Rock the Bells President James Cuthbert on Building Hip Hop's Legacy
More than 30 years ago, a young LL Cool J debuted the first single off his "Rock The Bells" album.
At the time, hip hop was still a new cultural force, and few young rappers were thinking about preserving its traditions. Now, many of those who helped build the global culture are gone – from the Wu Tang Clan's Ol' Dirty Bastard to Tribe Called Quest's Phife Dawg to, most recently, Shock G – and LL Cool J is trying to build a brand for classic hip hop, one that pays back some of its artists.
Named Rock The Bells after the song of the same name, the Los Angeles-based company sees itself as a content and commerce brand dedicated to the OG's of hip hop, some of whom have an ownership stake in the company.
Its website offers a curated mix of classic hip hop merchandise like Kangol bucket hats, Timberland boots and Gucci and Louis Vuitton accessories, as well as stories and video content. The brand also includes a SiriusXM Radio channel, which launched in 2018.
Former BET and Coca Cola executive James Cuthbert sits at its helm, helping LL Cool J steer the company.
The startup recently raised $8 million through a recent Series A funding round led by Raine Ventures. Cuthbert has big plans for that new cash infusion including a documentary series and live experiences, even a Rock The Bells music festival.
Cuthbert, 39, joined Rock The Bells in October, leaving his job as senior vice president of brand strategy and marketing at BET. He sat down with dot.LA to discuss his role, the new funding, Rock The Bells' mission and how it is uplifting classic hip hop artists for those who grew up with their music as well as those just discovering it.
One thing that LL Cool J has said is that Rock The Bells was intended to uplift classic hip hop artists, many who didn't make the money off their music that some feel they should have. Big Daddy Kane, Run DMC, Eric B, Salt-N-Pepa, Fab 5 Freddy, Risk, Crazy Legs, Roxanne Shanté and Jonathan Mannion all have ownership in the Rock The Bells brand. How does that change what you do and how you carry out your mission?
JC: If you think about it, we're the only brand that's literally owned and operated by a culture that they created. Hip hop evolved to be, literally, the biggest influence on global popular culture. We want to call ourselves the preeminent brand of classic and timeless hip hop and really build the bridges from today to tomorrow. By having these icons that own part of Rock The Bells, not only does that allow us to honor them, but more importantly that allows us to make sure that we shepherd this culture forward in the most authentic way.
Why is it important to honor the OGs of hip hop?
JC: They built what we stood upon. Cultures that survive and thrive and continue and push forward are the ones that continue to tell the stories and have the mythology that it sits under. When you lose your past you can be destined to become defined by what's happening now. When I think about honoring the past, there's an opportunity for us to really just carry the torch, but most importantly ensure that this culture continues to thrive.
It's no different than any other genre you think about, like films. If you only looked at the films that came out in the last three years and said, "hey man I want to make movies now." Or should you go back and say "hey I'm gonna go all the way back and look at what John Singleton or Hitchcock are like, and I want to look at some of these others"? This is a whole level of creativity. There's value in what's happened in the past and the creativity of what was done. And I think it's easy to see that in almost every other facet of our life and hip hop culture is no different.
You talked about honoring the past and then carrying the mission into tomorrow. What are some of the things you've learned that are important to what people are doing today?
JC: One of the things we've learned is this idea of building bridges. This is not just about honoring the past. This is about connecting the culture to the future. So we talk about this idea of sparking intergenerational conversations between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, where they can speak about the elements of hip hop, what music they like and how that connects to today or even fashion, we think about different retro trends that allow people to connect. There are these natural cultural connections and bridges. Hip hop didn't start because a bunch of people said, "let's make some money and let's come up with a business model". It started to give a voice to the voiceless. It was born out of: "I have a voice, I have something to say and I want to share it with the world."
Rock the Bells President James Cuthbert
Image courtesy of Rock the Bells
What are you going to be doing with the new funding?
JC: A lot of what we'll be spending the money on is building out a world-class team that can work across all three pillars. The way that we think about marketing is content, commerce and experiences. The future of content is commerce, the future of commerce is content. Those two are integrated. When you do an experience, of course there's going to be a commerce element. And if you do an experience, you should be creating content, maybe a documentary around it.
How are you expanding your direct-to-consumer business?
JC: From a content perspective, you're going to start seeing custom content being created. You'll see episodic content that ties back to classic hip hop. We're going to see that start to roll out at the tail end of this month and early into May. You'll start to see long-form docuseries and content currently in development, some really cool, big ideas and some amazing talent that we're beginning to partner with to create that. When this culture is elevated, there's such amazing stories and given the care that it deserves, it wins in the marketplace.
