 It's time to go back to work. Hey man, well let's let them know. The black market is open. We have things to see right here. Remember on the Playoffs Club, Dollar Bill hit the green button. I want you on the floor. Floor, little bitch, put your hands moving down here. All that. Luke downstairs. Who is Luke? Rapper, me so on it. You about that culture? Bruh, please do. Hey, Playoffs Club, one of the funniest movies I've ever made. I'm not one of the funniest all the time. Everything Bernie Mac said in that movie was funny as hell, bruh. Okay, nigga. That nigga locked him in the trunk. He said, please don't lock me in. You know I got a son. What the? Oh. That nigga was when them niggas was outside looking for a good nigga, he said. He had to pay them country boys, nothing, nothing. That nigga was moving around that club, popping out the locker's man. He had to cut. What type of nigga don't never come to his own club? Bruh that. Bruh, I already run the building, let him know that the black market is open and today. We got family in here today, man. We been wearing this shit on the road. You been sending your people to pull up on us. And then she go from the city so he been already knew what was going on and everything. He then finally made it over here to the black market. Full circle, man. It's hard to get you in the eight of them. Yeah, but I'm here now, I love the spot too. Yeah. Y'all doing it. Then I see you over here with my partner, Jeremy. Shit, good day since. Good man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's always good when you got friends like that. You know, it's gonna throw you the alley. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Very introduce yourself to the world, man. I go by the name of all homies, but my mama named me Malik. Malik Jarrett, CEO of E-brand. If you don't eat, you die in the street. Elevate all the time. Yesterday was yesterday. Don't worry about that. Shit, over with. Yeah, good or bad, we gotta do it again, whatever. Hey, and that's the beautiful part about it is you get another chance. Now what inspired you to create this brand? When did it start taking off and you start seeing success and all of that? I was starving in college. So I was always used to having a job, you know what I'm saying? High school, like that. Freshman year in college, that money ran out real, real fast. My friends were going to Chick-fil-A. Yeah. Chick-fil-A can't express it, too. Express it to me. I got it back then, too. Had 81 cent, went to my dorm room and just was like, yeah, I'm gonna do whatever I need to do to eat, you know what I'm saying? No matter what. And that eventually led me to make some poor decisions. You know what I'm saying? It got me locked up. And then we're out, but yeah, hunger. But then, you know what I'm saying? When I was sitting in the cell, I was just telling God, like, you know, I know I'm not really, I know I'm not really meant for this. Like, this not supposed to be my life. What do you got for me? Like, you know what I'm saying? Just use me. And then I just got into photography real heavy. Fast forward, still able to graduate. I came home, D.C. And I actually started working for Germs at the radio show. He was just, you know, putting me on with different gigs. And we did the Black, no, we did the Brockley City Fest. Did the Brockley City Fest. I took some pictures. I'm Eric Abadu, future Willow Smith. I went home that night, and I'm kind of talking real fast, but I went home that night, put the pictures on Instagram that night. By the time I woke up in the morning, a bunch of blogs, artists, everybody was using my pictures. But I ain't having like, you know, no representation. You know, they wasn't tagging me or anything like that. So then all my friends were just like, you know, you need a watermark. You know, of course. So a couple of days later, my man Michael Caldwell shot the mic. He hit me in the DM on Twitter. And I was like, yeah, man, I got this logo for you. Put this logo on all your pictures so people know it's you. And it was just, you know, the same eat logo. I ain't changed nothing to it or nothing. It's the same logo he sent me in 2016. And I'm just like, man, you know, that's love. I'm trying to pay him and everything. He like, bro, like, don't need any trip. I made this on my phone in two minutes. I just want you to have some representation. So around this time, I'm working two jobs. I'm working nine, nine to four, 30. Now I'm working six to 11 at two different restaurants and they was across the street from each other. I was literally on the same block all day for six days a week. And my friends was like, man, you know, we want to support you but we don't do photo shoots and all that. Make some t-shirts. I ain't know nothing about t-shirts, nothing about making clothes. So I put that pressure back on them. I'm like, man, help me out. You know, I got the money to start it, but you know, help me out. So they kind of, you know, start jiving a little bit too. And then eventually I just started praying. I just started switching up my prayer. You know, I'm not a big religious dude, but I am spiritual. So I just started asking God to use me, however you want to use me. Like, I don't care if it's photography or whatever, because I'm just, you know, at this point I'm busting my ass and I'm not really getting no results. