Can Rick Rubin Save The Music Business ?

Understand CHRIS BLACK. He is the brain-box behind pop rock wunderkinds CARTEL (Epic Records, MTV's Band In the Bubble) as well as the wrangler of institution maker and dance floor destabilizer DJ ROB WONDER (MJQ, El Bar, More Dusty Than Digital). The management of CARTEL & WONDER coalesces with forays into fashion, design, blogging, publishing, street art, television, and event promotion to propel BLACK into the role of Pecos Bill, master rider of the tornado of activities known worldwide as DONE TO DEATH.

Although his skeletal structure resembles that of any novelty-sized man (novelty-sized in the sense of the exuberant sports fan's foam finger—larger than life and exploding with pointed enthusiasm) he was born a mutant. Bones as brittle as yours or mine but his come wrapped in 100% hustle muscle. Birthed and raised in the metropolitan heart of the south, Atlanta, GA, his bloodhound nature of always being hot on the trail of good times and the next big move have led him through numerous projects some more legal and legitimate than others. There are handguns and hard knocks weaved into his origin but those are just footnotes in the man marathon that is his life--necessary steps in building a foundation for such colossal undertakings.

Like many of the good ones crafting cool today he dirtied his hands in the very grimy arena of hardcore punk rock all throughout the nineties. But while he was boycotting barcodes and blasting beats he was also ingesting the spirit of DIY self-reliance that defined the era. His apprenticeship in punk rock galvanized his talents for networking, motivating, and proselytizing. Mid-nineties DIY hardcore was nothing if not Hustlin' 101 for the idealistic neck-armor set and BLACK, for the first time in his life, was head of the class, vegan power valedictorian, (soy?) cream of the crop. Graduating with a double major in head walking and shit talking he swept into the world with both guns blazing.

The new millennium brought him new vistas and he had no choice but to focus on the furthest horizons, push boundaries, think bigger. Maybe it's the giant glasses that help with his expansive vision. Since the coming and going of Y2K BLACK has been assembling "an army of the creative and beautiful, the super-talented and strong." Weaving webs between talents, opportunities, interests and connections he has his sights set on territories untapped and ever evolving. Like a hype man real estate agent for the Arctic Circle he just wants to push the cool.

Count him among the other great Americans who looked wide and heard the wind whisper into their ears that exploration, incorporation, amplification and dissemination are not only encouraged but are required. Call him Sheriff BLACK when he is treating all forms of culture as Wild West roughnecks--dusty showdowns day and night as he commands the room whether running late night rallies in bathroom stalls or bouncing million dollar ideas off boardroom walls. Patrolling the sidewinding streets, back-alley saloons and houses of ill repute he treats the contiguous 48 like a seedy Twister mat. Along with his world headquarters in Atlanta he maintains satellite locations staffed with diehard operatives in New York and Los Angeles. On a relentless transglobal trajectory for high noon high jinks and midnight moves he is doing his best to implement and cement the survival and success of only the finest and the first-rate.

Music, fashion, publishing, television, happenings, the fucking Internet--where does it stop? Can it? Will 2016 find us casting our ballots for a mutant pied-piper presidential hopeful running on a campaign of cool? Will there finally be a BLACK in the White House? Fingers crossed for the United States of Awesome in the years to come: No more blue states, no more red states, everything goes BLACK.