YouSaid · the spoken record

Dapper Dan

lines on the record: 84
first: 2019-09-02
most recent: 2019-09-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“To be able to utilize the vehicles that get our culture around the world by which we can make money. So while you sitting on that table, Gucci, Louis, Findi, and all of them are taking elements of the culture and moving it around the world 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 got to keep going back to the source from which the culture comes from, building on that and take advantage of that. And if you don't do that, you're not paying attention.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And let me see you do it. Tell them to go get the tape and let me see you do it. Now, what's so important about that? Now, say they're going to say, oh yeah, then they get big-headed and they go get a table, right? Now you know every 20 or 30 something years we get a powerful cultural platform. 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 morp 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. So what we can do is when we get these platforms that we can take advantage of our culture, then we have”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that set the framework for Africans, indigenous Africans to learn how to run these businesses. And Nieri did something similar to that. But idiomen 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 them 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. If somebody tells you, oh man, we can start our own business. Tell them go get a table.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because the economy was dominated by people from outside basically in East Africa, they are Indians. So Joe Ma ⁇ ada told the Indians that in Kenya, he said, all y'all have to have an indigenous partner in your business or you cannot do business here.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I stayed with Chief Richard Karani, and he was equivalent to like a borough president, right? And what he taught me was that what Joe Mukenyada did when he became president, 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 two major tribes in Kenya, the Kikuyu and the Luao. He said, okay, you a kikuyu, you live here. Take this out. You a luao, you live here. So he split it up so that there'd 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 Joe McKenna told”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 1968, I studied how to handle. Their government and their industry. So when I was”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, last question, because this is such an important point that you made. When you decided to work, 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 him into the ground. But you kind of took a lesson from what you learned in Africa when you visited Kenya, the Juana Kenyatta. And then Uganda with Ed Amin.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In Gucci, so that this doesn't happen again, and we are represented right. If you want to read about it, it's called a changemakers program by Gucci, and with it so far they didn't hire it to 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 of color 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.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, I got to represent who I am and where I come from. So I had to sell Goose, yes, and listen, man, I'm a black man before I'm a brand. How you going to do something now? You got to come back to Holland again and explain what you did. So they came back to Harlem again, and we sat down. And what I did was I organized all the people that I could find in the corporate world, those who were responsible for the mechanical way that corporations work and those responsible for cultural inclusivity so that they can come and run and organize a plan by which we can have a presence.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 got two things. We got one, number one is I 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 and 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 blackface. That was another boo-boo.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, you know that's a reaction because Gucci put me in and we got a collection ready and we 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-plann 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 that. And then Louis Vuitton went and got supreme. The line and everybody attending this show was issued a letter stating, and I want y'all to hear this in the back, stating that this whole collection is inspired by Dappadea.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they came to me with this partnership deal and say, this is what we're going to do. We're going to allow you to open up a store in Harlem, beautiful store, a teleer. No more store. At Telier. Y'all got that? And you're going to be able to do what you've always done, produce still. 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 that's the deal I made, right? And it was working fine. 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.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 to come to Harlem. They came to Harlem. I say, damn, they serious. They came to Holland. We ironed out this deal and said, We know that the world knows who you are. And all these brands Paying you homage. But they're not paying you We're going to change that”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Charles way more. And so that's where we're at today. 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. Two and said, That's the epigans. No, that's Dapadan. Black Twitter went in, right? So the next thing I know, my son is of age now. Good, she wants to talk to us. First, we got all these entertainers All these big weeks calling us saying, Man, yo, Daman, Gucci's trying to get to you through us. My son said, Dad, Gucci want to talk to you. I don't trust them. I haven't been rated like crazy. What I'm going to talk now Say they want to raid me again”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All that was to the Lure to bring us in. So now we lose 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”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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? One thing you never see me do, I never made no gang paraphernalia. I never did anything associated with that. I tried 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 Loren, because that's why Ralph Loren opened up Ralph Loren Sport and got that black model Tyson.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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, you know, because he came up again. What they would do is send, this gave birth to what you call the stylus today. All the artists are working with stylus now. So the stylus was the mediator 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 underground, we had this big gap, right? So from the time, this is important. From the time that they rated me,”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And 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 the trick. I can tell you about this one. I had a friend work for Fubu, so I knew what their distribution was. So I went to every place they was at. going with and I come back and did the same thing going south I struggled next thing I know I had all this money again”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like a little GLE daily skirt and nice little tops with the guest symbol and the skirt and the symbol match with that little guess what on it and I started selling like 30 or 40 of them a day straight for six months next thing I knew I had another hundred thousand you know I'm calling Africa So now I got enough money and I'm building 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 him hit the room.