Folks, we're live! I love you. These are the moments of the unknown.
Good morning, and thank you for joining us today.
Thank you for taking the time out of your extremely busy day to be with us. I really appreciate you.
How's everything going today?
No problem. Trying to chill, lay low today. I went out to the west side of the island yesterday.
So I'm just like chilling, trying to disconnect.
This is like the only time I'm trying to touch my phone for the next 48 hours.
I know how private you want to be sometimes and i'm excited to see you in new
york city soon um we want to hear just you know we don't want to go too long because i know you
want to enjoy your weekend um but we want to hear just like your journey uh into if you want to go
there into your crypto punk and how that evolves into nine DCC, into fashion,
I love to understand your journey from finance to fashion.
I know where it looks like we're a small intimate crowd right now.
a ballet watch with Snuffy who I introduced you to,
a couple of weeks ago and you went by his studio.
So his studio is based in New York
and Soho. It's actually like a really, really awesome spot to just like go and chill. So we're
having like kind of like an opening party for it at the beginning of Freeze on Wednesday at a studio
from 630 to 830. So everybody, if you guys are here we're gonna like officially announce it
on monday uh with like the guest list and stuff going out so if you're in new york next week
definitely come by just definitely you know hopefully you can make it uh if not i'll be
definitely be we'll definitely be hanging out um it's not there at you know maybe benzy studio or
or a gallery or even the superware gallery
because i haven't been there yet i heard like that entire area is kind of turning into kind of like
a little mini let's call it like nft uh like way nft chelsea yeah like kind of yeah just like
there's like a couple couple galleries that have opened up in that area,
which I think is really cool to hear.
Heft Gallery just opened up too.
And, you know, it's funny.
I was walking down the barrier because Ethan, who's the other speaker,
and he works with me on my project,
and I are looking to build like a large space for silk screening
and hosting events for non-gallery things just
as like a web three meetup just like art creative space so I I was even looking like across the
street from super rare uh to see if maybe we could rent something like that out too
yeah it's funny so I lived in New York I definitely um I've been thinking about this
a lot since uh I've been to snuffy space and snuffy space is sick.
I guess the best way to describe it is like,
it's kind of like a gallery.
It's on the eighth floor.
it feels like you're in like somebody's living,
Like what's the best way you would describe it,
it's a special place that there's so much light there's so many plants
there's so many sculptures and artworks it feels like you're in someone's creative living room
yeah like it doesn't feel like um it doesn't feel like totally like a gallery and it doesn't feel
like uh like a um like like a workshop right like even even though he does do stuff there.
And it's kind of like inspired me.
I'm like, if I lived in New York,
I would probably be looking to create a space
exactly like what you're talking about, Justin,
where it's like not necessarily like showcasing my art
because I don't have art to showcase,
but just kind of be like a spot where, you know,
And like, if people want to come and chill
and hang out in the middle of the day,
like we can do that, right? And like, if I want to host something,
It's interesting like to, to, to,
to kind of reinvent what a commercial retail space can be like, you know,
people think, Oh, I got to make money. I got to make business here,
Like we we're going to invest in ourselves to,
to have a creative space and maybe
even have it on the first floor so people could walk by and see a silk screening and kind of like
have it invited invited like to people who know what's going on and and build out the this you
know the creative community just by having a place to silk screen and print and photograph and and
have art on the walls you know
yeah no it's i i like that idea because it's like um i mean i'm always like a really curious guy so
whenever i'm walking past like uh uh uh what's it called a space that i think is kind of interesting
like i'll just go in and ask and be like yo what do you guys do right because like why like why are
you here um because it's like interesting especially like the space that you describe i would probably walk in and you know you just like kind of organically
build community that way and it's not necessarily about spending uh selling something right and
doing um uh it's like subverting the space yeah so it's cool it's cool. That seems pretty exciting.
If we hang out near Benzies, I'll show you
and paint you the picture.
But I don't want to delineate.
I know we could just talk about everything.
I want to keep a little focus
here. Let's talk about your watch.
