RO T8 MAGAZINE
ARTIST FOR ARTIST THE SLIDER TRUCK DJ FINYL
September 2010
ARTIST FOR ARTIST CO FONDER ZACKERY WILLIAMS
F a s h i o n : De n n a y a F a m o u s @ d e n n a y a F a m o u s J o r n a l i s t : J o rd a n L o re n z o @ J a e d a B o s s C o F o u n d e r : R e t ro W i l l i a m s @ K n e w v o
THE HIP HOP CONFEDERATION
“A NEW LAW HAS BEEN PASSED TODAY BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. HIP-HOP HAS BEEN ABOLISH, AND IS NO LONGER TO BE HEARD. ALL CLAIMING THE TITLE MC WILL BE ARRESTED, AND GIVEN THE WORST PENALTY UNDER THE LAW”
HIP HOP IS DEAD
J O IN THE C O N F ED ER AT I O N
THE HIP HOP CONFEDERATION
Your specialty is sliders, why the slider? What's your newest creation? >When first thinking up this business we realized that choosing the right cuisine to serve would be crucial to our success. Keeping the idea of street food in mind, we wanted to go with something that people could easily eat with their hands, standing up or sitting down. I actually give 100% percent credit to my amazing mother for thinking up the idea to sell sliders. As soon as she hit me with it, I thought it was brilliant. First off, sliders are a trend in itself right now. Almost every restaurant nowadays sells their version of a slider. Also, sliders are perfectly-sized to eat with one hand and it's fun to mix and match a few different options in one plate. > Our newest creation is an asian-style slaw to top off the pulled porkie slider. Also, we are getting ready to bring back the Korean-style Kalbi rib slider. How do you come up with things to do for your sliders? > When creating the menu, I wanted to include some classic burger staples with familiar flavors, such as the pep pep and barbie, as well as introduce some of my favorite flavor combos, that I've never seen before paired with burgers, such as feta cheese, bacon, balsamic reduction and sauteed onions found on the captain's order. >Most of our new ideas come from our super secret storming sessions after work huh How did this business get started? > I've always loved to cook and be in the kitchen around food. After working a few years in the lame world of sales, I decided to give it up and pursue my love of the kitchen so I attended the Art Institute here in LV for culinary arts. After about a year in school, I started second guessing my decision as I realized cooking professionally was an extremely stressful job. Also, I've always been more of a front of the house kinda guy. I like interacting and socializing with guests and I'm good at it. So, before I got further in debt with school, I dropped out and went back to timeshare sales. > Every wednesday I would cook a big meal and have friends and family over to break bread and I would always bring leftovers to my mother. One time, I brought some chile verde over and she suggested I start a catering business. From there I told her about the big trend of the upscale lunch truck in other cities and noticed a potentially untapped market out here in vegas. So I started doing my homework and three months later we were on the road.
When you come up with names, do you do it before the slider is created or after? Definitely after. Sometimes, tasting inspires the name but most of the time it's just completely random and comical. What's the inside of your truck look like haha? The inside resembles the interior of a super awesome space shuttle from the future haha What's the purpose of your business? Where is the money going? The purpose of this business is to foster a sense of community in Vegas, bring culture to this city and make people happy through food and their experience with it. Money? What money? Haha right now all of our monies go right back into the business. Once we expand to a second truck, then a third, then a restaurant and finally start bringing in some dough, we would love to give back a portion of our proceeds to help educate the youth in ways of entrepreneurship‌ How to start and grow a business with a bit of passion, creativity and hard workh
Slider Truck www.slidinthru.com Photography by Retro Williams INTERVIEW by JORDAN LORENZO
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Photography by Retro Williams INTERVIEW by JORDAN LORENZO
In your opinion, what makes music deep?
There are many ways music can impact you in a deeper level. Weather you're making it or just listening to it, music can be your escape from the day to day stress that life can sometimes bring. Certain music can also remind you of a certain time, someone special, or maybe you just love the feeling you get when you hear it. Whatever the case, music can change lives if you let it.
"The Perfect Formula"; what inspired you to create this formula for the project?
The Perfect Formula is a group that is made up of Marion Write and I. The inspiration for our collaboration and our project (The Goodness EP) was back to the fundamentals of just the DJ/Producer and the Emcee. Groups like Gangstarr (R.I.P. Guru), Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Reflection Eternal, Little Brother, Slum Village all had an impact on me and when it came down to me creating music, I wanted to encapsulate what those groups did. I don't mean necessarily sounding like them, but what they what they all have in common: Quality music that is cohesive all the way through out. As far as the name of the group itself, it's just us paying homage to an idea that all these groups had in common: 2 Turntables and a mic or better yet a DJ and a Emcee i.e. "The Perfect Formula".
"What's your favorite song on the newest project?"
My favorite song on the our project has to be "Group Home". The song starts off talking about groups that paved that way for us. As the song continues we start talking about groups that created amazing music that for some reason or another aren't together anymore. And on the 3rd verse we go to the fan's perspective... We talk about how we don't care about the politics of the group or why they aren't together at the end of the day we just want amazing music. It's also my favorite because of the effort that was put into making that song. Just hearing what that song was to what it became was from from bringing in the different musicians in to play their instruments to meticulously piecing the right interview clips to narrate the song... it definitely took a lot of time.
What can we expect from your future endeavors?
Right now, I'm in the production stages of a project that Nique and I will are doing. We started working on it at the beginning of the year but took time off to work on our respective projects. But now that those are done, I'm focusing my energy on that. We've recorded about 6 songs so far, but out of those 6, I want to say about 3 definitely have potential to make the cut. I'm also working on production for the next Perfect Formula project which should be out next year. Other than that, I'm just sending my stuff to certain industry artists for their respective projects.
Why "Finyl"- you sound more of a rapper in your own right?
I wanted a name that could be taken seriously like DJ Premier or DJ Shadow.If you know me personally, you know that I'm FAR from a serious person, but when it came to music, I wanted let people know that I wasn't no joke neither. The origins of my nam came from the fact that when I first started djing I was just using vinyl records. I pretty much took the letter from my first name, "F", and replaced the "v" from "vinyl". And that's how was made "Finyl". It was that simple.
What is your dream for this industry?
My goal is to make great music that people can enjoy and actually have an impact on people's lives. That's a better feeling than any award can give you. Just focus on that goal and everything else will fall into place... the money, the awards, the accolades.
RO T8 MAGAZINE