 Hey, J.O.W. Hey, J.O.W. Hey, J.O.W. Hey, J.O.W. There's a little over the chair. It's the gallery. It's the gallery. Oh, shit. It's the trap ox. Hold on. Hey, man, put that cheese down. Put that cheese down. Put that cheese down. Put that drink of wine and cheese. Hey, man, first and foremost, I got my dog Clayton English in here. You're the zone. You're already in the zone, man. What in those days? Yeah, you know what it is. Yeah. Welcome back, bruh. Hey, man, good to be back. You're doing big things in life. I can't even talk about it. I know it. But I know it. I can say it to you. You can say it to me. Say what you're mad. This text message. Bruh, we got some very dope guests in here with us today on the Black Excellence Spotlight. Bruh, please introduce yourselves to the 85%ers so they can make sure they got it right. Because this dude's name is crazy as hell. My name's Ol' Najay Henderson. See, when he said that, I was like, he said, what's your name? Hey, bring him to Mons Ju. Ol' Najay. That's dope, bruh. Appreciate it, bruh. I'm Omari Henderson. Yeah. And we're two-thirds of the owners of Zucca Art Gallery here in Atlanta. I'm Carlos. I'm one-third of the shit that be on this show most of the time. Y'all fans, y'all watch the show? We do. So you already know, man, this is what we use our platform to highlight dope things that's going on in the community amongst us. And so, man, tell us more about the art business and how y'all got started and all of that, the good background story, you know? Yeah, so I'll start. We got started when we were in college. We grew up here in Atlanta. See, I was going to let you start, but you skipped so much. You ain't tell them that's your brother or nothing. All right, yeah, this is my brother. Right. Who's your older brother? I'm the oldest. Right. Who's your little brother? Little big brother. Everybody's big little brother. It's always like that, man. It's because the parents get better at shit. It's because they have children. So the plans keep going. We just had to make it. Yeah, you had to make it. We need no vegetables. Bro, I'm a smaller person in my family because I'm the only one that was born on public assistance. My mama had a job with the rest of the kids. My baby brother, like, 6'5". So it's stupid shit. He was like, can you play a shag of the movie? A little brother healthy and shit. So we started... We grew up here in Atlanta. Grew up in Decatur, right off County Road. East Side, Charleston. Yeah. So we went to school. We went to Tuskegee. HBCU? Yeah, HBCU, man. So when we got to school, we both got scholarships to go to college. And when we got scholarships, engineering, we both majored in... I majored in chemical engineering. He majored in mechanical engineering. You see how you skipped the whole high school, how y'all were smart and shit? We went to Magnet High School. And when we went to college, my dad, who's also an engineer, he's an electrical engineer. And who also went to Tuskegee. So did my mom's family legacy. And so... That's dope. Because they break down so many stereotypes of what they're not saying about shit like this. Your whole family didn't went to college. Yeah, they went there and graduated. My kid going to be like, my dad went here. My dad said he went to fail. This the school you quit? Hey, you were close, bruh. Bruh. I saw your transcript. You was doing it. So when we went to college, we got those scholarships. My dad, who was an artist, decided he was going to quit his full-time job and become an artist. He was going to quit his job. Shout out to your dad. So he jumped in. He was going to quit his job and be like, y'all good. That's exactly what he said. That's exactly what he did. Bruh, I want to paint some shoes with my feet. I did my job. I did my job. Y'all good. So you straight. That's pretty much how it happened. What we did was, he started a company then to sell his work. When we graduated, we took over the company to sell his work. Over time, we started working with other artists. I'll let you take it from there. Hold on, let me ask you all this. How important was it to go to have that HBCU experience? I don't think you can even put a dollar amount on it. To be at the HBCU to have the support that you have when you're at HBCU to have the friendship just all the people you meet while you're there, the people that I was roommates with when I started, I talk to them every day now. You don't meet people like that along the way. So that, the support, and one thing they do at HBCU, it ain't easy. So they get you ready for the world. When I first got there, I thought you think you're smart and everybody, no calculators for the first two years. We're going to show you how much mad you don't know. Stuff like that. You still got everything you see everywhere else. They just happen to be in college. So you still got folks selling dope on campus. All the stuff happening. But it's just showing you how wide of a range of black folks we exist in all these spaces. But we all can still be smart. We all can still go to school. You don't have to be a certain way where this ex gang members, everything was in at school. It's like a black world. It's all these negative stereotypes you've heard your entire life about you and how you're not going to survive past. I think when we were growing up it was past what, 20. Then it became 25. We're in dangerous species, all that kind of stuff. You start seeing all this and they'll say people who may came in that way, they executive companies now. You know what I mean? Because HBCUs are spending time with you too. And they'll make sure you get right. So by the time you leave at the end of that four years, what you used to be is not what you are at the end. Man, let me see that dope ass hoodie you got on. Custodian the culture. Explain that a little bit. So one of the things we talk about in the gallery or just in the art business in general is that we all need to be and have a responsibility to be custodians of our culture. So when we talk about it from an art standpoint, we