost, we're gonna have fewer opportunities and higher costs, right? The only thing that we can control is our economic destiny, right? And so I'm fiercely protective of that because if we don't have that, we've got nothing. And to do that, we've gotta build big businesses.

We've gotta build infrastructure to support those businesses. And we've gotta train up people so that they can run those businesses, right? All things that we all know are missing from our community infrastructure today. So we've got a lot of work to do, and we're here to do the work. Now, of course, trending over the last couple of days

was the Essence Festival. 31st Essence Festival. Some people were upset. Some people were mad about timing. Some people said it wasn't as packed as it usually is. They were mad that Target was a sponsor. So I know you're here today to break some of that down. So what happened, I guess, at S&S Festival weekend?

Yeah, so first of all, a lot of the criticism is warranted. A lot of it is not, right? There's always an explanation for things that go wrong, and people are always excited to take credit for things that go right. My job is to balance that all out. So we have an incredible team that's running Essence Festival. They have built something that when you look at it, if you look at the scale of what it is today, that competes against the best in the

world. Without the resources of the best in the world, right? Without the resources of the best in the world, right? And without the access that the best in the world has, right? So I'm extremely proud of that team. I'm also proud of the fact that they took risks that we don't normally get to take in order to build something better. And some of those risks worked out exceptionally well. Like you go into the convention center, extraordinary, right?

We had problems in production with the mics. That happens, seems to happen more in the Superdome or in domes rather but we had problems there those problems will be addressed because they are easily addressable there's reasons for why that happened at some point we can get into that if you want to but they look we had over 40 acts over the three-day weekend in the Superdome, right? Best talent in the world. And they deserve the best acoustics, they deserve the best production. And we'll give that to them.

We've given that to them for 30 years. This 31st year, we didn't do as good a job as we normally do. And next year we'll do a better job than we've ever done because we've learned what the issues were. Why was Lauren Hill so late? She said it wasn't her fault. Absolutely it was not her fault. She said she thanked y'all for actually stepping up

and saying it wasn't her fault. Our job is to protect black women. We're not gonna sit here and say, hey, you know, because she's taking the heat for it, we're gonna be quiet, because that's just not, that's not what we are, that's not what Essence is about. That's not what we're building. There were production issues with the audio video system

that caused the delay in her performance. We own that, right? Those delays, you know, were primarily because we've been very aggressive in, as I said earlier, our job is to develop the infrastructure that drives black businesses, right? So we also wanna make sure that we're investing in the local businesses in New Orleans, right? So we also want to make sure that we're investing in the local businesses

in New Orleans, right? And so our partner, our production partner, from our mandate and my team's directive, which again we're very proud that we're able to do this, you know one of the things that is also satisfying but scary is that there are no more black festivals around. We're about the only independent one left. And so what that means is that the people that get to produce these festivals, fewer and fewer and fewer of them have the resources and the access and the ability to run these large festivals because they're not getting those opportunities.

I said to my team a year ago, is we need to go out and find the types of partners that we can develop and grow so that they have the opportunities to do these, right? So we probably should have been a little bit more thoughtful in the execution of that, right? But at the end of the day, I'm proud of the fact that they took the risk, right? Next year, we will have a local, well-trained, well-developed partner in that area because we got the experience we had this year.

So y'all just didn't have the right production team to pull off a show, a concert of that scale basically, for the sound. Yes, right. However, sorry, sorry, I just wanna grab that, right. However, our job is to train them up. It's not their fault, right? It's our fault, right?

We have to, if we're gonna go that route, we have to continue to make sure that we're investing in their development and in their training, and we're gonna continue to do that. And rest assured that will not happen again. I'm sorry, Lauren. I was gonna ask you, the production company that you're talking about, is that separate from the Solomon Group company because there was

articles about them working with you guys and people throwing a lot of blame on the Solomon Group people too. Yeah you know at the end of the day it's not any of our partners fault is our fault because we engage them we um we hire them we pay them we them, and it's our job to make sure that everything is delivered properly. I'm not gonna sit here and say that if the song will groups fall, though, is this group's fault, or is that group's fault, right?

Rich, you're a nice guy. At the end of the, well, look. If I pay you to do sound, I'm not a sound guy. The sound's supposed to be right. I'm paying you a certain amount of money to sound supposed to be perfect. That's what you're paying for. You don't sit there with the mics

and adjust levels and stuff. Like, you pay somebody for production. More about the tardiness of the artist. Yeah. That was the other thing I kept hearing. I kept hearing people was, you pay somebody for production. More about the tardiness of the artist. Yeah. That was the other thing I kept hearing. I kept hearing people was late. But Lauryn Hill said she wasn't late though. So let me get to that.

But first let me take this, right? It's not that I'm a nice guy. Is that I am trying to build something that's lasting. If I don't invest in people and I don't have the patience with them, plenty of people allowed me to fail, right? And because they allowed me to fail, I'm where I'm at today, right?

My job and the role that I see myself playing is to make sure that when somebody fails, I'm there to pick them up, right? Because that's the other thing that we don't have the luxury of as black people. We get one shot, right? And then you walk away. So we're gonna take the hit. It's our fault.