And if you can, I'd really love to
drew you from like from finance because that's your background into becoming this
mega fashion you know leader um yeah well i think like kind of what ended up happening was at you
know i think after i did my deal with adidas and i was, I can kind of like work in any industry that I wanted to
at that point. And I was just like, well, what am I most passionate about? Have I been over the
years? And even judging like from my like, my, my investing days, right? Of like, okay, like,
I focus a lot on consumer discretionary and identifying trends relatively early.
And I feel like, you know,
the stuff that we've been working on,
90CC is like the culmination of both those trends.
And yeah, so it's been a pleasure.
It's been awesome to work on it.
I have an incredible team that's been like heads down,
helping me and pushing cool stuff.
And, you know, the origin of, like, the Snuffy watch
is kind of like one of those things that
it's just like a natural evolution.
Snuffy, I was hanging out with Snuffy, I think a day or two,
even a day of or a couple of days after I bought one of my last watches.
And he was like, holy shit, that watch is beautiful.
I want to make a bracelet for it.
And I was like like all right cool
like yeah like i'm down like show like you know show me what you got and then he sent me a drawing
of like the first uh iteration of um the spine bracelet um and you know the inspiration for that
was his dad was a spinal surgeon and that's where he grew that inspiration from and and then like after we got that initial design like yo this is just so cool we have to
figure out how to bring this to life and then we spent like the next like over a year um maybe like
a year almost a year and a half like working on how to figure how to get it made you know how to
you know find the right jeweler that can, can do it, uh, in a decent
amount of time and figure out the process. So, you know, it's been about 30 days since we, um,
since we dropped it and the reception has been sick. Um, I've had a lot of people in the DMs
buying it and, you know, it's not like a cheap buy.
It's like close to $20,000.
So, like, I know it's one of those things that's generally not an impulse buy.
But, like, the reception's been awesome.
We've been, like, really, really happy with how it's been.
And we're like, okay, like, let's throw, like, a party.
There's actually, like, I don't know how many of you guys follow tattoo culture.
Like, I don't know how many of you guys follow tattoo culture, but Mr. K is probably one of the better well-known tattoo artists in New York City.
And he got the first one out in the wild.
So it's been cool to see it.
And yeah, apologies for their background noise.
But it's been awesome to see it. The process has been great, and, like,
Snuffy is, like, kind of one of
the kindest, most awesome
humans that I've gotten to know
over the last couple years, so
it's been great working with him, and he's, like,
passionate and very skilled.
Like, you know, I've always been in awe.
light boxes um which is uh his artistic style uh sewn through uh and i actually have to kind of
put that on my wall uh in my home but yeah like it's it's been cool it's been like a really
awesome process um we're really really happy uh with everything that's been you know the reception
that we've gone and then also it's just like i love wearing it like it's literally my favorite
watch to wear all the time now i mean it's the coolest thing it's like a spine wristband i think
even you know when i was at snuffies and we were trying to figure out a plan to get me one because
i want to support everything you've done because you've supported me from the beginning
of getting into you know punks and nfts so i wanted to pay it forward and support you and
what 9dcc is doing so i went over there and i looked at i was like look i don't want an expensive
watch i just want this beautiful artistic piece to support my friend and then have this beautiful piece that i think is going to be you
know a rare thing to have uh based on how i see you work so i went over there and we kind of
customized designed like i'm not a guy who wants to wear watches let alone a rolex because i don't
like to flex i wear like a turquoise ring at the most, but, but, but this, cause I have like bone
tattoos on my hand and I thought, wow, that could actually look pretty fucking cool with
And I didn't want it to be at a lot, like an expensive thing.
I was like, give me a broken Rolex.