say that the art that you purchased today, we have a responsibility to collect our culture. We talk about collecting art and it's our responsibility to collect that, to pass it down, to create value in it. It's our responsibility to do that. And the art's going to outlive all of us. So what's going to happen is it's going to move from generation to generation. It creates generational wealth along the way. It has an intrinsic value because it's going to mean something to you. Okay, I have a question as an artist. What is your point of view? I mean, as an artist, we all see the world in different shapes and forms. What helped shape your point of view as an artist? The thing is, with being in this whole space, we want to take that stigma out of art that you have to think that you got to think about it like this. We want us to be just comfortable with it and make it a part of our daily life. It is. The way we kind of cultivate that is we all want to be these custodians of culture because while we're here on the planet, we have a responsibility to own our culture. If we don't, we don't pay somebody else to go and see it. Most of the stuff you think about when it comes down to people collecting work right now, African-American work is not being collected by us, but by somebody else. So what happens then is that what typically happens in our community in general, we create something that another community goes out monetizes it and then sells it back to us once they validate it. They'll tell us it's good when we create it to begin with. They sell it back to us when we buy it from them. It's the same thing that's happening in art. Let me tell you. Good stuff, Mike. Exactly. Oh, it is? I saw that a while ago, but I didn't know it was good. Let me ask you about this. What was that experience like being a black engineer? You know, it was a black man with an engineering field. In school it was very different than when we graduated. So we got out of school and went to work in corporate and now you're the only black person. So you go from being where you're all black people and now you're the only one you're trying to represent for that. But being an engineer in the beginning and engineering like both of our careers while we were working corporate kind of moved away from engineering. You get into more business stuff and stuff later on, but doing that you still have to go out and you got to prove yourself because you went to an HBCU. I went to MIT or I went to Georgia Tech and then people start finding out you're just as good as they are. Even though you went to this school that they've never heard of. So it was one of those experiences where you were prepared like being an engineer from Tuskegee we were prepared for all this stuff. We were prepared for business we were prepared for that corporate world and so it made it easy to get through it but you still had those hurdles of trying to prove yourself to people along the way in that space. So would y'all say Artis considered the family business at this point? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Y'all have kids? Yeah, I have three. The Artis too? Keep that shit in the family. Keep that shit in the family. So tell me more about the gallery though the actual. So in like so our business partner Troy Taylor we met him along the way doing exhibitions and things like that we met Troy and then we did an exhibition with Troy. Troy already had the gallery and after the show it was a successful show and we specifically worked with African-American artists of African diaspora and so after the show we were talking back with Troy and Troy is also an engineer and he was like you know what life is important to do well I wanted to do good with y'all and we formed a company called H&T Art Partners so we took our business at the time which was premier art in this business Zucca Gallery created H&T Art Partners and then we all became business partners inside the gallery and now we're the largest African-American art gallery in the southeast Let me ask you this When you say it was a successful show what does that mean for the people who don't know what it means to have it? So we said he's a success now I'm talking about straight money like sales because when we first started all this like when we were going out when we first started we were using our corporate dollars to rent out gallery spaces we'd say look give us three days we'd be up in Buckhead Miami Circle those areas over there we'd take a gallery how much would it cost us to have your gallery for three days we'd go in there first day and hang a show and then we would invite all our friends at the time we were in our twenties so like 25, 26 years old nobody was talking to us though we know we had our first house and all that kind of stuff and nobody was talking to us about this stuff you go into a gallery and nobody even speak to you so it's like well we know who our market is it's us and it can't nobody talk to us like us so we start selling work and then one week Artwork Artwork It's artwork That's artwork But you know you can use drugs and art as long as it's art You can paint with cocaine As long as it's not a cocaine based paint That painting ain't gonna last long You're gonna put that bitch in a thick ass This on some black man shit What's some of the coldest art you have seen that the world should have that you think the world should have seen is it like one piece that you be like I can't believe there was only one of them Well you know because everything is one of a kind that happens all the time you know in the gallery you always find something that you love we got a lot of artists in there now my biggest thing is we try to pull in work that I think at this point other people are gonna like and buy so like the average price point in the gallery ranges anywhere from about $1500 up to about $40,000 right now that's currently on the walls and so it's a range of it so what we wanna do is just normalize the price of it in general and the value of it in general so we have clients