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 ion Chanel t-shirts and went on 125th Street at the table like that there. I'm counting toolbusters. I counted 144 tour buses that came through. I ain't selling one t-shrimp. I said, you know what? I'm going to figure this out again. At the time, guests came out, right? I started making these little outfits for girls. These little guests with the little...”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 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 this caved in on me. The next thing I know. I am back on the sidewalk. With a little table like this Selling t shirts. But I said to myself, you know what? I'm gonna come back”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And when they couldn't find each other to fight late at night, they knew Dabadan was making money. So 2 31 morning, I'm sitting in my van and these drug dealers who were no longer making money was struggling, attempted to kidnap me, I fought them off and they shot me and today that's what 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 selling clothes out my car to a three-story building with 23 people sewing, five family members working in a big factory where I'm doing the cars because I did cars, everything. Anything you wanted with symbols on it, I'll give you all the symbols you want anywhere you want.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So one day Fendi comes to the store with the marshals, ceasing desist order. I got a jacket, a full-length coat looked like an aqua scootum coat with tuxedo black mink collar. Black Planger leather with all the black on black F's on it. Anybody know who she is? 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 coat is so amazing. He belonged downtown. They don't take me downtown. They take all my clothes 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”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So the first door that opened was, I remember when Jam S.J. came to the store, he said, Depp, man, Adidas just gave me a crazy deal. You remember, he came in with a big gold chain, with a big gold Adidas. And that was the beginning. That was the beginning of the thing. Then LL Cool Jim comes about. Fubu. For us by us. For us by them, do your homework. Do your homework So LL Cool J wears a hat. For a photo shoot that he was doing for the gal. Bam takes off. Everybody see that Fubu started clocking numbers So now the next idea now listen to this next idea. This was our opportunity, right? Now I'm going to go to that next. I got 23 people working. I got a three-story building on 125th Street, 2,000 square foot factory on 120th Street. So this is all money that's going out, right?”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He figured it out early on, right? So now that infusion is coming from outside. The pressure is coming from the brands, right? The next thing they do, Yo MTV Ted Dimmy was the producer of YOMTV 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 because this is the birth of two things. It's hip-hop hair, fashion hair, this is this other side of the coin that's moving on. They go to Ted Demi and tell Ted Demi if you show anything that Dappo Dan wears, we're not advertising with you. And that's when you started seeing the blur. On what the rappers was So now they raiding me. You know what I mean? They blurring. The next step is to. Give the contract”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anything with their logo on it. Giving me a letter to desist what you're doing now. They all started reading. They all started reading. That's part one, right? Kept rating. Every time they come, they taking all my merchandise and everything, so that's costing me money. In addition to that, right? Tommy Hillfiger starts going to the hip-hop clubs and giving out Tommy Hill figure jackets I'm here for you, Jay”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The next thing I know, hip hop is moving on. 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. The bankrupt For ideas. So you couple that with what I'm doing. And then it becomes known, they 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. Today you see the reason Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Findi, Every major brand is using the format that I use. When you go to the store, look around, look at the artists. They have logos all over them. And that's what I gave Bert to, that idea. So that was the infusion that the luxury brands used. So now here's the plan. The first part of the plan worked like this. Cease and”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I got all the components that I need to be successful, right? But I ain't have permission to use those labels 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 Next thing it comes out Monday night football and they up in the helicopter, you know, over to Yankee State, down there somewhere, Dapper Dan's 24 hours. You know, it's like they're making a joke out of it, but now everybody knows, who the hell is a dapper dan?”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The horse was and then it's the birth of hip-hop. Perfect timing. Now I have my personal collection of influences all to me. So I got this creative idea. I got the knowledge of textile printing. I have upcoming influences. So I got all this working for me. Now, what's missing? I needed a social vehicle Yo MTV reps.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In doing that, I come up with all these different ideas. Whereas 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...”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 because that's an 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 themselves? How do they want to look? Now I got all this fabric, this European, 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 transform me. And I know how it feels when they got them nice outfits on. So what I did was I continued that promise.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I'm learning things. I would get to the auction early and walk around like I knew something and listen to the people who buy the machines, see what they be saying about machines and ask the question. And I'd be the only black guy in there. I learned all about the different types of machines associated with the industry. And I bought them and I started bringing them to my location. So I ended up having a three-story building on 125th Street and a 2,000 square foot factory on 120 Street all in Holland. All run by me and my Africans, right?”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 were 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.