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Hey! Yesterday I watched HBO's Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage. I knew that festival had issues but damn, what a tragedy! Woodstock '99 has become a snapshot of the low points of Generation X. Similarly, Fyre Fest highlights millennials and influencer culture at its worst.

But the documentary is also a reminder of how storytelling shapes our perception. Woodstock '69 became a glorified pop culture event thanks to its 1970 documentary, which ignored its rampant problems. Imagine if Woodstock '69 had MTV's Kurt Loder reporting the play-by-play debauchery? Or an attendee tweeting a picture of their food options? It would have been remembered very differently.

Next, we need a great documentary on Freaknik, the Atlanta spring break festival which also ended in 1999. Freaknik served a very different audience than Woodstock '99 but suffered some similar issues.

Today's memo covers my Trapital Podcast interview with REVOLT CEO Detavio Samuels, Kanye West's Donda listening party, and Virgil Abloh's Off-White LLC getting acquired by LVMH.

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new pod: Detavio Samuels, REVOLT

Detavio is CEO of REVOLT, a media company founded by Diddy that covers hip-hop and social justice. In this episode, we talked about the company's digital and cable strategy, how REVOLT doubled its audience when it pivoted to social justice, shows The Crew League and OffTop, and opportunities and challenges that Black-owned media companies face. If you work in any type of media, this is a must-listen!

Tap in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch on YouTube.

On the Trapital Podcast, hip-hop's heavy hitters explore their best ideas so you can level up your game. Learn more here.​

Kanye West is building 'Donda' in public

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Last week Thursday, Kanye West hosted a 'Donda' album listening party for 40,000+ fans at the Mercedez-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. He hasn't dropped the album yet and has reportedly rented out space in the football stadium until the album is done. The new release date is August 6.

The irony of influence. Kanye sold 40,000+ tickets for this event on three days' notice. Tickets were $20 or $50. He gave away around 5,000 seats, but still, he likely made at least $1 million from paid tickets. Plus merch sales. Plus the record-breaking Apple Music livestream. And all he did was press play and walk around the stadium. Only a handful of artists can pull this off.

Despite the impressive numbers, Kanye likely lost money or broke even at best. It probably costs around $1.5 million to rent Mercedes-Benz Stadium, plus any production and event costs. But this is the same guy who went into $53 million of debt to bring his visions to life. He never lets money compromise art.

Plus, Kanye has to pay for space he rented in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium until the album is done. His line "last week I was in my other other Benz," has a whole new meaning.

The business model of Kanye West. Donda's release, rollout, and delay feel similar to past releases. 2016's The Life of Pablo's rollout is remembered for both its epic Yeezy Season 3 fashion show listening party at Madison Square Garden and its botched release on Tidal. Kanye could have earned much more money had he stuck to his original release plan to sell it as a download. But his focus on the Yeezy collab helped fuel an apparel brand that made him a billionaire.

Similarly, Kanye's Hawai'i recording sessions for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy weren't cheap. Hawai'i is expensive AF. But the end product is widely considered the greatest album of the 2010s, and the footage from those Hawai'i sessions likely helped Kanye sell a documentary to Netflix for $30 million.

Music is a loss leader for many superstar artists but for Kanye it's on another level.​

Building in public. Over the weekend, Jermaine Dupri defended Kanye's delays with a reminder of how listening parties work. "you play the music and [gauge] what you got by the reactions, then prioritize by the best reaction and fix where the response was weak."

Kanye shared songs he finished hours before the event. He had lyrics referencing Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who just won the NBA title last week Tuesday.

This isn't his first time doing this. Three weeks after The Life of Pablo was released, he continued to tweak the album and add new tracks. He turned his album into a SaaS product. I still think about his tweet "Ima fix wolves" tweet whenever I hear the song.

He builds in public, like a writer who tests out ideas for a future article in a Twitter post, or an indie artist who invites Twitch subscribers to a private livestream. The only difference is that Kanye builds in public at a much larger scale. He rents out the biggest venue possible in hip-hop's most influential city. That's the Kanye West experience.

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Virgil Abloh Sells Off-White to LVMH

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The fashion designer sold 60% of his company to LVMH, where's he has been the artistic director of the menswear collection since 2018.

Another bet on influence. LVMH did not acquire Off-White's business operations. Off-White's operations are owned by New Guards Group, which was acquired by Farfetch in 2019 for $675 million.

Instead, LVMH acquired Off White LLC, which Abloh conducts his personal business in, like his Off White Nike collabs, galleries, DJ sets, and more. According to Vogue, Off White LLC also holds Off White's trademark and copyright. LVMH wants skin in any and everything the Ghanian fashion executive touches.

One of those projects is Abloh's plan with media analyst Matthew Ball to create a virtual clothing brand that lives in the Metaverse. He wants to "make virtual clothes to paint pictures that physical clothes cannot, and let buyers access a new dimension of their personal style."

High fashion's reliance on hip-hop. Virgil's ascension is a sign of his success. The Hustle's Trung Phan wrote a great thread on Virgil's rise. But the fashion designer's rise is also a sign of LVMH and luxury fashion being forced to adapt.

It wasn't that long ago when Gucci went out of its way to shut down Dapper Dan's operation in the 1980s. It was even more recent when Kanye couldn't get through to CEO Bernard Arnault in 2013. In the past few months, LVMH bought a 50% stake in Jay Z's champagne company, and Dior partnered with Travis Scott on its 2022 Men's Show.

Now that hip-hop's influence is ubiquitous, it's harder to push away. Every hip-hop artist and company should recognize the leverage they have at this moment when these opportunities come up.

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Coming soon from Trapital

Podcast - interview with Steve Rifkind, founder of Loud Records, SRC, and Spring Sound. We talked about 90s hip-hop, his family business, Wu-Tang Clan, and more. Drops Friday!

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