Obiora Anozie
Who are you?
my name is Obiora Anozie, I am from Dallas, Texas by way of Nigeria. Uh, that's where I'm from. What I do, I’m just overall a creative entrepreneur and curator. I do an array of things, but I would like to keep it under those umbrellas.
Where did Black Billionaires Club come from?
BBC is a lifestyle brand meant to redefine luxury. When we think about black luxury, black wealth, we think Diddy and Jay Z, but that's far from the truth. My grandfather was an “ Igwe “ . That means he was a king or high chief of his area, he owned businesses, employed people locally and stimulated the economy around him, is that not wealth? In Ghana you have Ashanti Kings and Queens in Ghana who drape them selves in the most beautiful Gold they sourced in their own country, is that not wealth? What does the global black economy look like? We've never had a picture for that. So I want to show what that looks like. The last part of it is when we're trying to get to the bag, we forget what a holistic realization of success looks like. What is luxury? Being able to sit with your family and spend time with them and laugh, that's luxury. Being alive in a pandemic, that's luxury. Luxury is gratitude. I'm taking the medicine, and I want to put it in the candy. There are many ways in which we can depict black wealth/ luxury and I aim to show what that looks like in its many different shades on a global scale. When I look at brands that pretty much have the black community by a stranglehold I study them, take that consumer psychology, and aim to flip it in a positive way with my own brands and businesses . So I'm trying to approach this in a very different way.
What do you think is the most important lesson you’ve learned and how do you use daily?
It's three parts. 1. Living in purpose on purpose. I don't know if people ever have that, "Damn, why am I here? What is my purpose?" Living in purpose on purpose will put you around everybody you need. That's why my perception of networking has completely changed. The deeper I lean into my craft and my purpose, the network comes to me or I fall in those spaces. It puts out a bat signal to the world who you want to attract. 2. Pouring the community. You know why you're doing it, now who are you doing it for? Your family, your community, your people back home. That's so important to me, bro. The only celebrity I looked up to was Nipsey because he was everything a pure spirit should be. He was honorable, noble. He brought the game back to his community so much so that he died for it. It's very reminiscent of all the scriptural or spiritual stories you'll hear across any spiritual practice. 3. The process. Trusting the process. Slow burn. I'm not in a rush to do anything. Live fast day to day, get what you need to get done, but think long term, slow burn. Me and my homies could've cut corners a lot of times. We saw a lot of people next to us cutting corners. And sure, you’ll be up for two years, but how's that look over 15 years? I've never scammed anybody in my life and I never will. I will lose money before I do bad business. Relationships mean the world to me. Trust your process. God has you here for a reason. Everything you've learned will all equate to the final puzzle. It may be extremely painful now, but you're already in pain, so let's get something from it
What are your thoughts on the Dallas creative scene and what do you think needs to happen in order for it to be better?
I think there's a lot of talent here. I think a lot of Dallas creators are cut different. I think we've built different muscles because we don't have the typical infrastructure available to us. You can’t walk into a building and fall into a situation that will change your life. So people leave to where the infrastructure is. It's not a problem to leave. But periodically come back or, or lift somebody up from home. That's number one. Number two, Dallas sits on a foundation of old money that's in a bubble and everything outside of it doesn’t receive those resources. So the culture suffers. The city isn't championing the people that are the byproducts of that very environment. A city that does that very well is Houston. The economy will partner with the culture. They do things with Jay Prince. They do things with Scarface. They do things with Slim Thug. Dallas has a completely different economic setup, and we need to understand the nature of the city and not beg it to be something it’s not. We understand what the city won't give us anything. So community is the new infrastructure to me. Lastly, we need to build leverage. You see all these artists getting picked and signing crazy deals. Not every artist is going to be Drake. Not every artist is going to pop. You have to realize that it's a blessing if you can make a comfortable/livable wage doing what you love. That's success. Let's work towards that. How do you work towards that? Aside from becoming great at your craft, we must continue to own your leverage. How do you build leverage? You own your data. Do you have an email list? Do you have an SMS text list? Are you building with your community of people that rock with you? Do you have merchandise that makes sense for your brand? If you're a local artist. Can you sell out trees? Summer Walker could come here and the line would be wrapped around Deep Ellum. You may not have the machine around you, but what can you do with what you have, with the cards you're dealt? All you really need is 1,000 true fans . That's a basic formula right there to build leverage. Build community, then go deep with them. People are trying to go wide. You need to go deep with the 5, with the 10, with the 20, with the 30. That's how you eventually grow to thousands of people investing in your ideas. Let's build leverage and then take that leverage and do something special.
What is one thing that you want to put on once the pandemic is over?
There's a lot of ideas, man. There will be a lot of Robin Hood type of activity going on. I definitely want to travel and move around a lot more, just trying to make sure I have the structure to do that. And as I'm moving around, I’m always bringing something back. That thing could be anything: resources, relationships, but I'll always try to bring something back. Then what will be built here over the next few years will be very community based. That's a buzzword right now, but very community-based in a way that people can feel seen or heard amongst each other and have fun. That's all I can say right now. There are a few things that could happen. I can't even call it right now. Between experiences, events, shows, or whatever, something that makes sense very quickly.
What's the big thing you want to accomplish?
When you think about everything that happened to us, even just in 2020, there was so much trauma fed to us. From the top to the bottom of the year, Kobe died, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, even in Nigeria, SARS. It was a global black trauma. And everyday it was recycled through the news. Every day I open my phone, there's trauma. Can we have something positive?And that's interesting because the nuts are in our nature. It's in our nature to perform and entertain and dive into things, into the arts. That's how we translate our pain. Entertainment is where we are primarily and then sports. We're just talking about in the culture. That's how we translate our pain. Talent is scary because talent sets itself up to get pimped because it doesn't care to understand the business. It just loves the craft. Now industries are created around that talent to take that talent and monetize it for greater profit. It's broadcasted out to the world. We're in a jail cell made of chandeliers. Our culture is America's number one export. So why don't we have a Bezos? All of this really tugs at my heart strings. It's a deeper thing at work.
Black billionaires Club and the music on the playlist and everything else I'm going to do, it's affirming. IOne of my favorite pastimes is watching white people read my shirt. In three words, I tell you that this is not for you. Finally. This is for us. Everything else is for them. We don't even have the word nigga anymore. This is for us. I'm affirming us. I’m showing us the aspiration. Well, that is everything I plan to do. So that's the aspiration. We’re trying to share the knowledge, information, resources, and game of how to get there and give you the drip while you get there. Whether it be lifestyle products, your home, drip that you're wearing or events that you go to.