It's our responsibility. We will deal with our internal partners. Our internal partners will step up. And if they then don't step up to the plate, then they will be gone. But it will not be because they made a mistake here. It will be because they haven't been able to learn from those mistakes. So that's the answer there. I think you were asking the tardiness. Yeah, I read the open letter that Stephanie Mills wrote and I love Stephanie Mills. God bless her. I love Stephanie Mills.

And what she said was, she's a professional. This is an OG veteran in the game. She said, the challenges I encountered were multifaceted and in my view indicative of broader organizational shortcomings. The scheduling and time management were severely lacking, creating a chaotic and stressful environment backstage. This organization cascaded onto the stage,

impacting the flow of the event and ultimately diminishing the quality of the performances. Then she got into the logistical issues. Oh, she said, beyond the logistical issues, the technical difficulties, which is what we just talked about, the sound system. She said all of that was deeply problematic. Yeah.

Well, I mean, she said it. There's nothing to argue there, right? I guess the why is what I'm asking. Well, I think the why is one scale. And when you have, when you start with the technical issues, as you guys are in this business, things have a way of having domino effects and they impact other things.

So we're tracking all of that down. We've got folks that have been working nonstop around the clock to make sure that we not just identify these, so whether it's Miss Mills or it's the security guard on the floor or whoever it is, we're talking to everybody. And we're making the adjustments that we need to make. This isn't a matter of, hey, you know, we're oblivious to these issues.

This isn't a matter of, hey, we don't understand that there were challenges. We understand there were challenges, we're getting to the bottom of it and we're correct. I think I understand what you saying as far as production. Cause you know, we deal with that, especially in radio a lot of times, right? You're giving people an opportunity.

You're giving people a chance, but they may not have the experience. And you said you got to train them up, but man, when you got something that needs to hit the ground running, I can't teach you how to run. I knew you already know how to run. Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, and a lot of times too, because we don't get the opportunities, we may know how to run, but we may be rusty, right? I may not have done it in a year, a year and a half, so things slip, right? I may have new team members that haven't really run it with me before, so I've gotta figure out how to do that.

So this is not, this is not, this isn't anything new to this business or to the music or the festival business, but I think it is particularly heightened because we care about the people that we care about and the people that we serve care deeply about what it is that we're doing. So this criticism, I don't take it as criticism to criticize, although there is some of that, right?

There's some piling on, there's all that, but that's part of the game. But people really care about what essence means to them and it's a source of pride for them, right? So we have to deliver that. That's why I'm here, right? So we have to be able to deliver that and we have to deliver that excellence every day.

And so, you know, 500 things may go right and one thing may go wrong or two things or 10 things may go wrong. We owe it to ourselves to say, hey, this isn't working and B, for us to correct it. Right, so that's what we do. I do have to ask, you know, I go to Essence every year, right, and I was there this year.

I actually spoke on one of the stages, the Suede Lounge. I did know. How dope was that? It was dope. Yeah. It was really, I mean, I love Essence because you get to see your core of people that you don't usually necessarily get to see, right? Everybody comes in one place and... You don't see that at the Puerto Rican Day Parade?

I'm not Puerto Rican or black, stop that. But I really get a chance to see people and not just at the convention center, not just at the concert, at restaurants, at day parties, at just being out and about. But I did notice that it wasn't as packed as it usually is, right? Right.

Some people say it was maybe because of the boycott of Target. Some people say it was maybe because of the boycott of Target, some people say maybe, you know, people can't afford it right now. What do you say to that? Was it Target? Was it, you know, cause? Yeah, look, I think we live in a world right now

where there's so much uncertainty, right? And people are trying to figure out where this is all headed, right? They're hurting financially, or they're unsure of what's gonna happen to them financially, so they're taking a beat on things and say, hey, how am I gonna do this? There's a sort of

deep sense of responsibility for, to just share everything, right? And to be as loud and as vocal and as visible as possible. So things that may not be fully understood get discussed in ways and in places that sound like they actually know what they're talking about. So at the Convention Center, again, phenomenal success. Here's why.

Last year, there was a lot of lines, a lot of blockage of the aisles. Our elders couldn't move freely, they couldn't get from one place to another. So we made a strategic decision to increase the size by 100,000 square feet. What that enabled us to do was wider aisles, spread the place out, tuck lines on the sides and away from the center aisle so people could move more freely. So when you look at that you say, oh, there's fewer people here. And you couple that with an active boycott that's going on, right?

And you couple that with all of the uncertainty that I just talked about. And then it's easy to come to that conclusion. Well, you know, we had almost 50,000 people a day go through the convention center and some days more, right? That's the first thing. So same numbers as last year, right, in the convention center, same numbers as last year. Better organize, better plan. That's the lessons that we learned last year, right?

Now we gotta turn our attention to our production in the Superdome and make sure that that's just as tight. You don't have any issues in the convention center, and we're engaging with that many people a day, right? I think it's something like, I don't know, like 400 panels, right? 20-something thousand minutes of content, right? Like massive stuff, right?

Scale stuff. The last part about that is it's all free, right? So when you come into that experience, the other thing that I think you notice this year for those of you that have been, is the elevation of the experience, right? The the visuals, right? The content, the quality of the presenters, right? The quality of the presentations, extraordinary, right? I was extremely excited about the programming at Swate, right?