Hip hop icon and Rock the Bells CEO LL Cool J
Photo by Peter Yang
How does being in L.A. influence what you're doing?
JC: We're positioning ourselves to be global, but hip hop is also hyperlocal. There's amazing talent and a hip hop culture that lives in L.A. Obviously, there's some amazing things that happen on the film side in L.A. so being there especially when you think about content or long-form content, is kind of being on the tip of the spear of new technologies that allow us to really engage our audience.
Some of hip hop's most iconic rappers have been lost in recent years. Thinking about everyone from Phife Dawg to Ol Dirty Bastard and most recently the death of DMX. What is the impact on your audience?
JC: DMX had such a powerful story, ODB as well, but when you really dive in, these people highly impacted our lives. Their sincerity, their authenticity, their ability to overcome, their voice, their uniqueness. And as you listen to the music over and over again and watch the interviews, they impact your journey. When somebody passes away that lives within the lexicon of classic hip hop, oftentimes you don't realize the impact until they're gone. You're like," I have never met this person but feel like somebody punched me in the stomach," so how can we honor them and lift them up and make sure their stories continue to get elevated?
How has the death of George Floyd, Duante Wright and so many others along with the wave of protests and national conversations about racial injustice altered the way you look at your work?
JC: As a Black-owned company and a culture-first company, when I look at the employees, you're still coming into work, but you're dealing with so much weight. Racial injustice is something that's been a cancer on American society for a long time and when it percolates it kind of comes into the zeitgeist and you think about how that's vocalized in a very unapologetic way through hip hop.
It first affects the human beings that are working at Rock The Bells, but most importantly there's a responsibility for us to amplify those voices and make sure that we're pushing towards justice. What is some of the good work that needs to be done? What's our role in doing that good work for the community to make sure that that doesn't happen again?
Have you seen an influx of support as a Black-owned business? You're elevating Black brands?
JC: In some respects, we've seen some of that. LL Cool J put out a really impactful freestyle today that's still one of the highest performing pieces of content we put out because it was honest and it was true, talking about injustice. What I have seen is different companies and brands and potential partnerships where people are starting to unveil and not be afraid to say what's true, which is always good to hear. You're seeing some behavior changes and some actual sweat from some of these different partners in the community. For us, we kind of live it everyday. We're not necessarily looking for incremental support, but what we're looking for is positive change.
Rock The Bells launched during the pandemic. There's been a decline in global retail sales of licensed products because of the cancellation of live music events during the pandemic. How has this affected you?
JC: I would say we're a little bit early on as we start to license some of our products out. I'll say that we're actually doing pretty good. I think we're going to exceed our plan on our commerce business this year. There's a lot of new trends and things that are happening, live commerce is one of them, which has kind of exploded in places like Asia. How are you entertaining people? How do you also allow them incremental opportunities to buy? How is that commerce integrated in the content in a way that doesn't feel forced? People will continue to purchase if you're driving significant value and they believe in what your brand stands for.
What is the most profitable part of the company? What do you see growing?
JC: Some of the "experiences" stuff is fairly profitable. The business model for virtual events has been rejiggered, but there's an opportunity to share a really meaningful, impactful and engaging experience online. Rock The Bells merch has been incredibly profitable for us. We have rocked it with our SIRIUS XM channel. Rock The Bells [channel] has been working very well for us and it's really allowing us to speak out our brand proposition on radio and creating a meaningful, highly curated listening experience for fans of classic hip hop.
What's on the horizon for Rock The Bells? You already talked about the docu-series. Is there anything else we should be looking out for?
JC: In general, when you think about Rock The Bells, you should always see classic hip hop through a modern lens, which is classic hip hop elevated. What you'll continue to see is us taking this culture, and doing the best that we can do to elevate it. I'm going to do something that won't just appeal to the people that are kind of like raised with it, but the whole next generation is going to be able to enjoy these stories, enjoy the commerce items and the really cool merch and eventually come to some experiences that will be able to see it come to life.
- Techstars Music Accelerator Aims for Diversity in 2021 - dot.LA ›
- Super Hi-Fi Hopes to Change Streaming Audio Using AI - dot.LA ›
- Triller Acquires Hip Hop Battle Platform Verzuz - dot.LA ›
Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.
When esports giant Cloud9 launched the first all-women team in October 2020, to compete in Riot Games' "Valorant" tournaments, its members were no strangers to misogyny on the internet.
"It's definitely hard to be on the come up if you're a new player and you're female," said Melanie Capone, one of the women on the team. "There's a lot of harassment and definitely some discrimination either consciously or even unconsciously when it comes to tier two teams on who they should pick up."