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nobody Louis Vuitton Gucci, none of them. And let me tell you all you 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 began to teach myself everything about textile printing. And then in addition to that, what I used to do was like when the industry was moving from United States to China when everybody was going offshore.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 there 50 years. But the pouch is Little Man's boss's pouch. Right, and he got all this money, he got $100 bills. And I look at that pouch, I say, damn, what is it about this pouch? Ain't but six dollars worth of vinyl. You know, just leave your time about, you know? But everybody's excited. I say, wow. So it clicked in my head. Now you got furs, diamonds, and gold. Now here's symbols. I say it's the symbols that's making us popular. So I went and studied all about the symbols and stuff and I figured out the science behind textile printing and all that. I said, if I could take them symbols”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, all from Synagogue. I'll never do that again. So, anyway. So I had these Senegalese tailors. I need something new, right? Now, I'm working with furs, I'm working with leather, and the guy comes into the store one day and he got a Louis Vuitton pouch.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's how I came back. I'm going to figure out how to do this myself. So I'm downtown in some Senegalese Africans from Senegal, Bolos, and they're selling this stuff on the street. I gave him my card. I said, you know anybody so? Tell them to come see me. And so first I got one, then I got two, then I got four, then eight, right? I was up to 23 tailors.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 gotta like the way I dress because I was, you know, super fly. Still are? Yeah. You say, I like the way I like what you got on. I said, I like the motherfucking. I said, you want to trade? He said, yeah, I went up and got all my luggage. 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.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, when I go down to re up down to Andrew Markson to get some more jackets, I say, damn, we got a problem, man. I can't sell to you no more because A.J. Lessers say if I sell you, then they won't buy from me no more. They have six stores. You only have one. I said, 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 got to take the label out. You know the label is everything.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They was cool right there. So I'm buying these leather jackets with the opossum linen from them, right? 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 AJ Lesters. A.J. Lesters is selling the same coat for $1,200. So I'm smoking them, right? One day, a guy comes with his friend who had already bought one from AJ Listens, and he was proving to his friend these are the same coats, so he came to me where he got this from, right? Say, I told you, man, that guy got so hot. He went over to AJ Lessons and had a fit”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like you say, 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 furs was working out for me. But furs, the seasonal item, right? So I started going to this furrier in New Jersey called the Fur Factory, and he was selling furs with me, another Jewish guy. He's selling furs to me, and I was doing good off those furs, right? He said, listen, my son and my nephew are opening up this company. And they're going to be making leather jackets. I said, oh, okay, cool. He said, go see him. His son and his nephew is Andrew Mark. They cool. They was almost like young black guys. I said, yo, what's up? Like that, man.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I thought was that I would be able to buy in every place other clothes when I wanted to do other clothes with all the manufacturers I went to that's sold luxury goods would not sell to me”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'm with these guys, so they're going to sell me the first. So they had the first, they bring it to me, they take them out of the linen, right? They trade them to the first. Yeah So I go down to Further District. This is when I meet Urban Chakers, my Jewish friend. So Irvin Chakens takes the furs out and I say, hold up, man. Maybe I need to be making these furs with you. Instead of me buying hot first. So me and Eric get hooked up and I start reading everything and studying everything with the fur game. And then what I did was I did my research and there was only three black furriers in the country. It was one called, he was the most popular, the Black Furrier in New York, and it was two in Chicago. And I went and visited all of them. See how their operation work. And I come back and I started doing the furs.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So what I did was I started reading everything that I could find out about first, right? So it just so happened I left the paper game with these 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.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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. 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 hustling. The main thing they used to like is furs, diamonds, and gold, right? So I know I couldn't mess with them diamonds and them gold, Mike, because that's a whole new study I got to go into there.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, it was always his goal to make the big sting. So when Robert read from Paul Newman comes, he said, man, y'all white. Y'all can make the big sting. And one of the guys he conned 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 con men so you can get a really good view of that if you want to know what that bedan that portion of that bedan's life was like.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 Distin The movie, you got 10 Academies War. And if you kid pick up on the move that they made in the Sting, then you 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 other than 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 the big stain.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I knew every gangster in Harlem I knew him because I used to break them. She called me Gambler and 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 Scottie was a world authority on gamblers. I read all his books. And when it came to hustling, I read Hustling and Con Men.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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?”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, but when they changed the law, I said, That's it. I ain't doing nothing 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. And I'm looking for a way to... To really fit into society, I just want to be regular. I just want to be normal. I just want to be, you know. Buy into this American idea. But what's also working behind my head is all these, you know, the fact that I didn't have the privileges and the opportunities that other people had. So after the paper game, I buy me a brand new Mercedes-Benz, paid $42,000 cash.”
2019-09-02 · a16z Podcast · a16z Podcast: Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source