For the first time, it wasn't an afterthought. A men's experience wasn't an afterthought. It was a real intentional experience and execution, right? Well, bring down what SWAID is for people that don't know it and weren't there, because they might not know. Yeah, so SWAID is what is now Essence's men's platform and experience that we're slowly building up, because if you go out there and you look

in the media landscape today, there's nothing that's really focused on black men in an elevated and aspirational way. And so, Suede was actually a magazine that was owned by Essence, that was launched by Essence back in the day and was then shuttered shortly thereafter. And I looked at it and I said, you know, what a cool name for men, right?

And so we're gradually building that up. But I think from your experience there, you can see where we're headed with it. And what we're doing. And I think a lot of women all the time always look for men in essence, right? Right. Because there's a lot of women.

There's a lot of relationships. There's a lot of women in there looking for relationships, they're looking. So that suede lounge was a great opportunity for me. You was looking for men. I was actually on the panel, sir. I was on the panel, sir. That's the best way to find a man.

You know, sure. Right, that's the best way. But I do want to the panel, sir. I was on the panel, sir. That's the best way to find a man. Yeah, man. Birthday. But I do want to say, too, I want to stay on the economic point that Envy brought up. I saw people complaining about the VVIP super lounges. I guess they said the super lounge used to be a part of the standard ticket price, but then they had to charge extra for the VVIP.

So a lot of people was like, damn, that prices me out. So I was just wondering, how do you balance financial sustainability with accessibility? for the VVIP, so a lot of people was like, damn, that prices me out. So I was just wondering, how do you balance financial sustainability with accessibility? Well, but I think that's also part of what I was saying earlier about people having an idea, but not really fully having all of the information to make decisions, right?

So that Super Lounge experience was a free experience where the convention center had, not the convention center, the Superdome had these spaces, right, inside of them that Essence used as a way to showcase up and coming talent, right, give them opportunities and went quite for the main stage. For the past three years or so, the Superdome was under construction

and those spaces went away. So we haven't had that for three years. The way that we solved for that was doing super lounges early on the main stage. Right? That didn't change. Right? But what we also are dealing with is one, we should talk about the economics of it. Right?

We'll come back to the economics of how an event like this gets pulled off and what it takes and what it requires. But what we then did was said, hey, we're trying to over deliver on the value proposition of why you come to, why you would go to the Superdome, why you would buy a ticket, right? And what has happened is for our community, they get charged more and they receive less. We're guilty of trying to give more for the same price. And that has to then be accompanied by other sources of revenue in order to sustain

that free convention center. How about I didn't, I've been going for so many years, I didn't know the convention center was free. I had no idea. Convention centers? I had no idea Convention Center I had no idea well you'd be working there because I usually go to when I went I just was an attendee and I just went I had no idea it was free that's crazy I had no clue no nowhere else on this planet which is amazing is anybody giving us that I mean I think about who you got to see and they got to see and talk to you

right they got to see on that same they got to see and talk to you. Right, they got to see on that same, they got to see and talk to Maxwell, they got to see and talk to. And let me explain this a little bit. So the Convention Center, of course, it's a huge convention center and they have different stages, podcasts, artists performing, and I didn't know all that was free,

but all that is free. So like you can go there and when I was there doing one stage, Lloyd was doing another stage performing. So there was like 10,000 people at Lloyd's stage, there was a couple thousand people at our stage, people doing podcasts, conversations with Maxwell, and I didn't know that was free, that's the thing. I didn't know that either, I thought you had to buy a ticket.

Yeah, I thought so too, but that's dope. No, but in order to maintain that, that money has to come from somewhere, right? So we're trying to find other ways that we can monetize so that we can continue to find other ways that we can monetize so that we can continue to provide that experience so we don't have to charge. Because our community is going through a, I don't know if people know this, right?

Unemployment rate for black women in this country right now is skyrocketing. Right? Unemployment rate for black people in this country is skyrocketing. Unemployment rate for black people in this country is skyrocketing. The opportunities that we were promised just two years ago have evaporated. We're going to stand by our community and we're going to build, we're going to use our business acumen to build a sustainable business that will be here a hundred years from now right we're gonna make those investments we need our community to come along we also though

taking full accountability need to make sure that our community knows that that's what we're doing right I think we take for granted that they know what we're doing the fact that you guys in here have been there, I don't know how many times, you've probably been there 15 times. That you didn't know that all of those experiences were free, right? I've only been once, I'm sorry.

I've been once too. Once and once? I've been there when it was in Houston. Oh, so you went right up to Katrina. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's a million square feet that we produce in that convention center for our community serving Anywhere from 50 to 70 thousand people a day right for three days straight It's where we bring black businesses in the SoCo market so they can sell their products

And when they come to that SoCo market, that one weekend, many of them make more money in that one weekend than they make the entire year. But the only other thing that I would say that I did not like is every night at that convention center, well at the concert when people were performing, I didn't know who was really performing until I got there. You guys had, I mean think about it, you got Glorilla, Patti LaBelle, I think we had the best line up in the history of line ups.

