Slowbucks: Changing Urban Culture

Photo Credit: George Rowe Photo

Grand Life Daily sat down with Slow Bucks, the creators of the Slowbucks Music Competition and Viral Wear. We were invited to their new facility, where they've turned four walls into a state-of-the-art entertainment studio. They were open, honest and humble. 

Grand Life Daily: Who are Slow and Bucks?
Slowbucks: We are two guys trying to create opportunities for the people who are not as fortunate as we are. We’re two balanced young men trying to get each other to the top.


Grand Life Daily: What exactly do you do?
Slowbucks: We have a social network that is a platform for up and coming artists who are really serious about their craft. The void that is in this industry is capital and understanding.  We have a platform where the artist gets the understanding and they learn the back end of the business. On the site, there is a “Real Talk” section; there are interviews with Jimmy Iovine, Sha Money XL, Russell Simmons and others. These are the people who are actually making it happen, behind the scenes.  We give that information and we allow the artist to put up there video. Once the artist video is up, they encourage everyone who is following them to sign up to the site, for free, and vote for their video every day, for free. At the end of the three month process, the artist with the most votes wins.

Grand Life Daily: What do they win?
Slowbucks: They win a development deal through our company. With the development deal they get $100,000 spent on their artist development through our system. Along with all the development you gather throughout the process, we keep you a part of our system.  The artist tells us what they feel is missing and we will help them spend towards that. We create a budget for the artist to promote the project. It is preparation before they go to the record labels. So they can present a complete package. The system includes accolades for those who may not win as well. The accolades include mixtapes with major DJs. For example, if you are in the top 10 of the votes for the month, you will be on our mixtape for that month.

Grand Life Daily: Is the genre just hip hop?
Slowbucks: It is not just hip hop, it’s all music genres. Our site is different from other sites, in that we focus completely on music based. Your attention will be only on the music.

Grand Life Daily: How many people have won so far?
Slowbucks: One, we’ve only done one competition. That was the test and to let people know we are really doing the competition. Our winner was JLIE, that’s @JLIE on twitter. He did his first single with Jim Jones. He did his next single with Waka Flocka on the hook and we are about to do the video. He has one more single that were working on, then the video and that will cover his development deal.

Grand Life Daily: Do you have sponsors?
Slowbucks: We don’t have any sponsors, we 100% sponsor ourselves. The shirts are very successful and we are responsible for putting together some very successful productions, we bridge the gap. We put Lloyd Banks and Juelz Santana together to complete the ‘Beamer, Benz or Bentley’ project. We were able to put Jim Jones and Wyclef on a song, Jim Jones and Ashanti, Gucci Mane and Juelz, and many others – we just bring them together. That is why we built this facility, so we can have our own place instead of us trying to go and find a studio. Now we have a facility where you can record, shoot your video, edit your video and be comfortable all at the same time.

Grand Life Daily: What else can we expect to see from Slow Bucks?
Slow Bucks: You can expect a lot more music, a lot more fashion and a lot more opportunity being created. With the success of our t-shirts, which we now call Viral Wear, we will continue to expand the line. We are to opening up the Slow Bucks Flagship Store in SoHo.

Grand Life Daily: Do you give back to charity? What charities are you involved in?
Slowbucks: Of course we do, we do a lot for charity. We fully support Erica Ford and Russell Simmons’, I love My Life Campaign. Every Thanksgiving we do a Turkey Drive with NBA Small Forward, Wilson Chandler, Juelz Santana and NBA Forward Shawne Williams. Where ever we can fit in and it is makes sense, we just want to do the right thing. 

Grand Life Daily: What does living grand mean to you?
Bucks: It’s a state of mind, being content with who you are.
Slow: Living grand to me, means to inspire others.
Bucks: The core of Slow Bucks is based on creating opportunities for other people.


Follow Slowbucks on Twitter @Slowbucks_TV
ABOUT SLOWBUCKS TV:
 SlowBucks TV is a viral company that specializes in entertainment marketing and brand development. They have been able to create situations, network and build with the successful "movers and shakers" of today. Through the rapid growth of SlowBucks TV, there was the birth of a new form of clothing...Viral-Wear! Viral-Wear is a form of clothing that was created through the Internet and used as a platform to direct the consumer back to the Internet for multiple reasons (networking, promotion, business ventures, distribution of product and knowledge, etc.) By using garments as a tool for the Internet, SlowBucks TV has been able to keep the substance that most viral companies have lost by providing something the consumer can feel and touch.