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usiness impresario Dame Dash is known for many things, but Internet surfing is not one of them. He’d opt to be out gettin’ money over being cooped up in some four cornered room, stuffed in a La Z Boy mid-back swivel any day. But what happens when the fixed mind of a successful entrepreneur meets that of a driven web designer with unlimited potential? The answer is “Block Savvy.” Indeed. While Dash moved to employ one of the seemingly talented candidates from his 2005 reality television series, “Ultimate Hustler,” it was his technical consultant on the show, Kwame DeCuir, who had the brightest and most appealing idea of them all. With Dash’s ear fully exposed, he pitched a social networking website – blocksavvy.com. Open-ended with all the capabilities of Myspace or Friendster and more, the only thing left was an approval from Dash’s lifelong business partner Kareem “Biggs” Burke. After getting it (which rarely, if ever happens), Dash gave the DeCuir the green light. And the rest, they say, is the future (of social networking). Was this a collective effort between you and Kwame? Dame Dash: I wish I could say I had more of a hand in the technical aspect and the creation of it but I really can’t. I’m not so savvy on the technical side or the digital side, but it just seemed like a really good idea. And when I was doing “Ultimate Hustler,” Kwame was doing the hologram technology and all these guys were presenting me with these ideas. He came to me and said, “Will you listen to mine?” Turns out his was better than any idea that was presented to me. I gave it to Biggs, ‘cause stuff that I don’t usually understand, I give it to him and he understands the computer stuff. He looked at it and was like, “Yo, this is hot!” He doesn’t like anything and he liked this, so I [figured] this was something we needed to do. What was it that separated Kwame from the others? Why did you listen to him and go through with his idea? Dame: Kwame is one of those guys that thinks in thirty layers. If this does this, then that does that, so on and so forth. The difference with him is he has the ability to execute it. So I thought it would be hot to be one of the first African Americans to crack this whole Internet explosion and everyone gettin’ a big check. Also, having the best technology, whether he’s African Amercian or not, it’s better than all these other social networks. And it just made sense, being the entrepreneur that I am. Did it surprise you, being with Kwame in the capacity that you were, that he came up with a better idea than anyone who was actually competing for that prize? Dame: That didn’t surprise me, no. What did surprise me was that he could execute everything that he said he was going to execute. I almost didn’t believe it, to be honest. What we’ve executed should take a hundred million dollars to invest but on a shoe string budget, we were able to do it. To me, that’s the best way to do things. And we can do things that myspace and all these other social networking websites can’t do. Kwame, were you thinking about this site particularly while you all were doing “Ultimate Hustler” or what was your creative process like? Kwame: While we were doing all that stuff, myspace happened. It was already happening, but it really happened. It was cool, but I just thought that there was so much more and they were leaving a lot on the table, so I had an idea
and I just went to Damon and Biggs. I told them I felt like we could do it better. I felt like if we could target who we were really going after, we could really blow this thing out and I think we did that. What I saw was a frenzy for all this social networking, but nobody had really figured it out. So I figured that even though we were smaller and we were just coming into the game, we had the same chance as everybody else. It wasn’t like myspace had mastered a revenue site or a business model side of it. They were just hot at the time, got a lot of people on there and it got sold. What’s different about this site? Obviously the concentration is on Urban America, but beyond that, what’s going to draw people to it? Kwame: I think the main thing about it is it’s multi-layered. It’s not just social networking. It’s not just a place where you can watch videos. It’s not just a place where you can meet people. I think it’s a lot of things in one. So I think we’ve taken the best of the web and put all the things you can do on the web and put it all in one place. Another thing that’s different is that it’s actually based on incentives. So you can actually get something back from being on the block. It’s not just, “I spend a lot of time on here and meet girls.” It’s I spend a lot of time on here and I can do multiple things, but while I’m on here, I’m earning something that can be translated to the real world. You can actually be virtually rich. If you have enough “savvy dollars” you can get that X-Box from our auction. So we actually give back. That’s one of the main things that differentiates us. Dame what do you think? Admittedly, you’re not the surfing/Internet type, but how do you see this in comparison to the other social networking sites? Dame: What he said. You get money while you’re working. That’s one of the things that’s along my point of view. Everybody knows that what I’m trying to be about at all times, is gettin’ some cake. So it kind of gives you that sensibility. If you’re going to be on the computer and you’re going to be doing some things, you might as well be getting some money while you’re doing it. Also, he keeps coming up with different things and different techniques like this green screen where we can have any artist or anybody walk into somebody’s virtual room. They just walk into your room and play whatever record is hot at the time and just so many different ways to interact. But also, just based on what Biggs told me, cause Biggs is on it all day long… if you ever wanna talk to Biggs, cause he doesn’t [really] speak you can talk to him and he answers questions. He talks more on that Internet site than he’s talked in the last fifteen years of our career in the music business. It just seems like when people start, they don’t wanna get off it. It’s so interactive and you just get the inside skinny on anything that you’re interested in. What exactly is the concept of the blocks? Kwame: You move onto the block. You choose where you want to live. We have three neighborhoods right now. We got the Ave, which is Hip Hop related. We got the Fashion District, which is more about what’s going on in that [world] and then we got Main St. that’s pop, you know, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, type stuff. So you basically get to choose where you want to live and when you log in it follows that content. You can visit the other blocks, but they determine the content that you’re going to see first when you log in. Then once you move in, you gotta build up your bank your world to do certain things. The more dollars you get the hotter your rooms get and the more access you get and the more auctions you’re available for. So it’s all about hustling and earning. It’s a little more targeted. It’s not like everybody’s in the same spot. And the savvy dollars? Can you actually purchase things in the world or is it exclusively for the site? Kwame: The whole goal of the savvy dollars is to give them real value. In the first phase we’re auctioning off real things for savvy dollars. Everything from Nintendo Wii’s, cell phones, speakers and all kinds of stuff. So you basically can take your savvy dollars and if you got enough cake, you can get the prize. Eventually we’re going to actually have an exchange rate from savvy dollars to real dollars. But that’s a work in progress. Right now we just allow you to get real things with them through our bidding process. //
OZONE MAG // 51