Philly has its own idiosyncratic, eclectic and sophisticated style. One of the artists, Staccey, is on the scene making moves in art and music marketing, and is also putting out some of the most popular and uniquely Philly "jawn" tees. A Philly native, her paintings are plastered over the Real World house and she is head of the marketing and event firm Squarebiz, a venture with ubiquitous Philly head Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson. Stacey talked with Street about this fair city's style -- and her recent projects.
Tell us about Squarebiz.
We're a promotional entertainment company that branched in a few different other avenues [such as] publishing, the newspaper and doing shirts, merchandise. Doing a couple other things that support what we do at the base, which is promotions and entertainment. We do shows and parties, all sorts of events, art-related events and charity. We do an event [with BEBASHI] every June, for National HIV Testing Day, that's an outdoor event on the art museum [Philadelphia Museum of Art] steps. This will be our third year coming up and its called Dancin' in the Streets. It's just a great party. Our weekly Tastytreats was our first venture which is still going on every Saturday and its still crowded which I'm thankful for. Three and a half years for a party is a long time.
What other events or clients do you have?
We have a million and one events. We do all [events] for Scion. They do monthly events [that are] free hip hop parties. On December 1st we have Biz Markie and Grandmaster Flash, DJ Mike Nyce and Statik. The party is always free, as long as you RSVP online, which is really cool. At Tragos we're gonna do the Reunion. Upstairs its gonna be DJ Rich Medina and Mike Nyce and downstairs it will be Statik. We have the Fat Albert movie premiere party with the cast at Tastytreats and we do street team for R& B and hip hop clients.
I think we do a good job of providing really good quality events, and we do have a nice following of people who really enjoy what we do and what we create.
Could you tell us about the Okayplayer and Jawn shirts?
Squarebiz is myself, ?uestlove and Yameen. ?uestlove also owns Okayplayer.com so he is the factor for us to [come together]. But we're two completely separate companies. The Okayplayer shirts have just expanded from the Okayplayer logo to really awesome imaging. Andrew Cunningham is an artist who works on a lot of the artwork for the shirts. He also designs a lot of the CD covers and album covers for Rope-a-dope. He's really an amazing artist.
When we first started doing Tastytreats we talked about having hostesses. So we could have girls passing out TastyKakes and make it real Philly. Just in slang, Yameen and Ahmir were saying we should have some jawns passing out TastyKakes so why don't we call them Tasty Jawns? Tastyjawns shirts were strictly only for the girls that were working. We only made like 10 for the girls and people just started asking about them. Then someone would be like, "Tastyjawn ... you should do something like Illadelphjawn!" Then we just came up with all these different names and different shirts and it just kind of grew from there.
It just expanded in a great way. It just grew and became its own kind of monster. We didn't really know what we were creating once we did that t-shirt, but it's been really cool. People call or email with their suggestions and we can accommodate custom pieces for people. A lot of times [groups like] fraternities or dance teams will get [shirts] that say "Dancejawn" for their group or whatever.
Are you primarily Philly based and are you planning on expanding?
I'd love to. We sell t-shirts outside the city all the time. We get orders online from people in this country and out of the country. It's really crazy. The first time I went to London I had a jawn shirt and someone came up to me and I just bugged out. You work hard and when you go overseas and someone mentions that they know what you do it's such a weird feeling, but it was really cool. I'd love to expand -- it's just a matter of having more help that will accommodate the work that will come with that. So hopefully, one day.
What sort of designs are in the future?
We contemplated doing imaging as opposed to just words. But I think I'm struggling with whether or not it should just remain the way it is. I don't want to take away from what it is and start adding images and stuff like that, but we've definitely talked about just expanding the creativity of it a little bit. We'll get there.
You're an artist in your own right. Tell us about some of your work.
I'm an artist [laughing]. I've had a few shows and my artwork is in the Real World [Philly] house. In the phone room there are these four paintings of these four girls smoking -- those are mine. I have one piece in the living room with seven big characters [and] it's a seven-foot piece. I have two in the bathroom and one in each bedroom. They're all paintings. I draw a lot but they just turn into paintings and I do a lot of computer work; I'm a graphic designer. [Clubs like] Zanzibar Blue and Warmdaddy's, I do a lot of their graphic design pieces for them. I plan to have more shows and Jill Scott's doing a poetry book which is a coffee table book and I have six pieces going in there.
I'd love to get some type of agent to help me to get my stuff out there more. I got so caught up in Squarebiz and doing events that I forget that I can be this artist and like have shows and sell artwork.
What is in the future for Squarebiz?
I don't plan too much. I'm very sporadic, and something can happen tomorrow that I have no idea about. I didn't think I'd be here three and a half years ago so it [Squarebiz] is kind of able and willing to go anywhere it wants to go. I think we're just gonna go and we're gonna expand. We have expanded with what we do anyway. Originally we were just tripping out of a party, but now people hire us for their street teaming and promotions and album releases and bookings for artists.
It's harder to think about because you're in the change and it just changes all the time. And sometimes I don't see it because I'm in the whirlwind of what goes on everyday. I'm just thankful that I don't have to work at some office where someone is telling me what to be and how to talk. I have the freedom that I want and the freedom to be able to be an artist if I want to be sometimes and all that stuff, 'cuz it's cool.
Jawn T-shirts can be found at www.squarebiz.org
Okayplayer T-shirts can be found at www.okayplayer.com
Also check for the new Okayplayer.com website launching in February 2005
