My mission with urban vinyl.

Why do you want to open a Urban Vinyl store? Why do you want to open a Designer Toy store? These are questions I've been waiting for someone to ask me... do you know why? Because I have a 12 page essay waiting to answer those very questions.

Being raised in Dirty Jersey there are few options when you have a talent. There are few roads you can go down to get out of the hood with your talents. If you can sing f*ck it and become Whitey Houston. If you can act become Steel (the fat dude) from Juice. You play basketball be Shaq. And if you can rap be ___ (add rapper from jersey name here). But Art.... noone I grew up with knew any artist that came from Newark except the graf and tag writers that hit up all the walls around the way. My brother has talent- he can draw but who's road does he have to follow. Plenty of people don't have the strength to be trailblazers. You might have the talent but not the passion. The only kid from my personal history that got out the hood on his creative talent was this dude that I was in the 8th grade with. The second week of our Sophomore year in high school he gave me a pound and said that he was going to design sneakers for a living and I think he said Nike was going to school him how to do it. Now if I believe it... sure why not? He never lied to me for me not to believe him. He sat in class all day drawing different types of kick designs and he had the talent. But besides all that, as a kid from the hood I was more then happy to see someone leave it for something positive. I wanted to believe that he can make it!

Fastfoward to about 5 years ago. Something crazy happened, I was blessed with a daugther. That had me thinking about my future. Her future. What do I want her future to be and what did I want to teach her. I got heavy into black and latino (i hate that word) history. I started listening to Immortal Techinque and Dead Prez. The t shirts I rocked all have strong meanings, Bob Marley, Marcus Garvey, The Black Planthers, The Young Lords and so on. Man I got my first library card, was the only person under the age of 50 at the town meetings. Wanting to do more for my community and its future what the hell do I have to offer. Today I know the answer. I can be a trailblazer.... Opening an Urban Vinyl store will show kids that around the world (cause most people in the US dont give 2 sh*ts) people are very interested in the hoods of america. Give kids that like design, fashion and urban art a home, a future and a MFing change to see their worth.

I've been collection SOMETHING since I was REALLY young. Baseball cards, comic books, pogs (remember those) and toys. I loved my graphic design class in high school and I liked my marketing and fashion classes in college. Urban Vinyl play to all those likes and loves. When I was first exposed to UV it was great. From the packaging to the toy itself was a creative clusterf*ck.lol.

My first stop was a store called Kidrobot. It's funny how f'ing popular it is now. I went there expecting mecca but it was far from that. Don't get me wrong- I like Kidrobot but for that to be the BIG rep for UV in nyc it was a little bit of a letdown for me. My second try was Toy Toyko. I didn't like that one either. Too cluterred with old figures that didn't sell. It made me like Kidrobot more..lol. My last stop was a store called 360 Toy Group in L.e.s. It was the mecca of the Urban Vinyl world. No not pretty and cute like Kidrobot but it oozed of why I loved Urban Vinyl..... it was Urban. As soon as I walked through that door I felt as I found what I was looking for. JaKuan is one of the coolest down to earth dudes you will ever meet. I became a groupie to the store. With a beautiful figure of himself in the middle of this store by none other then jason siu if my memory serves me correctly. Too bad he shut it down to create figures full time.

So I cut it down to 4 paragraphs from 12 pages. Support me and save the hood...lol. NO REALLY