Lauren Hill, Nas, Boys To Men, Dougie Fresh, Babyface, Patti LaBelle, Stephanie Hill. See, you feel like that wasn't properly promoted, but that was a conversation too. I didn't know until I got there. I didn't know until I got there about all those artists. And I feel like it would have been a bigger push if you'd have known. Like you got to see all those artists in a week

and you've never seen nothing like that. Old and new, coming up artists. Like it was a dope show. That's, but that's what we do every year, right? And that's the idea. So, you know. Nah, usually you know usually you know when new addition is closing out you know when Mary's before like you know

it was this year I didn't I didn't I didn't know Nas was there until I got there so let me so I'll tell you I didn't know LL was there too I seen him on a plane that's true so I don't know he's damn biased all those people are from Queens okay I bet y'all promoted Patti LaBelle and them crazy. All he cared about is them rappers from Queens. If you ask me about it, I did not know. So that's another learning, right? But I tell you, more than that, more than, hey, we need to really amp it up because people need to know.

More than that, we need to be earlier so that people can plan. Because in this economy and the world that we're in, people need to plan. This is some people's vacation. Some people are like, hey, I'm gonna save up my money this year so I can go to Essence. Great, we need to make sure that we give them

enough of a window for them to plan. The other part of it is we're, we're the music and the festival, the, the, the concert part of it is an important part in the celebration. But that convention center is where the nourishment and the learning and the nurturing comes in. And so we've got to make sure that we tie those closer together so that people know all of what's happening and they can understand just exactly how massive it is. So we'll do a better job of marketing so that people know more and that they know earlier. So that's,

that's certainly something that we can improve on and that feedback is very well taken. I want to talk to you about Target. I totally get, you need Target's dollars to even do this event. You don't have to explain that, but was that a tough decision being that, you know, the Jamal Bryant, the Tamika Mallory's, the Nina Turner's being that you know that Jamal Bryant, the Tamika Mallories, the Nina Turner's have staged this boycott against Target that a lot of people are participating in?

Yeah, so those are always difficult decisions, right? And this wasn't a hey, we decided to go with Target against the boycott or hey, we decided to go with the boycott against Target, right? You've gotta remember what our value proposition is to this community. And that is to help them build their businesses and to help them build the infrastructure that

supports their business. We build the infrastructure. They build their businesses. So it wasn't a decision around, here's this boycott that we want to go against, or here's this retail partner that we want to support. The decision, first of all, was we already had a contract prior to all of this, four years now, and they've been good partners, right? They've done what they've told us they were going

to do. And even recently, not recently, at Festival, Brian Cornell, their CEO, came on the ground. He's like, look, I want to see the people, I want to talk to the ground, he's like, look, I wanna see the people, I wanna talk to the people, I wanna understand, but he also shared that we haven't stopped doing the things that we had committed to. We're gonna complete, we've made a $2 billion commitment. To who? To the black community. To the black community. But isn't that the whole point of the protest

is that because they rolled back the DEI initiatives, but they haven't done those things, from what I've been told. No, so what he shared was that they actually never stopped those things, right? Their two billion dollar commitment, he said that they are going to complete that two billion dollar commitment by the end of this year.

They just can't label the DEI because they're scared of Trump. I'm not gonna get into the end of this year. They just can't label the DEI because they scared the Trump. I'm not going to get into the politics of it. But what I will say is that they've committed to and have exercised. And from what I've been able to see, they have done what they said they would do, certainly with the businesses that are in their retail environment, which is where I

think the bulk of those dollars go anyway. But that's not for me to answer, right? What I can say though is that they have shown me and provided evidence that they have continued those programs. They've continued their HBCU program and the scholarships. They've continued their dollar commitments, right? So for our decision making was based on the economic impact or the inadvertent economic impact

that we're seeing in the black businesses. So if that convention center didn't happen, there's 200 vendors that would have lost their income for that weekend, right? Which as I said earlier for some of them, is the bulk of their income. There are retail, there are brands that have been preparing all year to have a showcase

to get retail distribution, right? So there's other retailers that come there, because we also have a program through the New Voices Foundation that trains up our vendors to be ready to go into retail. So that's the other thing that we do. We have almost 30,000 black businesses on our platform and women-owned businesses on our platform that we're providing developmental services to every day and also at the festival, right? So that's everything from preparedness to go into retail to business planning, supply chain development,

all the things that it takes to that. So we've also then, as a result of that, really curated the SoCo market so that when our guests come in, they're getting the best of the best, and that when retail partners come in, they're able to then say, hey, they're ready to do business

and go to the next level, right? So we don't wanna deprive them of that opportunity. Greater than that is they've already made the investments, right? Some of these people have, not some of them, many of them, because where do we go to get funding in our community when we need to build a business today?

Right? Go for me. Right. Right? So part of what they use this weekend for is to recoup the investments that they've made. So how do they get these investments? They're taking our second mortgages on their homes. They're drawing down on their

401ks, they're borrowing from their neighbors and their friends and their family. Every single person here, right? And if they don't get these opportunities, what happens to them, right? So we've got to think about, so it's kind of, you know, I'm a, I'm older than all of you guys. I grew up at a time where it was, you know, it was, we had MLK to follow and learn about, and you had two sides to MLK's platform.

The first one was the civil rights platform. The second one, which he didn't get to see all the way through, unfortunately, and we can all speculate as to why, was the economics rights platform. That's right. Right? So the boycott is focused on the civil rights platform.

