CA: Why the name The Culture LP? CLP: It stands for Culture, Lifestyle, & Progress. That format alludes to something more cohesive like an album. All three of us appreciate music and enjoy it. When you think of an album like an LP, it is a collective body of work. People don’t really make albums anymore but the albums you did enjoy was a good collective thing. It is a metaphor of what we do really. We function as a collective. If you listen out of order, it won’t make sense to you.
CA: What is the primary mission for your group? CLP: To unite creators through brilliant digital and offline experiences. That is creators of any facet (musician/fashion stylist/entrepreneur) and the goal is to bring them together while making money doing it.
CA: What does each person bring to the team to make it run as smoothly as it does right now? CLP: Jasmine is the how person, Michael is the what person, and Pavel is the why not person. We have a trinity that happens where we sit here and get inspired. Without one of them, you have an imbalance. This helps have realistic thinking while continuously pushing the envelope.
Pavel launched a media company called Spoiled which is a platform that shares content for millennials in NYC (natives or transplants). This is about balancing work and play, nightlife, and finding things to do while providing interesting and funny content to the viewer.
Jasmine is a writer at heart. She is working on two books right now and professionally she is in marketing for a home décor company. Mainly focuses on corporate buying for her employer.
Michael is a media planner/strategist where he is buying, planning, and evaluating different media partners. He also negotiates prices and manages campaigns in addition to reporting for campaigns.
The Culture LP is a fusion of all of these talents.
CA: How do you choose an artist to highlight for an event or blog post? CLP: For the website, the question is does this individual have a following? What are they doing for themselves? People we have on the website don’t need us for a push. We are not the step through the door. Our process is supporting for people who already have their own following and team. They are entrepreneurs and artists at heart. That is our litmus test. Do all three of us like it? We look at it from a creative and business standpoint. Does this idea make sense and is this sustainable? We are looking for long term collaborations with the people we decide to work with.
CA: Why do you feel creativity is so crucial for people to embrace? CLP: Creativity is like evolution. There is a book that explored the idea that Neanderthals died out because they didn’t live close enough to other people to innovate. They had the cranial capacity and the physical capacity, they weren’t able to innovate because they didn’t live in close quarters. When you have groups of people, you have a lot of idea exchange. In 2015, we are continuing to get more globalize and creativity is becoming that distinction to what makes someone succeed in this world today. We are doing things now that we discussed two and a half years ago. Creativity is your imagination and your determination put to work. We have creative sessions to get together to just talk. It is really to talk about things we have been thinking about.
CA: Could each of you name your favorite event your have thrown for CLP? Jasmine: I would say “The Grand Exhibition” because of how smooth the interactions were amongst the people. You know when you can see people’s auras? Well I saw everyone’s aura that day and it felt all the same.
Pavel: I’m going to go with Connect the Dots. It was the team’s first official event where we put ourselves out there. We didn’t partner with anybody, it was just us. It was a great turnout and we rented out a studio space. We even had people from Miami come.
Michael: I was going to go with Outer Thoughts. We worked with OBSG when they relaunched their site and it was popping. The event displayed our first sponsorship and it was a manifestation of a few things that came together.
CA: What is your connection with Ronald Draper? CLP: He is the prototype of the person we want to work with. You know you will not be featured on Vogue if you are not on this level. He embodies the entrepreneurial spirit, creates on a consistent level, and he is professional. Ron is easy to work with and he is a phenomenal spirit.
CA: Who is your dream collaborator you would want to work with? Jasmine: My ideal group is a little more mainstream than CLP does right now. I am talking about the group and not the person they are associated with. Parkwood Entertainment is Beyonce’s company and I would like to work with them based on the creative team and background. I am interested in their level of storytelling which brings humanity into play for marketing. Right now, they only work with Beyonce but hopefully in the future I can manage a way to work with them.
Pavel: Richard Branson who has a very entrepreneurial spirit in the sense that he is very expansive minded. He started with doing music and now does airplanes, rockets, and wine. It is very inspiring to see a company built throughout so many industries with their ideals behind it. I did some reading on him and learned he built his empire through numerous partnerships. This is something similar to how we plan are doing with CLP and for my personal ventures.
Michael: I would say Pharrell. He touches so many different things. Pharrell is an investor in Brooklyn Machine Works. He is also an ill ass musician over everything. There is not a lot of other people in that lane to me. He is always ok to be in front of the camera and makes reporters look good. It would be interesting to see how he is from the business side of things.
CA: Where do you see The Culture LP going in 5 years? 10 Years? CLP: We talked about phasing out the phases we had of The Culture LP (Culture. Lifestyle. Progress). Currently, we are in the Culture era of our entity. We are throwing events and curating content but it is like a filter in terms of culture. If you don’t like the culture, you will not vibe with what we have going on. We have two more years to building local establishments in that sense. Now you have a curated crowd which is apart of the 0-5 year plan. Years 5-10 that lifestyle aspect is about being sponsored and being paid to facilitate the experience. We would love to see a coworking place and us building a global presence. Similar to the lifestyle hubs across America, having that concept in other parts of the world. This is us giving part to the network. In 5 years, we will have people traveling Madrid for example and having a place there to meet. It would be cool to know a curated group of folks to know you will have a good time and vibe with.
Follow The Culture LP on IG @TheCultureLP and their website
Be on the look out for their next event which is slated for August 29th!