Why August Is One of the Most Important Months in Black History & Culture | The FYM Show

And we're back with another episode of the FYM Show with Ty and Yo. That's my man Ty. I'm Yo, and this is the FYM Show. We're about to have a very great conversation about the month of August. You know, August has really kicked off over the last couple of days. And Ty, when you think about August, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

Um, back to school.

Yeah.

Uh, summer's ending. Um, yeah, most of that school and my favorite season is, is starting to wind down. So that's what I say when I think about August. What about you?

Well, recently Obama's birthday comes to mind, right? Because he was born on August 4th, which to me is obviously very significant as the first Black president, only Black president I've ever seen in my lifetime. And I always think about him as like, uh, change, right? His whole campaign was built on change. August also brings in a great amount of change. You start to see the seasons changing, you start to see the landscape changing. So change is a major thing. Um, hip-hop's birthday is in August, you know. The first official hip-hop party happened on August 11th in, uh, 1973. Man, somebody gonna tell me I'm wrong, but I believe it's '73. Was the very first hip-hop party. Uh, DJ Kool Herc had it, uh, Cedric Avenue in New York. So I always think about hip-hop. I believe this year will be 54. Hip-hop will be turning 54 years old this year, if I'm correct. If I'm wrong, it might be 53. It's not 55. It ain't that old yet. It ain't got 55 yet, but it's definitely in the mid-'50s now. Um, right, so that's, that's how I start to feel, man. Um, man, I don't, I don't know if we ever— yeah, August 11, 1973. Vanessa let me know that I was correct. But, uh, Ty, if you had to throw hip-hop a birthday party, who's headlining your, your birthday event for hip-hop, man?

Like, who's headlining the birthday event for hip-hop? Um, I would say it has to be— it would have to be Jay-Z. Jay-Z is just the most relevant, but old enough. It would be between Jay-Z and Jay-Z, Nas.

Okay.

Or I would probably pair up like Daddy Kane, Big Daddy Kane and Hov, or like, you know, that dynamic because even the younger generation of hip hop, like, you know, think if you're celebrating it every year, but to launch it, I think you should launch it with the the ones that really, really pioneered hip-hop and have them bring out different walks of life, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You really do it, in my opinion, you know what I'm saying?

I ain't mad at that. I think Jay-Z really kind of set off July with his run of, uh, performances at the Yankee Stadium, and it really represented a historic sense of this iconic rap artist brought in other artists. Seeing Nas on stage with him, seeing Eminem on stage with him, seeing Rihanna on stage with Jay again, just made, uh, it made a lot of sense. So I appreciate your, uh, your lineup. I can get behind that. Um, yeah, another really historic figure that has an iconic day in August is Nelson Mandela. Correct me if I'm wrong, but was it the day— was he, was he freed in August or was he arrested in August?

Oh no, no, no. I think, I think we was reading about that, we're doing some research. I think he was actually arrested.

Arrested?

Oh, he was arrested August 5th.

August 5th, Nelson Mandela was arrested and end up serving 20-plus years. Um, 27 years. So when he got out, he ended up getting, I think, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. And I, and I always appreciate periods where people go through extended amounts of hardship fighting for righteousness, fighting for the improvement of their people, fighting for the improvement of their country. And when they're free, they kind of get their acknowledgment after the fact. Very rarely do you get it before you go through your trials. Very rarely do you get acknowledged before you go through your tribulations. But a story like Nelson Mandela always reminds you that it gets tough before it gets, you know, easy, before it gets sweet. But it's always for the betterment of your people. Um, that when I think about him, I always think about the, the hardships you go through to improve the lives, not just yourselves, but people who look like you?