Give me something I could, give me something I could destroy and redesign into a clock
Cause I was playing with this idea of like this dali
salvador dali type of vibe where he made the lobster phone and i'm trying to make the the watch
that doesn't tell time uh that that only has a second hand so you could so you know you're present
in the moment rather than you knowing what hour it is so i kind of had this idea of this twilight zone um this twilight
zone design where it's only a second hand moving across the the watch yeah we're uh i think we're
we're working on that trying to figure out how to make that work so um i think suba from my team
has been been chatting with you on that uh and yeah we're trying to figure out how to do that
but i think that would be that'd be really cool and i think it's i love the idea of it just like it's like a collaboration on a collaboration almost
right because it's like you're putting your artistic um uh style into it and your viewpoint
on top of snuffy it's like it's really cool i like just like that you're gonna end up wanting
one dude i'm sure i'm pretty sure i'm pretty sure i am so so so g i don't want to get too stuck in the time warp with
the clock but i do want to ask you because you were telling us earlier how you're like a trends
forecaster and that's what got you early on the punks and everything you're working on and now
you're pushing the trends with your fashion what do you see in the moment that we
could we as the audience could get a glimpse into what you think the trends are for this year
in art and fashion and what are you looking into more more more so um it's a good question i don't
know to be perfectly honest um i i think outside of i think from an investment perspective the things that i see uh
a lot of interest around are and obviously so are ai and robotics um and i think that there's
obvious for obvious reasons um i think yeah i think like i guess on on like the culture the
arts and culture side i think we, it's like we're almost
but I think on a macro level
for lack of a better term,
what headlines are going to hit
been done on the tariffs, right?
Like even if everything were to to be smooth sailing from here,
you now have this type of risk of Trump could wake up one day
and decide to do it again or whatever.
So it's like you kind of, as a business forecaster,
you have to start thinking about that.
So I think that on the art side,
I think I'm hella interested, especially when it comes to NFT side.
I'm hella interested in like this neighborhood that's developing in like, what is it?
Like the, like lower East side, Bowery, you know, like, um, that's developing there that I think could probably be, like,
one of the cultural hubs, at least in New York,
but maybe even on, like, on a global basis.
I don't really know anywhere else
where stuff like this is happening,
where, you know, I listen to this podcast
in that society a lot with Aaron Wright,
Free, Derek, and Chris F., who are members of Flamingo and I listen to it
all the time and it's great and I think it was free that was talking about how it's like
it feels or maybe Aaron like going to these events like you know especially it's very
reminiscent of like the 70s 80s in New York where like you had you know what a lot of these guys that were trendsetters in art
over the next 20-30 years just hanging out and like living and being creative right and kind of
exactly to what you were talking about Justin of like creating their spaces right like Andy um
oh my god uh Warhol Andy Warhol yes Andy Warhol had his like fun factory that was like in downtown that it was
kind of like just this creative space for like creatives to come by. And, you know, if you came
by, he was like, all right, like there's a desk, do like whatever you want to do. Um, I'm like,
we're going to go hang out later. And I feel like that's kind of developing, uh, in that,
in that area and that neighborhood, which I think is awesome because i do think that i definitely
think that nfts are here to stay long term are we gonna have a mania like we did last cycle
i don't know probably not and like if it is it's probably going to be somewhat a little different
but i do think that like the scene that is popping up around it and i think the promise and like i think like artists will
the tech shows some promise of like how creatives and artists can make money and like an sustainable
living from it and i think that's like very promising too because that's like where all
the culture comes from because it's funny because when you look at the crypto side of things like a lot of it is just hyper focused on financialization but like if you want to like
really really affect like the world at large and the population at large you have to like give them
something to care about and like you know there's there's a there's a lot of people care about money
like you obviously need money to live but like i think a lot more people have a lot of people care about money. Like you obviously need money to live, but like, I think a lot more people have a lot more caring. Like you don't necessarily want
money for money. So you want money so you can do the things that you love. Right. And so I think
if you create things that people love and things that people want to be a part of, that's to me,
what ultimately leads to people wanting to enter the space rather than just like play at
the casino because playing at the casino is like it's it's very lucrative but like
it's it's just like a small sub segment right like would you always would you want to live
uh i mean like i guess it's a loaded question some people might but like would you if if las
vegas maybe didn't have all of the nightclubs and everything, would you really want to live in Las Vegas?
You know, there's some people that would that like love the casino and want to go to the casino every day.
But I feel like most people wouldn't.