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to help my mother out and everything. My mother wasn't working at the time. And so it just came to me like, man, just go ask mom. You know, my dude's going to look out at any time. I went to my mother with my logo. So I'm trying to put this on some t-shirts. And she got me, she found, she found a person to give me some t-shirts made. My first t-shirts was God. They were nothing like, you know, what people see now. But that first weekend, my friends wasn't bluffing. My first two days, I sold out. I made more money those two days than I did in a week at both of my jobs. I'm like, shit. I appreciate that. But do you see how important that support system is? That support system, everything, you know what I'm saying? I ain't never one of them people that's going to be like, you know, self-made, all that like, man, plenty of people played a part because they seen, they seen greatness in me, even though none of us had division, you know what I'm saying? When Jerns put me on the mix-up show, he ain't really know me from a can of paint, you know what I'm saying? But I guess he could just tell from my aura, my energy that, you know, that I was just like him. We always been in line, you know what I'm saying? That's why we both successful entrepreneurs today. But yeah, I just started with that. And probably like two weeks after I sold out, all my friends start hitting me up like, man, you know, people ask me about my shirt, you know what I'm saying? And being who I am, you know, from DC, we always want to be exclusive. So at first I was like, shit, we just going to wait this shit for us and nobody else can be able to get it. But I'm also working two jobs, you know what I'm saying? Trying to help my mother out and everything like that. I'm like, nah, whoever want what, just hit my Instagram. So that happened in like March, by the end of the summer, that March I had like 3,000 followers. By the end of that summer, I had like 25,000 followers from March to like August. And it was all organic word of mouth. I ain't have a website until 2018. So 2016, 2017, the only way you can get it is if you knew me, you got it from me personally. And it was more than just selling the clothes, eat stands for elevate all the time. If you don't eat, you die in the street, you know what I'm saying? Our other slogan is yesterday was yesterday. So I'm letting people know this when I'm giving it to them. And I was serving my shirts out of, you know, brown paper bags like lunch. And it was really about that message, getting that message out early on. And it still is. But that's what kinda brought people together as well. Because I used to get stories like people being in the club and they'd probably be from somebody, but then they'd be like, oh, somebody over there got the E-shirt on. So they like, hold up, Gabby, you know what I'm saying? Gabby's some type of connection or something like that. And so it really took DC by storm. And DC was always known, you know, as far as having our own clothing lines and entrepreneurship like that. But I feel like, you know, around the time when I started, we was kinda bringing it back. And now we got that energy all the way back. And DC now it's over 200 clothing lines. What you bring? So right now all this is new, you know what I'm saying? I wish I could bring out some OG pieces. But this all the things from my new winter collection. We got some more things dropping in the spring. Everything else sold out. I mean, that's good and bad. I wish I could show y'all, but it's gone. Let me ask you, look, you said something earlier. You said your first T-shirt was garbage. But see, we talk about this on the show all the time. It's like, let's start, don't be ugly. You gotta start with that garbage shirt. But at least you got it out and you can physically touch your idea. Every time somebody has some criticism, I already knew I'm telling myself the same thing, you know what I'm saying? Because like I said, I never went to school for this. I never even took a business class, let alone a fashion class or anything like that. So I was like, man, I gotta catch up. You know what I'm saying? People like this, you know what I'm saying? I gotta respect the game. Basically, I gotta learn this shit. And so I was just building up, trying to learn it. But I was in the back of my mother house with just some patches and blank shirts. And I was just heat pressing them joints for a whole summer until, you know, I got my money up and then, you know, now I got, you know, like production, like this and everything. But I always had a vision for where I was going. I ain't never really focused on where I was at. You know what I'm saying? Even when I was in good places, you know what I'm saying? It was always about where I'm going, you know what I'm saying? And if I'm in a bad place, it's like, all right, how are we gonna get out of it? So I always had a vision for that. And I think a lot of people, they just gotta start, man. They start where they start because you ain't gonna, a lot of times you ain't gonna even know what to do until you get started. Like YouTube not gonna tell you or another entrepreneur, they might forget to tell you. So you just gotta get, get your hands there. Some things you just gotta live. You can't learn. Yeah, you gotta live it, yeah. I like that. I see you got a collab over on the table with New Balance, man. How did that come about? New Balance, that's the, one of the biggest shoe brands in the DMV. And I like to tell people, they just came from doing the work every day. I didn't know anybody at New Balance. I ain't had nobody email, phone number, but I was just doing the work every day. And then I got a phone call. Shoe City called me and they were like, you know, New Balance is trying to get somebody to make a, to make a shoe. And we told them you. And during that time, I was doing a lot in the community. I mean, I still do a lot of community, but I was, I'm known in the DMV for just being a community type dude, community brand, giving back, just showing the kids. And they recognized that. So they sat me down with New Balance one day. I bought them with their headquarters. And when I walked in that, I ain't gonna hold you. When I walked in there, I was like, man, I had all these like