come in saying if you first look at some you say ooh that's expensive you're basing up the fact that you may not just be familiar with it so it's almost like if you go to the store tomorrow you go to Walmart you can buy a purse or you can go to Louis Vuitton and buy a purse they're both purses but it costs way different so what we do is we'll come in and just by normalizing I mean somebody comes in and says that paint is expensive and I might say you got on a $4,000 handbag it's expensive it's cheaper than a handbag it's about how to live that handbag you may not have that handbag next year and so the idea behind it is that it's not saying don't do what you already do we're just saying consider this also and we gotta start caring more about our car the fact that we gotta be told to care about our own stuff that's part of the problem right so like how do we fix that part of it how would an artist submit something to you you know what I mean so on our website you can go and submit ZoukaiGallery.com there's an artist submission form on there and you can go and submit your work we ask for two or three pieces from you a bio and then we review those over time and then figure out kind of who we want to work with we also look for artists all the time so we'll be on Instagram or wherever looking for artists that we can bring in and so um I don't know what you call art my art mate my view is very long with the rage when it comes to art creativity and the thing is we look for a lot of um we look for a few things one we look at the artists and what materials they're using we want to make sure they're using stuff that's archival because we're talking about this stuff lasting forever so if you got house paint on a piece of plywood it might not that might not necessarily live forever it might be a dope piece but it might not necessarily you did say you had some $1,500 yeah we do don't talk that I might just stay up in the front with the $1,500 I'm like this is nice enough I like the $1,500 I'm not going back to $40,000 I don't understand yet I'm going to tell you I got about $2,000 your paint is going to have bad bugs your paint is going to have bad bugs for that $23,000 I'm going to be strong I'm going to be strong I like that kind of art you ain't got no mugs you ain't got no stickers you ain't got no mugs what about a tumbler you ain't got no tumbler like a 4x6 do y'all ever have a problem like older people like unteased and shit coming in ma'am you can't take pictures of this I'm sorry baby I didn't mean to we want everybody to take it we want you to post it on Instagram we have everybody come in to take pictures I've been to art galleries where you weren't supposed to take pictures my Instagram picture is me in front of basketball that I wasn't supposed to take pictures I was like the thing is when we talk about the experience we're trying to create in the gallery what we're trying to do is create something that's different from those art galleries like you talking about they make it stuff what I hear is all hype to get the price up they pushing certain shit it's not the people it was crazy though anybody can push the price up because right now they're even telling us now who's the popular black artist tell them me tell them me bro we got some rare Carlos Miller shit this shit is exhilarating you know what though that's all it really takes for a lot of them they'll get a writer right now we ain't controlled we gotta be in control that's all the shit on Netflix about them selling the fake art they sold 80 million worth of fake art they had a dude that could do all these art styles and these people was just buying it like it's on tour, it's going to places and it's like man this shit he was making fakes that can happen so it's one of the things that's in the art world is just not regulated have you seen some of that Michael Jackson art so what you mean Michael Jackson art the shit that he did no I have not seen see I thought she was deep in it bro Michael Jackson an artist man you seen some of Swiss B shit yeah he's collected it though no shit he did I had seen any specific pieces that he did I know he's a big collector though I unfollowed this nigga he's so good bro I had to unfollow this dude his life is too great man I unfollow him I don't need to see all of it so we got some prominent collectors in the culture we got like Swiss B's Jay-Z of course tell you he got 40 million in the kitchen Coach K here in the city he told Blue to lean on it cause she own it Blue just want a granny I'd have got a woman get your ass off that goddamn I don't even need to be the black Jesus bitch ass moving for sitting on the couch with some plastic on it go to that room go to that room you ain't supposed to go with that was art bro give me some art game right quick what's some of your favorite pieces like historical art pieces give me some of that game I know you got it cause you went to school love the scholarship you know in terms of I like a lot of the artists that we carry are the ones that I'm really I'm collecting right now it changes over time you collect different stuff at different periods in your life but if I look historically Charles White is an artist that's one of my favorite artists and give us some art give us some art it's black people to look up just so before all the ones I really know Radcliffe Bailey Hebrew Bradley Brandon English that's my brother we add value we don't add value that's all I know now really I can beg off the top of your head even here in Atlanta you got Charlie Palmer Jerry Lynn out of Texas that's a dope ass name he sound like the plug you stolen money from out of the country there's consequences you got Charlie Riley Will Aaron Henderson I was like yeah that's your daddy don't leave the family out there's something to work on let me see it from a historical standpoint my father took it the entire series based on the lyrics of Negro Spirituals because he was asking the question of who made these songs and if you think about it most people made the songs they never