Well, that's an interesting point because the video we have above is like Dubai.
Right. And like Dubai, Dubai, I've been there.
And for some reason, as an artist artist i felt very restricted in my creativity just the this
energy there and it felt like this city that i just can't align with and i thought how interesting
how interesting that you brought up las vegas and dubai because it's kind of like the same type of
energy field in a weird way because it is this monetary you you know, tax evasive, also lucrative thing where people who love money love it.
I couldn't see myself there for more than like two days.
Why do you think that is?
I have my like opinions on Dubai, but I'm super curious.
I think it's because it's a synthetic artificial place that was built.
Like, and they had to bring everything in all these resources all these
people there's basically you know i don't want to go too far here and say that there's slavery going
on through that they're importing people from all these countries in africa and asia but you know
there is there's that going on on the dark side of things yeah i like i kind of feel the same as you i've been to dubai now twice uh i didn't make it out
for for token last week but yeah it's like dubai feels like to your point there's no culture like
there's no um there's no like uh emirati they want the future they want the future to be their
culture that's why they're so heavily invested and then you know maybe in a thousand or like
a hundred to five hundred years we'll start to see culture.
And, you know, even even in America, I would say, like, what do we have as culture other than hamburgers and hot dogs and, you know, pop art?
It takes it takes thousands of years to create that culture because, you know, look at a look at China, look at even European places.
They and Japan, they have these traditions and we haven't had enough time to create tradition.
Yeah, no, I agree with that.
To me, Dubai is like, I guess one of the biggest positive things I like about Dubai is that
if you go there, especially on vacation, you can kind of do whatever you want, right?
Like every, like you can eat at like kind of do whatever you want, right? Like, like every like,
you can eat at like your favorite restaurant in New York probably has a Dubai location, right?
Your favorite restaurant in London has a location in Dubai, you know, you can go skiing, you can go
skydiving, you can do all these things. But it is very like vapid. And it is very like, you know,
I've met a couple people that have lived there i know a couple
of people that live there and like you don't they don't spend that much time there because there's
not like culture right like even like in puerto rico right like there's obviously people moving
here um but there's you know puerto rican culture like i can tell you like what you know what it
means to be puerto rican from my interactions with people that live here and i feel like a lot
of the times that uh people don't you don't get that sense in dubai so it's like it's very much like vegas and
in that sense right i think like because like to be perfectly honest from like las vegas
and probably like dubai as well as like for me the things i like the most about vegas aren't
necessarily even like the casinos or whatever whatever whatever else. It's like, I just like Marvel at like,
I can't believe like we built all this and like,
Dubai has like the biggest and the tall,
I need to show you this article that how they even get water to Las Vegas is
this crazy feat that my friend in the audience, LFT, discovered.
I'll send you the article.
There's this massive man-made concrete lake thing that funnels from the Rocky Mountains to Las Vegas to give them water.
It's this crazy snake-looking water thing that goes for hundreds of miles.
It's insane to understand the resources and the construction that went in just to get water there.
But I agree with you that Vegas, you know, I've actually want to go to, I can't believe I'm saying this.
I want to go to Vegas just to go see the sphere. I think the sphere is interesting because it's giving artists a place to exhibit work in new ways and music. I think Meow Wolf is a great attraction for art and experiential, you know, interactivity. I think things like that are attractive, right? Not like, you know, the casino and the lights and sounds and
the money is great, but like from an artistic side, there's so much, um, that you can do like
at these new places being built. So maybe if Dubai had like a Meow Wolf or a sphere or some
tetrahedron or something that they're going to build, then it might be, how does the art forward,
you know, bring just like in in neighborhoods
that gentrify in brooklyn like the murals go up and then the bars go in and then the condos go up
and everyone moves and then it's kind of like the art leads the way everywhere it goes right yeah i
mean i guess along those lines i don't know i don't know what city i think it's in it's either
abu dhabi or somewhere in Saudi.
They put up the second Aluf, right?
Which is where the Salvador, it might be in Saudi, where the Salvador Monde is.
I think it's kind of to that point that you're making, Justin, right?