Since July of that year, Capone, Annie Roberts, Jasmine Manankil, Alexis Guarrasi and Kat had competed on their own "Valorant" team, "MAJKL," and had just won a $50,000 tournament when several companies approached them to sign. But while some esports organizations offered the female players a paltry $500 a month, Cloud9 stood out with its offerings of coaches, salaries and a manager.
"They made it clear to us that we weren't going to be a token," said Kat, speaking to dot.LA in a Zoom alongside her teammates. "They really wanted us to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish and they were willing to give us the resources."
True to their word, Cloud9 has delivered the resources: coaches, managers and salaries (though the team declined to disclose their compensation). And the women of MAJKL, whose team has since been re-christened Cloud9 White, have held up their end of the deal too. In June, they nearly swept the all-women VCT Game Changers Series 2 tournament.
As the women of Cloud9 White rise up in the ranks, they're pushing back against an environment of toxic masculinity in the gaming world. Male players often level bigoted criticism at female players or argue they're not comfortable playing with a girl, the team told dot.LA. And within the gaming workforce, women have contended with blatant sexual harassment. Last month, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Activision Blizzard, the maker of "World of Warcraft" and "Diablo," for sexual harassment, low pay and retaliation against their female employees.
Since Cloud9 White is well-known in the esports world, its team is somewhat shielded from that provocation during their games. Over the last year, they've proven their mettle against all-male teams. Cloud9 White defeated the pro-squad Renegades in January, marking a huge upset and a turning point in the conversation surrounding women in esports. Those surprising victories are the products of daily scrimmages followed by hours of video reviews, Roberts said.
"The pro community in general has a pretty positive perspective on us," Roberts said, adding that criticism more often comes from outside. "It's people who are not connected to us, it's redditors or people on Twitter, people who are really disconnected from the scene."
That collegial behavior toward Cloud9 White's team has changed when its members go on their alternative accounts, Capone added. When that happens, they either report the harassment in the game publisher Riot's DMs or through a report functionality in the game itself.
"Riot has been a really good developer because they're very hands on at tackling this issue, while other developers like Valve notably from CS Go ["Counter-Strike: Global Offensive"] will kind of ignore it and the report functionality to report in these games doesn't work," Capone said. "But with Riot they do seem to cut down and make it a more inclusive space for everyone involved."
The team has seen firsthand how sexism in esports has spawned from the narrative that women can't compete in traditional sports. Kat argues that there are fewer women in the scene not because they don't have the skills but because they aren't given the time to develop them, and are pushed out before they can rise in the ranks. When Guarrasi first started playing Counter Strike, she said there were only a handful of women competing at a high level. If Guarrasi joined a first-person shooter team and they lost, her male teammates would assume it was because they had a woman.
"Teams like us change that narrative and make it: 'maybe we have a better chance because we have a girl on our team or that gender means nothing in this game.'"
Even the presumption that trans women should not be allowed to compete on a women's team has migrated from traditional sports to esports, according to Roberts, who identifies as trans.
"Whenever I'm not performing well, nobody really cares but the second I start performing well is when people start saying it's unfair for me," Roberts said. "The criticism still carries over, I feel like it's going to carry over. No matter what I'm doing it's always going to be controversial."
Though an all-women team is a novel concept, its members are ecstatic that they can freely identify as female gamers. That wasn't the case when its members were in high school and middle school, when they had to hide their secret identity for fear that their classmates might shun them if they found out they loved gaming. When asked about how they got into esports, Capone and her teammates collectively realized it wasn't an open discussion when they were younger.
"When I look back, it was like a secret," Capone said.
In middle school, Manankil's peers had no clue she was playing CS GO for almost 6 hours a day. When Roberts was in high school, she was terrified to tell her girlfriend that she loved gaming and built her own PC. Capone remembered that she kept her gaming a secret after a popular girl at her high school was ridiculed for playing "World of Warcraft."
"I kind of sleep on the fact that it's pretty freeing to actually live our lives like this and embrace this part of ourselves," Capone said. "It's our core identity now, that we are the pioneering team in esports that are pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a girl that plays at a high level. It's very freeing to embrace that part of ourselves because in the past it was kind of suppressed."
Even after chalking up all the wins over the past few months, the team said they're still looking at a long road ahead. Most of Cloud9 White is fresh out of college or high school, but they have their sights set on competing at the highest levels of play.
"I'm in high school going into my senior year," Manankil said. "I'm pretty happy where I'm at right now, I'm sure a lot of things will happen in the future for me."
- Top Female Founders in Los Angeles - dot.LA ›
- How Women Can Build Self-Confidence in a Virtual World - dot.LA ›
- Top Women Esports Players Earn Far Less Than Men - dot.LA ›