I'm focused on the economic rights platform. That's what I've done my entire career, right? 30-something years now, almost 40 years, this is what I've done. I started when I was 19 years old, right? So almost 40 years. Kind of crazy to think, right? But that's all I've done, right? All I've done is build businesses that invest back in black communities

and develop new businesses that can then stand on their own. So I'm looking, I'm faced with this, invest back in black communities and develop new businesses that can then stand on their own. So I'm looking, I'm faced with this and I'm seeing the impact that this is not just having here, but also on shelf. So yeah, the boycott can, we, our voice has been heard. There is no doubt about it. Our voice has been heard. There is no doubt about it. Our voice has been heard.

Fantastic. Right? My question is what next? And how do we now protect those businesses that have been impacted? Because Target's traffic may be down. Their revenue may be down. But think about those, I don't know how many, I know that we're involved with maybe 20 businesses

in that sell to Target and other retailers, but we're talking specifically here. Some of them, their businesses are down more than 50%. Some of them, their business, the average is around 30%, right? The black owned businesses that are in target. The black owned businesses that are in target, right? Because the traffic isn't there.

And so the impact of that is the longer this goes on, I can't pay my mortgage I can't pay you back the money that I borrowed you from you right I can't send my kids to the schools that I've not put them in because I thought hey I've got I've got this business that's that's ramping up right I'm worried about health care because there's all kinds of changes coming there there's there's an undue amount of stress that goes on those businesses as a result of this, right? The boycott I think has served its purpose I think it has been one that showed our economic might it showed our voice

It showed that we can that we can be united. I'm all for that, right? But what I have to think about is how I make sure that these people and these businesses that have made these investments survive through this until all of that is resolved. Can you move on from a boycott if a demand hasn't been met though?

Again, the whole point of boycotting is because you have demands. If Target hasn't met those demands, why should we tell people to move on? If they have not met those demands? Yeah, if they haven't met those demands, why should we tell the protesters to move on? Yeah, so I haven't told anybody to move on, right?

Sounds like you saying that just to live. No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that my responsibility, the place that I've lived my life, is in building out that ecosystem. Right, so my job is to ensure that that ecosystem survives. Right, that's my job, right, and that's what I'm doing. I guess my other, real quick, I just wanna,

just from your standpoint, just Essence, right? Not the black owned businesses within Target, just Essence and Essence Festival. If you would've said, you know what, I'm listening to the protesters, Target, I don't want y'all to be a sponsor this year. How would that have impacted y'all business? Cause I know y'all had a contract.

Well, we have a contract, so that would impact our business. I tell you something else, right? There's many others that have either pulled out of supporting black media and black businesses. There are many others that have cut down what their commitments had been or where they have Where they have invested before so it's not just this isn't just a issue that's related

Just a target right this is an issue that you know we've had partners You know that didn't come back Ford didn't come back right? You used to be able to you know do the Ride and drive and you know know, they've cut back, they didn't come back. Delta didn't come back, right? So there's partners in it, but we still put on the same, the same show, we still put on the same event.

So we're going to ride for our community, right? We knew we were going to take a loss going into this, but it's better to me that we take a loss and that those those that community that business community The broader community of New Orleans the broader community that comes to essence festival has an extraordinary experience We did have hiccups. Yes. Why didn't those companies come back? Any well, I mean, you know some of them have some of them have have yeah I mean they've they've they've they've, they've, they've, they got rid of, they got rid of the D.E.I. program, there's no money, there's no, there's no budget. They met their black quota. Right. So, so, you know, but this is the new world that we live in, and I think it's very important that we to sleep or we're not gonna wake up and it's gonna be

better we gotta work through it right? And so I think that like I said earlier you've got the civil rights part, the civil rights and civil justice part and you've got the economic rights and economic justice part of it. The two have to work right? And so I'm looking forward to us getting the two to work. But in the interim, you've got to sustain what's there, otherwise it's not recoverable. Do you bring it back next year? And you know, with the difficulties

that you had this year, especially with sponsors pulling out, do you bring it back? Absolutely. The reason I ask is, you said you took a huge loss this year, right? Yeah. And you don't have the sponsorship, so how do you sustain that without raising prices and making sure that people can still enjoy what they enjoy without hitting the consumer in the pocket? You know, especially since you lost a car company, you lost Delta, and whoever else you lost.

Right, well. Those are big hits. You never know. Next year they may be back. Gotcha. Right? You, they may be back, and there are other brands out there who value our community, who wanna engage with our community, right?

There's new revenue streams to find, there's new partners to go find. It's like, we can't just give up because it's hard, right? Because otherwise, we won't be here. You know, I agree with you. And yes, there is going to be criticism for any event, but based on what you just said, I wonder if people realize that, let's say next year,

these companies that pulled out this year for DEI initiatives, they might wanna come back, but they're not gonna come back to something that is getting so criticized. They're not gonna come back to something that's getting so slandered on social media. That's when they be like, oh, I wanna stay away from that like, you know, yeah, you know and the thing is it's look

What we did this year was an extraordinary success It had faults and issues like everything else, right? But I can go through the stats with you. Same number of people in the convention center, right? We're dealing with what feels like a recession, especially in our community. We're dealing with, hey, you know, the conscious decision of do I support this or not support this because I want to support my community, but I also want to support this

economic stance that we're taking here. We're dealing with all of those things, right? I don't think we'll be dealing with that next year, right? I have faith and confidence that we won't be, I can't speak for the economy, but I think the inner dialogue that we're having with ourselves around, do I do this, do I not do this,

I don't think we'll be dealing with that next year. And yes, the criticism doesn't hurt. But you can't dismiss the economy though, Rich. No, that's what I'm not dismissing. Things are gonna get better. The economy, but also too, this Target thing has been going on for a while. So if next year the boycott is still there,

do you guys, I don't know how long your contract is. You guys will still be in contract next year? So they'll be back next year. Yeah, so the answer to that question is we have a, we have a responsibility to our community to deliver to them the best product that we can deliver. Right? Every year we get better at delivering that product. Right? Every year we get better at delivering that product. Right? To your point, the criticism doesn't help.