got degraded for it a lot of it was under 30 years old and they created a whole base of all American music and we never even talked about those people so he did about 70 paintings they're all about 5 feet by 6 feet huge paintings and what he did was he created a book about the work those paintings they were huge and each piece talks about the song and just engineering behind it you may have never left a 10 mile radius and you still it was funny he was everybody from the neighborhood so that's my homeboy Chris who posed for that piece I thought that was real slick man stop playing man y'all played too much that was a picture in the backyard what's the thing called the complete of all this work what the fuck what the fuck my dog know all the county shit you know what type of wine the brain to the son of a bitch I want to make sure I get it right because I'ma go in that bitch I want to see the provenance clean English know what a salivary is the provenance is like the birth certificate of the painting so every time you buy a piece an original work of art you want to make sure you get the provenance because what that does is that proves that you got it it proves that what you paid for it shows the materials the artists all of that so that's where the value is it's in that piece of paper if you had a Picasso and you had a paperwork on it the stake can be like that's not real it can be worth $300 million that's what they did with my Picasso just check that out so we published that book last year so that story just needs to be told you know we need to tell the story on our website zuccaigallery.com hold on I'll say it one more time zuccaigallery.com z-u-c-o-t gallery.com but the story itself of those slave poets has to be told so what we did in the book is he created what you'll see the song on one page and you see the piece on the next page so the songs are songs we all know like Wade and the Water and what he's doing is he's talking about the true meaning in those songs and the messages that were in them and why they sang them when they sang yeah cause they was like Wade in the water and they was like it's a nigga named Wade it's my cousin they were asking where he was where's Wade Wade Wade in the water children God gonna trouble the wall but y'all know the song yeah exactly and you think about it they couldn't read or write so the song survived all this time and we're the descendants of the people that's about what if that's all cats what if all slaves knew how to read as soon as they got out work now look you got to learn how to read don't tell nobody a lot of the white people couldn't read that's the thing are you reading what does this say oh oh I thought it said no caffeine get out of here if I have to whip you what if you was a house slave and you master getting ready to go to bed he know you know how to read but he ain't said shit like come here reading in bed time I reading in bed time break it up I don't know how to figure it out read it loud we don't get we don't get talked about and really that's the foundation for music American music is all black music it's all black rap everything else came from all the artists in there tell different stories another guy Horace and Hotep who does more modern stuff talks about now but my whole thing is that it all connects back and it's telling our story well you go to a lot of these white galors somebody in there telling our story that's what makes me so mad about being black we don't never get to make up none of our history it's always told to us bruh white people will make up some history and then make a whole fucking show about it and we believe and we watch and believe everything they say bruh we gotta start making up shit like we can separate it from the real shit but man we can make our shit a little better too man white people history look like star wars and shit I remember when it first started Neo showed up and we fought our way to the future they did do that with George Washington he never told a lie never told a lie he had wooden teeth he had negro teeth he had human teeth in his mouth taken out of negro mouths he never he didn't tell his lies directly though he had people to lie for him so that was a man with a wig on nigga you're lying that goes for anybody at home too I wish I could just go back in time just to hear a nigga disagree with that that's the lyingest motherfucker I ever had I thought we were going to goddamn hide me every time I get paid he don't want to goddamn lie in there that's the most fucking you ever wanted to see same story told that's why they only going to put him on the quarter because he only tell a little bit of the truth fuck it whatever we ain't shit but we artistic though bro you got some artistic shit you could play some futuristic art just imagine we at the art gallery and we been there for about an hour the wine kicking in your girl slip keep slipping down titty bout to pop out but she a little tips out the wine she keep grabbing this part of her shit I don't know why they never were brought to the art gallery then it seemed like your girl lose weight when she started drinking wine nipple keep slipping why are you slipping why are you slipper they're drinking they're drinking with that damn big when we left the house you're walking on it that's stupid this has nothing to do with art but I like it it's hard this is when we going to play it together bro what type of shit at what occasion would this would this be playing in the gallery this is all about uplifting black people this is what he was just playing is like Prince was like leave that for J.O.N bro go back to that shit go back hey I want to leave a little gift so what do you think about the beat do you like it yeah it's cool you can have it if you look to your left you'll see a brand black Michelangelo only one of one it's for sale but it's not for sale we're starting back from a colonizer keep walking keep walking keep walking so don't touch that rock the yellow from the largest art gallery in the south east keep walking keep walking