crazy ideas for shoes I wanted to make from like back in the day, stuff I wanted to bring back. But they were kind of like a little bit passive. Like, I don't know. That's the first time. And later on, so that's the first year we dropped and it was like 150 pay. There you go. And that's sold out. And we dropped that on the Saturday. That sold out before the joint. So that's when they was like, all right, this kid serious. And after that we sold out, sold out of those, they flew me up to their headquarters in Maine, where we made the V2. Where we made the V2. And that's when we were finally able to do like kid sizes and adult sizes. My boy have a yeah. My boy have a yeah. Fuck them up. You got a little feet. They flew me up to that factory. And I got to learn a lot about the brand. And so before they showed me like how the shoes are made and everything, like they gave me a rundown of the whole, you know, New Balance brand. So I was the first person to send James Worthy in the 80s to get my own shoe in the United States with New Balance. That's what James Worthy was. Bro, that's hard. That's amazing. I know like coming from where you coming from to be able to work with one of the, like you can say one of the biggest brands in the city. Like it's a global brand, but it's concentrated here in your area as part of the culture. I know that was huge. For sure. It's just like this right here just like make you a legend forever. Like where we from? Like I know a lot of other places. The best way to put it, like this shoe right here is like our Air Force One. You know what I'm saying? To other states. So to have them knocking your door and just be somebody that was screen praying. He pressing shirts in the back room of my mother house like a year before that. It was all a blessing. Then I just had to do it for the hood. I had to show the kids like, man, you could do this. Because that's another reason why I started getting out into the community. Because when I was young, I used to say I wanted to be a doctor, but I ain't no doctor. You know what I'm saying? I probably would have been a doctor if I ever met one. So a lot of times we just got to show the kids. So you got to just literally put our self in front of them so they could believe it's real. So once I made the first one, I dropped the second one. The second one sold out. They was like, you know, you could do a third one. I was like, why not? I got to do this for the hood. So we dropped the third one. They're well on that as well. You know what I'm saying? But I'm glad to see, you know, New Balance growing and they giving other black entrepreneurs opportunities as well. You know what I'm saying? Tell them holler at me. Yeah, not for real. They definitely need to holler at you. But they with that. They into tapping into the culture. And with every brand I work with, whether it's New Balance or An Pisa or DTLR, Shoe City, you know what I'm saying? I make sure they align with me on my efforts for the community. Because right now in my city, we battling with gentrification, but also the youth are lacking opportunities and it's affecting everybody. Yeah, I heard the white people in DC Trippin' trying to make them turn the go-go music out. Man, y'all get the hell off, man. Yeah, long live, man. Move back to Virginia. We got a lot going on in the city, but yeah, that's what we really battling with. And that's really what it's all about, you know what I'm saying? It's about the next design to come through and really turn it up even more than eat. Speaking of eat, man, drop your Instagram so we can keep that number rolling. Yeah, all Homage, A-L-L-H-O-M-A-G-E. Or you can follow the brand page, eat the brand, just like, what's the website? AllHomage.com, yeah. A-L-L-H-O-M-A-G-E. Now what advice would you give to the next up and coming? Malik, somebody watching this, sitting at their mom crib doing some heat press. To be real frank, man, drop your nuts, bro. I don't care about what nobody thinking. What if they don't have nuts? Do it for yourself. I mean, you know, the terms of it, like, you know what I'm saying? Y'all know what I'm talking about. Yeah, of course. I gotta make sure it didn't break there. Y'all know what I'm talking about, but you really can't focus on what everybody was doing. You gotta run your race, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. No fear? It's the horse race mentality, you know what I'm saying? A lot of people don't know, but horse races, horses got blinders on. They just run in their race. All they see is what's in front of them. And you really gotta look at it like that because there ain't nothing overnight, you know what I'm saying? You gotta put the work in. I tell people it's hard, but it's fair. So just be ready to put the work in for real. Hey, man, super proud of you. Man, thank you. Proud of y'all. I can't wait to see what your next level looks like. We gonna do the collab? Most of that. 85 collab? Yeah, I got a dope ass idea. I'm gonna drop on you after we turn the camera off, man. And we appreciate you stopping through the black market. Thank y'all for having me. Thank y'all for doing this, man. Like, really, what y'all doing with y'all platform is major, it's amazing. And for y'all that don't see, these people, the whole 85 South team, they work very hard, man. So I take my head off the y'all, man, for real. Y'all part of the culture and the community. You know what I'm saying? I was telling everybody, we come to G.C. Yeah, you're right. Y'all part of the culture and community, you know what I'm saying? Chico Ben, that's my guy. He does a lot, you know what I'm saying? And he definitely represents the city well. And every time y'all come through, y'all always showing love. So, man, I appreciate y'all for real. Well, there you have it, folks. The black market is officially open.