I think that, um, you know, when you, you think about figures like Nelson Mandela and they went through these hardships to kind of give us these different opportunities, and I think that, you know, it's important for us to really speak about these different places and time frames, places where people have surrendered sometimes their— even their life, their freedom to kind of progress and drive us forward. And so one of the things I experienced this summer, and I spoke about it in our past events, is on Cannes Lions, uh, advertisement festival. And, and, and it's something that I think for the month of June, when you're trying to break through in the advertisement and the creative and the marketing space, it's one of those places that you got to find your way to. But the next thing, if you can't get over to, you know, Cannes Lions, because it's a far drive. For the month of August, there's a lot of really strong Black and brown activities in Martha's Vineyard, from the film festival to some of the Black wealth summits to horticulture, agriculture. If you're into farming, if you're into a lot of those different things, it's a lot of movement. And then, you know, within Oak Bluff, You have the historical Inkwell Beat where a lot of Black people was actually allowed when racial tension was at its highest in this country. So I think that when we are talking about walking people through things that kind of help free them from financial freedom so they can step away from things that don't serve them, it's about finding your way in the right places in the right time and praying that some stars can align so that you can get educated or that you can get the right opportunity. But I think, uh, Martha's Vineyard is something that I don't see a lot of people talk about, especially Black and brown people. Yeah, on the, on the, on the polls of trying to attend a place and experience that, you know, even if you're just going for the film festival.

Now, how did you get put on to Martha's Vineyard?

Um, man, I got put on to Martha's Vineyard 2 years ago by a woman by the name of Megan, who— she works for this hedge fund or this private equity firm, um, Andre Horowitz.

Okay.

And, um, they have this thing called the Cultural Leadership Fund, and they focus on helping talent and thought leaders. So like managers, you know, business managers, thought leaders Founders of companies invest their money into the new frontier, frontier of what is happening in the tech space, in the startup space, in the futures business, things of that nature. So she invited me out there to attend one of their events, and from there, 2 years ago, I started being more hip about it. I think I learned about it a year before, but that was like my first invite. And, um, yeah, man, people plan that stuff out because people vacation there.

Yes, it is beautiful.

It is beautiful during July and August. Um, but simultaneously, man, it's a lot of moving and shaking there, you know what I'm saying? So the affordability can go up and down depending on if you plan in advance to be there. But I do think that it's, it should be on your list. It should be on your checklist of of ways to pop in and be influenced, especially if you're in that area where you can drive over and take the ferry over or whatever the case might be.

But yeah, I think spaces like— or knowing the history about Inkwell Beach is really important because I think about when I first got hip to Black Wall Street out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You're not really taught that in school, especially when I was in school, that wasn't something that was really passed down to us. And I was able to go to Tulsa as part of a journalism campaign where they brought a whole bunch of journalists out there for the 100-year anniversary of the Black Wall Street Massacre. And obviously it was incredibly disheartening to find out what happened in terms of just like the way they burned down Black Wall Street. But it was incredible to see what they had already been rebuilding from the music scene to the architecture to, you know what I'm saying? Like, you see this place that has so much Black history that you don't learn about. And then when you encounter the experience being there, it makes you wish you knew before. I mean, I wish I would have known this 10 years ago, 20 years ago. I don't want to wait to the 100-year anniversary or something to be able to find a reason to be there, right? Like, So something like Eatonville Beach, hopefully this episode encourages somebody to not only just look into it, but figure out how you should go out there and experience something that was very important in Black history. Not something you might not hear about in February. You know, in February we hear a lot about— you hear about Obama, but you might not hear about Eatonville Beach, right? You might not hear about Martha's Vineyard. So, you know, taking little nuggets like this episode and figuring out how you can actually go and encounter and experience these places, I think, is part of the reason why we have these conversations, to make guys hip, make women hip. And, you know, but it's not just— don't just listen to the episode, make time and make sure you go experience it for yourselves.