It's like, put something artistic that people will travel for, right?
And it's funny because the thing thing i uh i didn't realize
this so i moved in puerto rico was there's this uh the museum of ponce in puerto rico which is on
the south side of the island so like to get there you would have to like fly into san juan and then
it's maybe a two-hour drive to get there hour and a half to two-hour drive to get to this museum apparently this museum is uh the best collection of like 16th century
english renaissance art in the world something like that i don't i don't know exactly the exact
time period but it was like this very specific time period that every like i guess like every
like art major or art phd knows about it, they will, they will literally take a trip there to
see that art in person, especially if they're specializing in it. And like, it just like,
you know, like doing those types of things that like will attract people to be like, Hey, like,
let's go there. Right. Let's go check it out. Let's go see, um, you know, sometimes some kind
of culture that will bring people. And then obviously like, you know, commerce comes
as a, right. It's like, you know, there's restaurants that pop up around their bars,
to your point, right. The gentrification that happens, but it all happens around culture,
right? Like culture is what, what is that driving force? It's not, you know, a new bank going up,
uh, or a new casino going up in the neighborhood that really drives people to get there
and to want to stay, right?
Yeah, you raise a good point
because if you think about it in a zoom out perspective,
like if you even look at Bedford-Stuyvesant or Bushwick,
like a hundred years ago,
those were all Dutch people
who just moved in from the Netherlands
and now it's a vast, diverse group of people, and who knows in
100 years what it'll be, maybe it's like a metropolitan.
It's just crazy how time is the factor, and gentrification is the witnessing of the change
in the moment as we move in or move out of that location, and it is a very controversial
thing to talk about, but is it an inevitable thing that happened because of, you know,
population trends and investment and like where, where the needle moves?
I don't know. I guess you're, you're,
your guess is as good as mine. I don't know either.
I'm just like making making
conversations but but maybe ethan will like to ask you a question here
yeah hey g money um i was just wondering if you'd be willing to give us some input on how
things that are that go that are in a hype cycle and uh like how do they end up creating lasting
cultural value or what goes into something just remaining in a hype cycle and dying out
as opposed to remaining uh leaving a legacy in the culture
um i think that's a really good question i I, I guess, I don't know. Right. I think like,
obviously because the nature of the way, the nature of the way hype cycles work, right. Is
like you have like some sort of grassroots community that form and then that grows bigger.
And then people get really excited about what's happening around there. And I I'm thinking about,
I guess this in NFT specifically, and then right, you get that hype and the price hype
and, you know, celebrities buying stuff and whatnot.
And then I think, you know, when they inevitably crash
because nothing goes up forever, right?
And I think that's one thing we all understand as consumers,
like we're on to like the next thing, right?
And the new thing, they're finding new objects continuously, right?
hype cycles start at the fringe
and then they go to the center,
Nothing starts at the center
It always starts at the fringe and so
i think that like the way hype cycles work if you were to think of it of like maybe this is like a
round table and we you know anything starts anything of hype starts at the edge of that circle
and it goes towards the middle for some period of time and then it goes back towards the edge
right and like you know hopefully as it goes back
to the edge there's a bigger community there than there was when it first started and you know then
like it'll like continuously over time you know maybe not as strongly go back towards the center
but it'll be like um it's it's rhythmic right so it's like you know it'll go back toward the edge
towards the middle, right?
And I think you'll always
probably the biggest hype cycle
and then they're increasingly
enough of a lapse of time,
they become bigger again, right?
kind of it's like one of those things where people always say right like um uh the like whatever's
cool like skips a generation right so it's like you know bell bottoms were cool in the 70s and
they weren't cool for some time and then they were like cool again and it's like you know it's like
these types of things where it's like i you kind of kind of like, as a kid or as a teenager, like you don't think whatever your parents think is
cool, you don't think it's cool. Right.
So then maybe you think what the generation before that is cool because you
weren't like necessarily influenced by them to the same points that you are by
your parents. So I don't know.
That's like kind of like my theory on like hype and trends and whatnot.