At all. Right? Doesn't help at all. But it's not gonna deter us from doing the work that needs to be done so that we can get those partners. Right? And we can grow and we can scale and we can do the things. Like I said, our vision for this is not for next year.

Our vision for this is 100 years out. So we're building the infrastructure that allows us to do that. We'll do the work, we'll make the adjustments from the, that we see from the criticisms, the ones that are reasonable in that work, we'll do that. So as far as what happens next year with partners, we have to go through the process to see what happens.

We have to go through the process to see what other partners come through. We have to look at what's going on with the boycott, what changes are made to it, how things get resolved. So to your point, there is a resolution to everything, right? We have to come to a resolution. I think that will happen. How did you feel when they turned the conversation

because of Target and Caroline, your CEO's, past involvement with Target, they turned it into a black American versus black African conversation and that whole thing exploded of like, Essence is losing its focus on black Americans. I mean, those are one of the, I mean, I'd love to hear how you guys think about that,

but that's one of those ones that I struggle with, understanding intellectually, right? For a host of reasons. Just from, let's just talk about the actual facts, right? So we had, I don't know, 40 plus acts and performers, right? We had one Jamaican act. Buju.

Performer Buju. And we had one African performer, Davido. That to me doesn't say that we're losing our center. We remain extremely centered on African American culture and on black women. That's our center. That doesn't mean we can't expand out from our center. All it means is we can't lose our center.

So if you were on the ground, if you were there, you see that that center is very much there, right? You go into the convention center, right? You look at what happened on the stages, you look at what happened. If you were there, you know that we're still centered right but if you were there you also know that we're growing and that we're broadening because everybody has to grow a broad and otherwise you won't be around right there's also sort of the philosophical approaches to these to this is I view myself as black.

I've benefited from being black, and I have also lost from being black. When I walk in the room, what people see, if they don't know me, when I walk in the room, I walk down the street, they see a black man, right? My entire life has been dedicated to uplifting black. I've focused it on the economics, on the economic side of black

because that's what I know how to do. That's what I'm skilled at. The thing that I've learned from that is we're much better off when we're focused on our commonalities and we're building on those commonalities. As I said earlier, I grew up, you know, King,

Garvey, Lumumba, right? That the thinking around, hey, we have a much better chance of developing and growing our communities when we find the commonalities and the alignments and we're working towards shared goals and shared objectives. When we don't do that, we become much smaller, right?

And much more volatile and much more vulnerable. I can't even believe you took the time to explain that. If me, Boojoo, Bontan, and DeVito are walking down the street and a white supremacist see us, guess what he see? Black niggas. That's it. What are we talking about here?

Do you feel like though with criticisms like that and like, you know, just some of the stuff that you, you would feel like we're not gonna, y'all took ownership for a lot of things even before the article hit, right? The things that you're like, this is nonsense, we're not gonna take ownership for that. Do you ever feel like it's kinda like unfair

or you ever hurt by it? Cause you do so much, censored in black people, regardless of where they come from. I don't have the luxury of being hurt by it. I think the first couple of times that it happened, I think the first time I was here, and very, very similar circumstance, right? We did an ad for Shay, right?

And that ad had run for months. And they cut it down for social. And the person that cut it down for social cut it where there was a, it ended, there was a white woman in the front and a white woman in the back and then there was a very small glimpse of a black woman, right?

And that wasn't intentional at all. And it wasn't the message we were trying to convey But you know people got hurt by it, right? And and because we build we build brands and we're involved with brands That are all about our culture and all about our identity and we ride hard for it, right? So The person that made that mistake Right. I could have walked in and fired that person Right? So, the person that made that mistake, right? I could have walked in and fired that person.

Right? I chose not to. Because that was a person that was trying to do something and trying to create something and that deserved an opportunity to fail. And they got that opportunity to fail. They are today running one of the most acclaimed agencies out there. If we had not, if we had reacted differently, they probably wouldn't have gotten that opportunity. So it's our responsibility to give them an opportunity to fail. I have chosen to

spend my career trying to develop businesses and economic engines in our community. I can't, if I were so thin-skinned that you know every time I did something wrong or every time people perceive me to did something wrong, or every time people perceive me to do something wrong, I walk away from what the mission was, we wouldn't be here, right? We wouldn't have these hundreds of businesses that are now on the shelves of Target or Walmart or CVS. If I had listened to the criticism when I sole-shay,

I would have gone off into somewhere and hidden away and gone and done my thing there. I wouldn't have done it. Then Honey Pot wouldn't have been with the LL. Honey Pot wouldn't have been here. My L wouldn't have been here. Lip Bar wouldn't have been here. Solo Funds wouldn't have been here.