Yeah. And guess what? Uh, you might have to plan. You might learn about it this year, and you might have to go ahead and start, like, you know, booking something for the following year, learning about it, you know. Uh, I think preparation is really undervalued. Um, I think having a strategy is undervalued. I think people feel like if I can't get it done right now, that I'm a failure. And, you know, one of the things that I think that's important, like, the summer of 2022 No, no, the summer of 2023, because I went to Cannes Lions 24, 25, and this was the third year. And my PR at the time was like, you need to go to Cannes Lions, that's where you need to go. And I was like, wow, what's that, the film festival? He was like, no, the advertisement festival. And so she told me that information in August, September 2023. I started doing research, I found the cheapest hotels I can find that was like 30 minutes away from the, from the space because everything that was close to that beach, it was booked up, right? So I booked that, it was super cheap, it was like €170 a night. And all I do, had to take an Uber down 30 minutes and I'm right, I'm right in the scene, right? But then I booked my flights in advance, I booked all the things in advance. And what I learned through that process, I'm like, man, if you can just be prepared you can come here, meet all these different people. I spent more money on my first year because I bought, I bought the passes, paid for like this CMO, uh, well, a part of the pass, like the CMO Accelerated Program, because I was just so blind going into it. Yeah, that I overspent on money or the things that I probably wouldn't have benefited from if I had just went there and just been like, okay, I'm gonna go the first year I'm gonna figure things out. But me being all extra, I was like, nah, I need to have all the passes, I need to do this. And I end up like, you know, learning a lot. And so the last past 2 years, I haven't bought passes. I've invested into some of our partners year over year so that when we get there, they're like, yo Ty, come, we doing this event, we're doing that event. And you still get the same level of connectivity. Right. So it's the same thing about with Martha's Vineyard. It's the same thing about, you know, um, BET Awards. It's the same thing about, uh, the Grammys. Like, you know, um, a lot of the film festivals, Sundance Film Festival, like the people that go there are just not people that are doing films. Right. There's a, there's a, there's a broad, broad, um, eclectic group of people that are going to these different events, no matter if it's Formula One, no matter if it's the US Open. I think that when we start to look into what is our strategy, yes, how patient are we going to be with our strategy, how much, um, lead time we're going to give ourselves with our strategy, I just think that it's undervalued. And because it doesn't pay you immediately, it's not an instant gratification act, you know what I'm saying?

Um, it's not delayed, it's not. Well, can you speak a little bit about that and strategizing? Knowing that it's not going to be instantly gratified. Um, did you have, like, did you anticipate certain rewards by going out the can lines your first year, or did you just go because you believed in the advice that you were given?

And I thought I was gonna go out there and find me some checks. Okay, I'm like, that's where the marketing people is at, that's where they planning the checks at. I'm trying to find my way on one of these private dinner boats. To get me some money, and that ain't how— that ain't what happened. Okay, what did happen is I met some really dope people. Um, I had a great time, and, and then I, I got educated about what this event is, and I, and I made a commitment to myself that I said I'm gonna keep coming to this event until I find a multi-million dollar opportunity, because they're there. I'm gonna keep coming to this event every year until I find a multi-million dollar— to the Lord puts it right in my face. But it might be year 7, you know what I'm saying? It might be next year. But I, I've, I've already made a decision with myself that that's my June. My June is in the South of France during that time frame trying to connect more with our partners that we already work with to see if we can go deeper with the relationship. And then through those introductions that you make, you can probably meet some new partners.

Got you. But see, that's such a long-term strategy. That's not a strategy that requires like immediate reward. Now, if you would have came in that first year and would have got that big check, right, you would have got that multi-million dollar check. Do you feel like you would have learned the lessons you've learned since?

I think I would have learned lessons that would have probably just been different. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? They've probably just been different, but I think I still would have learned because it's such an environment that's just bursting with creativity, is bursting with people trying to connect with people, you know. Um, I've, I've been a very, very like huge, huge advocate of like nailing and, and finding my way into opportunities that are just unique to my walk of life. And then I try to communicate it to people because some stuff you just— God just has, has his hands on you as you're walking. Through these doors. Yeah, because they know you have the heart to kind of bring back the information to help get more people in, to help people be exposed to it, or to just come back and be like, you know, we can do this ourselves, we just need this, this, this, and this, right?

Yeah.

Um, but, but that's just my— that's my thought process of it when I think about what I would have gained if I had gotten all the money the first year partnerships, I think I would have just learned a different lesson. Yeah, it would have still been a learning experience because individually I'm just a learner. I'm just trying to learn, you know what I'm saying, regardless.

I feel you. But I think sometimes if you say, I went somewhere, I got me a multi-million dollar check, you're gonna have a thousand people run behind you because everybody gonna be like, oh, it worked. If Ty was able to do his first year, I could do my first year. But I think when you say, that's my goal and I'm going there every year, some people gonna wait for you to actually get it before they go. Somebody gonna be like, I'll wait for Ty to figure it out if he— if it's really there. It's almost like— it's almost like it's a myth until it's true. But I kind of like the idea, the fact that like somebody's gonna watch this episode and be like, I'm gonna have that same attitude. I'm gonna go out there, I'm gonna learn the ropes, I'm gonna book my flights, I'm gonna book my hotel, and I'm gonna learn what that environment ask of me, and then I'll learn how to benefit from being in that space. It's just such an interesting way, I think, the things that attract us to people's truths, right? Success is very attractive, Ty. Someone's like, hey man, that man makes millions and millions and millions of dollars, they'll trust you. But someone that hasn't made millions but is doing all of the learning doing all of the steps, they gonna figure it out. But will people believe their word before they figure it out? Sometimes not so much. It's interesting, bro. It's really interesting.