we have a portrait of madam whoopie golfer from the east side under cater it's a one of one piece we call it the view whoopie golfer we'll open up the bed it's like $1500 bro this is a $40,000 piece but we want to get rid of it make room in the collection keep walking keep walking we're going to stop and get some more wine feel free to mingle about as we commence the walking of the gallery I would take the hat off and be bald head come on carry on and say some of my real partners from the swats it's an artistic piece three little girls walking to the store candy lady shawty we're going to open up the bed of candy lady shawty $5,000 keep walking that's a good name that kind of like is keep walking painted on the west side this is titled my partner them and this is the rare catalogue 1977 owned by Rick James yes that is gold interior that is real gold we're going to open up the bed it's like $75,000 Rick James catalogue going once it's some Atlanta art need to be captured though oh my god it's more Atlanta artists feel free shawty smoking the gallery yes please roll up keep walking shawty folk feel more than welcome shawty folk come on shawty folk ladies and gentlemen we're going to go have some refreshments quick comedy set for my man you know a man you love him shawty shawty no that's enough I'm through being artistic bro I know I'm sorry when y'all want to do something bro all right and do our own little gallery at the bar we need to collab with y'all we ain't going to waste y'all time we do shop in the 1500 obviously so we might not be able to get the whole gallery can we get a wall and just put a lot of shit on one wall I go up the tube and he know what the shit the receipt called too so that's shit you ain't got to make sure you ain't sitting there describing I'm like nigga receipt nigga you didn't get the problem let me see the problem what the problem is that give me the goddamn bill of sale where the paints left so you mean to tell me that JJ didn't paint this this ain't authentic good okay all right all right man let them know where they can find y'all online and all of those good things we're located in Castleberry actually that's far from here and online the website Zuccaigallery.com Zuccaigallery.com Zuccaigallery.com you can also see some of the work that we have and some of the events that we do this is a real coffee table book that you can learn a lot of times coffee table books be on some bullshit they just show you windows doors or some dumb shit I like when I'm at my coffee table I actually drink coffee on it there's no need to have a coffee table that you're not drinking coffee on if you ain't got no little coffee bags I mean if you have a living room table that's fine but if you go out and you look at your motherfucking provolone and that bitch say coffee table if the Providence say coffee table make sure you drink some coffee how much would I get a rare four-eyes sticker that I peeled off the back of the side because that's it it's rare though right that's what I'm saying it lasts see a four-eyes bag back from you well look we appreciate y'all coming through and updating us on what's going on in the art world and shit one day I'm gonna get me something I want a rare Michelangelo you're gonna get that from us though you ain't finna get that from you going to talk to the Pope I remember wanting to ask somebody in the art business though it was like how valuable is just like a titty picture depending on who painted it and who bought it that's the research I wanted I wanted the most expensive picture with somebody titty at it what if it's the original Andrian 3000 ATL is painting with the titties out but it's the actual painting and it's done by him you know it because it's done by him it will be worth something I like how you think he too realistic there's no value in that keep walking because it was done by like he was saying if it's just the art whoever painted it actually creates the value in it whoever painted it and who collected it so if it's a painting that's sitting in an entertainer's collection it'll be worth more than if it's just sitting in somebody else's could be they can increase the value then when you take it when you have it as a collector and you take it to an auction it creates value I've been holding out on you I own some art with me and Rick James he got his hand over my shoulder keep doing your thing it's value with me favorite piece of art I ever had besides that piece right there that shit cold that could go in the $1500 I don't give a fuck but that's just what we if they don't meet the reserve Marvin Gaye that's not for sale you're not selling you ain't selling the Marvin Gaye but she'll sell that I said that we could probably work something out I know the artist been wanting to get into a bigger form my partner did that an artist in a barber and he do album covers I think he was an engineer I don't know he might be he do software and stuff of that nature I know a lot of people but now that we got the art plug so you like that one he back in but now we plugged in the art we got the t-shirts this is my one though cause we said I like the material for this the one y'all got a hip right here cause it's totally in the culture it's in our custom we gotta keep it the problem alone I got a question how do artists give the galleries make money of commissions from selling the art that's when the artist comes in we sign a contract with the artist we invest in them we do all marketing we pay that gallery fee hanging fee storage fee shipping fee and it cost money when you start selling expensive things it cost money to sell you taking people out to dinner or traveling around trying to get stuff moved I love how y'all came on here and let everybody know that everybody was welcome at the art gallery and in the art world so that's big for the culture and we appreciate y'all coming through showing that you're safe we going to the art gallery hey, get your win together 80 perhaps after the cooties podcast appreciate y'all appreciate y'all thank y'all