I mean, you name it. The list goes on and on and on. So I don't have that luxury, you know, and I have to take the other thing is, because of because what we're doing is so novel in our community, right? I have an accountability to say, hey, this is what's working. And this is not what this is what's not working, right? People have the right to decide whether or not they want to rock with us, right? But we're gonna keep doing what we, what our intentions are.

We're gonna continue to share what those intentions are, and we're gonna continue to do the work and be accountable for what we get, like I said earlier. When something goes wrong, when something goes right, we're gonna be here for both. And I'm glad that you're open to all this criticism, but the reality is it's hard to explain business to people who don't run one, especially corporate business,

especially when you are a black person running a business trying to do things specifically for black people. We are so hard on each other, man. I haven't heard Essence be talked about this much in years, at least Essence family. In probably decades. You know what I'm saying? But now everybody's talking about it so much because we got so

much negative things to say. Like you said, some criticism is valid. Some is valid. Not all of it. That's right. Right. And the levels of criticism is definitely not warranted. Right. I will tell you that. Right. But if we hurt Miss Mill, Stephanie Mills got to make that right.

That's what we're here for. You hurt Lauryn Hill. You got to make that right. Got to make that right. But those are actual valid issues. Likeyn Hill, you gotta make that right. Gotta make that right. But those are actual valid issues. That letter, she has actual valid issues. Valid issues. Y'all got too much Africans, it's not a valid criticism.

No. Y'all, they arguing like crazy. But I like the way that y'all. Too much Africans here. I like the way that you guys responded to things because it curved the headlines. The headlines about Lauryn Hill had to include, Festivals says it's not her fault,

here's exactly what happened. A lot of festivals, most festivals don't do that because she said that this has happened to her before. But this isn't most festivals. This is Essence. We're accountable to our community and to those black women that we're here to serve and protect. And when we get it wrong, we're going to say it, right?

Caroline, you just brought up Caroline Wanga. Caroline Wanga had nothing to do with this. I was going to bring that up. I saw people blaming her, but I was this. Let's leave her out of it. I saw people blaming her, but I was told she's not even really part of the team. She's on leave. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's on leave. She just, go buy her book, guys. She just dropped a phenomenal book. She's been an incredible leader for Essence, and we're grateful. Is she still in the CEO seat? She's still in the CEO seat because she's on leave. Got you.

Why was it so quick, why was people so quick to blame her when she had nothing to do with this year's festival? I mean, look, I don't know. We live in a world, we live in a world now where it's easy to do that, right? And so people do that and you can shy away from it, right? Or you can face it head on. I choose to face it head on because I think people get an opportunity to learn from my mistakes. They learn from my team's mistakes. My team gets to learn from their mistakes. And the greatest

blessing is to be in a position where you're allowed to make mistakes. That's the greatest blessing because if you're not allowed to make mistakes, you shrink, right? You don't try things, you're stuck in one thing, and that's the only place you can be. For our community to grow, we've got to be able to afford to make mistakes, right? We've got, and, but the other thing is,

we've also got to be able, the thing that I'll notice, that I'll say now, as I've gotten on in years is my community No longer has the grace it once had for each other. Not at all, right? We go on these platforms And did we ever did we ever I don't know if we have no we we Yeah in my day, yes There was grace, you know, if something went wrong, somebody pulled you aside and said,

hey, you know, this is going wrong. If your kid did something wrong, they're like, hey. And it was grace. Mm-hmm. In the 2000s, there was grace. Like the community that we people have, like it takes a tribe vibe. It was grace, yeah, absolutely.

But we've gotta bring that back, right? It's like if we run away from these things, it doesn't come back. Right. If our kids grow up and don't see, they think that this is the way it should be. So, did we get some things wrong? Absolutely, but I think if you measure us

against any festival that happened this year, I think we rise to the top, right? I don't know of one festival that happened this year that didn't have some sort of production issue. All right, ours is amplified because people care, right? Ours is amplified because our community is under a lot of pressure. Ours is amplified because we have a boycott going on. Ours is amplified for a whole host of reasons.

That doesn't mean that we run away from it, right? It means that we gotta talk about it. Absolutely. I think the valid criticisms, and I know you gotta get out of here, I think the valid criticism are the production issues, the lateness, the cost for people, and I do think the target conversation

is a valid conversation to have. It's a valid criticism for people that are boycotting to bring up. But I think what you, the way you're explaining it makes sense to me. Because if we don't have sponsors, but here's the other bigger thing, right? We don't know, right? And it hasn't been shared and we probably all need to do a better job of that.

Of the impact, as I said earlier, that it has, the unintended consequences, right, that it's having on the dozens, if not hundreds, of businesses that do business and target, right? We don't know that, right? So there's two sides to this, and as I said, my job is to make sure that those companies are protected, those people are protected, and that our community continues to get the opportunities. Because the other thing that happens, and I said this on one of the other times out here, because this is something that I believe to be extremely true, is if we make people scared to do business with us,

they already have a reticence to invest in us and to do business with us. If they're concerned about, hey, you know, if I do business with this person and something goes wrong between them and their community, they're going to burn the house down. They have plenty of places to put their money and they have plenty of choices as to who to put that money and they have plenty of choices as to who to put that money with. We have to, and as you know, when I was growing up, you used to tell, you know, you have to be three times better than the next guy, right?