I think it's misguided to connect, um, listening to somebody just because they made money. I think I would, I would absolutely advise against that majority of the time. Because making money doesn't necessarily mean that you have wisdom. Making money doesn't necessarily mean you have the experience that can, that can troubleshoot problems that you might run into. Making money doesn't actually mean that you are a leader or a good leader, right? So, so I would highly advise against people just only going to listen to somebody just because they made a bunch of money, think that it has value But I do— but I also think that information is more realistic, more realistic to like Passover versus the thought process of, um, listen to somebody because they made money. Like, the way that they make money can easily, easily, easily fall on deaf ears if you try to do it, right? But if they're giving you information, rather if they made $20 or they made $2 billion, if they're giving you information, that information is more realistic for you to actually digest and, and put into perspective and knowing how to lean into that advice and, and pull something from your life that can actually, actually add value to what you're trying to do. And so I, I truly, truly, truly think that it's misguided, and you can, you can, you can miss the mark in so many different ways if, you know what I'm saying, you're not thinking about it in any way, in my opinion.

I, I appreciate you saying that, Ty. I haven't heard it articulated in that way, but I, I agree with it wholeheartedly. And, um, I hope somebody heard that and, and feel compelled to, to put it in their spirit and understand that we, we don't listen just because someone— what someone has, you know, right? What someone has to offer is always going to be incredibly important. And wisdom is incredibly important. To your point, like, man, making money does not make you wise. There's a lot of rich people who got very little wisdom for you out here, so Anything else you want to give our listeners about the month of August, or anything that they should be thinking about going into, uh, this new season?

Um, oh man, it's like, it's the 8th month, so you know, uh, biblically the 8th month is the new beginning. What I've started doing in my 8th month of the year is focus on wellness. To kind of like change my, my— I won't say my mood, but just changing my direction on what I think I should be doing, what I should not be doing. And for me, it has paid wonders for me to look at the month of August and break down my year. That's like January through July, that's 7 months. It's like, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And then August, I reset. In September, October, November, it's like, go, go, go, go, go. And then December, the whole month of December, I gather all of the information, all of the pros, all of the cons for the entire year, and kind of revise how I probably should be looking at the rest of the world, you know.

Got you. And going into the next year as well.

Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Going into the next year for sure, for sure.

And how long have you been structuring your life that way, from that, uh, January to July, August is kind of like transition, and then September to November, December, the transition?

This is the second year. Okay, this year is a lot more serious. Um, last year was just like toying around with it. Uh, I'll say, I'll say, I'll say this is the third year. I'll say this is the third year because summer of 2024 I did this 21-day fast, liquid only. I remember water, coconut water. And fresh-pressed juice only if you fresh-pressed it. And I did that all the way pretty much August. It was from August 1st to like August 21st, right? So that was the beginning of like this wellness journey. And then last year I was in— I was out of the country at a wellness, uh, hotel on this 7-day program. And so this year I'm going back to that wellness hotel, but now I'm just really extending more. Like, I'm, I'm set to get, you know, I'm getting baptized August 23rd. So like, I'm taking August as a real like renewal, refresh, yeah, regather your feet. And, um, and I, I, that month just took out of me. Somebody else, that their, their reset might be May You know what I'm saying? Or they reset, might be July, or they reset, might be October. But for me, that's been the strategy that I kind of put in place, that I got the first 7 months to just like go hard. Then that 8th month, I do a real reset, gathering information, trying to get a good sense of my mental and physical wellness. And then September, we back at it, boom, boom, boom, for 3 months. And then December, we do a lot of data collection and recalibrating and building out what the next year is going to look like. For sure.

Say that. Well, I think that's a great way to kind of end today's episode. And, you know, if you guys have a schedule like that for your lives, for your wellness, please share with us in the comments. Wishing you all an amazing August. Please lock in with us, uh, subscribe if you haven't, like if you haven't, share if you haven't, and, uh, we'll see y'all next time. This is the FYM Show.

Peace. Yeah, peace.