I don't know if it's right or not, but that's kind of the framework from what I operate under.
No, that was a very good point of view.
It had me thinking about looking at artists like Vincent Van Gogh
and how steady that growth is of that market, if we're talking market.
And then we look at people
like jeff coons or basquiat where it's like super inflated super hype and then like auction results
go down and i think maybe you're right maybe on the long-term scale they they fluctuate between
the fringe and the middle and then they steadily grow you know kind of like maybe what we saw in
the stock market before covet like everything was
going up and up and up and then bad news it goes down and then slowly over time it re-corrects so
maybe maybe it is all just ebbs and flows of correction but but as time goes on it inevitably
goes upwards because because of time and that period of where where that thing was created
when that was created and how long ago it's cemented.
Well, so we don't want to go longer than 30 minutes.
Maybe we'll save it for when we hang out.
But we do want to honor um the the the music section of the show and we're gonna let ethan play
uh the sound for the video uh of the woman in dubai there's like if i if i may this uh this
video was shot on a plane at like five in the morning on our way to japan and we had a layover in Dubai and that was the closest we got to
uh you know the UAE just being in the air above it and for some reason the whole cabin was so
empty and it was just literally me Ethan and the flight attendant uh her name is Roxana
and and she was from Ukraine who was escaping the war. So it was like a very shaky time.
And she was telling me her story about escaping the war in Ukraine to, to be an Emiratis,
you know, flight assist, uh, flight attendant and, and work and travel the world.
And it was a very inspiring story.
And so, you know, we connected and she let me shoot her portrait on the plane.
And, you know, I got close to the cockpit and shot this video of her just walking towards me,
kind of treating it like a runway in a way.
And it was just this magical moment at sunrise
where this golden light just hit her through the window.
We all know that feeling when we're on the plane,
and it's sunrise, and that orange just hits you through the window.
So we made this and ethan's
going to play the sound so for this um each day that justin is shot where we've been in transit I try to create
a sound that's sort of like a mirage of sound like uh like we're transitioning and um and also
we were heading this is where we head east for the first time on our way to japan and korea and uh taiwan and hong kong and stuff so um just wanted to sort of
signify that we were heading east and i don't know it uh in well in the actual feature film
that'll be released next year um all the sound from the gold record is pretty um it's it's accurate to which like where the shot is you
know this the music is pretty culturally accurate to the shot so um but with the nfts sometimes i
stuck to like where we were culturally with the sound and sometimes i just did some sound sculpting
or even you know whatever whatever i was feeling that day so but yeah or even, you know, whatever, whatever I was feeling that day.
So, but yeah, I just wanted to, you know, it was a gorgeous shot.
The sun is coming into the cabin of the plane and just wanted to create that mirage of sound.
And I just want to say out loud before we get your final thoughts, G money.
Um, this, this was like one of the only airplane
videos we shot and i really wanted to capture that feeling of in transit like we went on boats
planes trains automobiles and if anyone's listening and you're an animator or friends
with an animator i'd love to commission you to make this funny like treasure map of us going
all these countries in like a one minute video.
I am looking for help and I
would love to find someone who can help create
Maybe there's someone you know, G-Money,
that you can recommend to us.
think about it and I'll get back to you.
Awesome. Well, if you didn't have anything
unless you have anything you want to add,
we're going to wind down the show. No, if you didn't have anything, unless you have anything you want to add, we're going to we're going to wind down the show.
No, dude, thanks for having me on. I love you as a human, as an artist and a friend.
And, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing you next week.
And I'll just I'll throw it out there again because I see there are a couple more people in the crowd now.
You know, we're going to host a party at Soho at snuffy studio in soho on wednesday of this week
um at the beginning of free so look for more info on that uh on monday as we announce it
awesome g and thank you guys for joining us today i see a lot of awesome faces who will be
on the podcast too and really appreciate your time of all the listeners and g money i love you
we're friends and all and continue to be creating together thank you likewise thanks for having me
thank you all right ethan let's let's wind it down Oh
Oh Thank you all for joining us today and we'll see you tomorrow.