In the world that we're growing up in today, we have to be five times better. It's just that nobody's telling us that. But that's the point I brought up earlier when I talked about the criticism because people will go on social media and they might think about, okay, let's put some money there next year. But if they go on social media and see a bunch of backlash, they'd be like, no, I'm not going to.

Why am I doing that? I don't want my brand associated with that. We talked about this on my podcast. And my thing was the criticisms are valid. Like Charlamagne said, I just wish that we understood how we shape what conversation and impression is. But when you say that, like, people don't want to do business with us because they see that we can burn the house down, what's the happy medium of, but at the same time, you want people who feel like they need to boycott for whatever reasons to get what they need

and feel respected too. Because that's an obvious pushback, someone would say, but like, you don't want people to run all over you either. Yeah, and that's fair, right? There's no, I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying that there's another side to it. Two things can be true, right? So I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying that there's another side to it. Two things can be true. Right? So I'm not arguing that.

All I'm saying is that there's a side to it that has a consequence. Right? And as a community, we're going to have to figure out what the balance is. Because neither side is good. If I feel like I'm being disrespected, let's dive into it and understand what that actually means. And if I feel like I'm not getting an opportunity here, let's dive into that and understand what it means. Not just jump on a platform that and then just spill. And I personally think a lot of this stuff is driven by bots. I don't even think it's people. Well, not only that. A lot of people weren't even there. Like the people that a lot of people weren't even there.

The people that left those, they weren't even there. And they do those type of things. I say this and I tell me and Charlamagne talk about it all the time. The bad thing is we reward this type of behavior, right? And the way we reward it is there's likes, there's views. They get paid for the amount of views. So if I get a million views for itching on essence

and I get paid $1,000 for it, you know what I'm gonna do tomorrow? I'm gonna do it again. Well you probably right, but let's not dismiss the people who were there. But there were people there, but there were people there, and he said they did have some problems,

but what I want you to do too, Rich, is instead of coming when Ish is effed up to talk about fixing it, I want you to come before and talk about what you're doing so we can get that good word out to the people. But you're too busy doing the work. So that's, I was gonna say, yes. So let me tell you what I grew up by.

My mother would always tell us, let's do the things we're going to talk about. Let's not talk about the things we're going to do. So that's my mentality. If I have something to share that, like this conversation, I have something to share that that I think like this conversation Mm-hmm. I'm happy to share it But other than that I'd rather be I rather be working with my team solving these problems, right?

And now that you know, I'm executive chairman we have CEOs in different roles, you know they're they're doing that so I can sit here and and talk but the reality of it is I can sit here and talk. But the reality of it is, we have to give each other more grace. And we have to build more businesses, right? That's our only way out of this, right? We have to build more businesses.

And we have to treat those things that allow us to build those businesses with that mindset, right? So I'll say this. Those sponsored dollars that come in go into the investments to put on the free experiences that you get and to allow us to pay for the talent that we won't be able to pay for just by ticket sales. There's nowhere else on this planet that you can go and get what Essence Fest gives you. And that's why I believe people are so protective of it.

And so I appreciate that and I understand that. And we will continue to do the work to make it continuously better. But I will say this. What we put on lives on the world stage, right? It's not, it's not, nobody's bigger, right? It's just that a lot of what we do is free, right? But nobody's bigger. So our revenues don't match everybody else's revenues

because they charge you. The other thing is when you go to Coachella or you go to any one of these other places, you're just there for the act that's on the stage. When you come to Essence. Community. You're there for community, right? So I think we did a great job with community.

We didn't do a great job with the production, but I think that just the community of the talent that was there. And we need to communicate more frequently, earlier and more frequently, who's here, who's not here, what's happening. So those are things that are fixable and we're here to do the work.

All criticisms are valid and Essence is just gonna try to do better next year. There we go. That's it. That's it. All right. God bless your patience. We appreciate you for joining us. I said, God bless you, you have a lot of patience.

Not like what you said, you don't have the, you said I don't have the luxury of being hurt. No, I don't have that luxury. All right, well we appreciate you for joining us this morning. Caroline Wenger is the president and CEO, I called her editor in chief. No, yeah, of Essence Ventures,

which is the Essence business. Well, it's Rich Dennis, it's The Breakfast Club. Good morning, thanks for joining us. Wake that ass up early in the morning's the Breakfast Club. Good morning. Thanks for joining us. Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Show me how good it can get today, God, and show the rest of the world what we already know. It can't get no better than being hella black, hella queer and hella Christian. My name is Joseph Rees.

I am the creator and host of hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian. A fully black, fully queer, fully human, fully divine podcast from I Heart Media to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Girlfriends is back with a new season, and this time I'm telling you the story of Kelly Harnett. Kelly spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. As she fought for her freedom, she taught herself the law.

He goes, oh God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer. And became a beacon of hope for the women locked up alongside her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. I think I was put here to save souls by getting people out of prison. The Girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen from July 14th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebene, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebene and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that will challenge

your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. Every Tuesday make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, host of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. I know how overwhelming it can feel if flying makes you anxious. In session 418 of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, Dr. Angela Neal-Bornett and I discussed flight anxiety. What is not normal is to allow it to prevent you from doing the things that you want to do, the things that you were meant to do.

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