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In this episode we talk to musician, creative consultant and Vine Street Brewing owner Kemet Coleman. Kemet starts us out with the release of a new track and a new album, then we get into the delicious art of brewing beer at Missouri’s first black-owned brewery. Plus, an email marketing tip with EAG’s Angela Ridpath.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles podcast. I’m Jeff Randolph. This small business podcast is brought to you by EAG Advertising and Marketing. We are going to talk about marketing. We are also here to celebrate entrepreneurs. We have marketing news and advice that business owners can use to keep moving forward. This week we sit down with Kemet Coleman. He’s an entrepreneur who owns Missouri’s first Black-owned brewery, Vine Street Brewing. He’s also a creative and a tremendously talented and popular musician. But first we’ve got another small business marketing tip to talk about.
Jeff Randolph:
Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Joining me for this marketing tip is Angela Ridpath. Angela is the VP of Client Services here at EAG Advertising and Marketing. Angela, welcome to the show.
Angela Ridpath:
Hi, thank you.
Jeff Randolph:
We’re so excited to have you here. I’ve got a question here about, I’m a regular business owner and I’ve solved all of my email woes, and can make all of my email dreams come true because I decided on MailChimp as my platform. That’s my email platform, and I’m very excited about that. And we love MailChimp for a lot of reasons we can talk about for small businesses. But it’s not always great. Talk to me just a little bit about what needs to change in some of those MailChimp templates.
Angela Ridpath:
Sure. I think MailChimp and some of the predefined templates that you get with any type of email platform, email marketing platform, they are great when it comes to setting up a regular template in email. But sometimes they fall short of being able to produce a bulletproof button. And by bulletproof buttons, let me explain. They’re a special way of-
Jeff Randolph:
Please do to explain that because I mean, just no one should be shooting their phone. That’s not cool.
Angela Ridpath:
They are a special way of making buttons and emails that work really well no matter what email program or device that your recipient is using. So normally when you make a button in email, it might not show up correctly in some email programs. But with a bulletproof button, the button is designed to be reliable and consistent across different email clients. And a few things that make a button bulletproof are, they use a mix of HTML, CSS, and sometimes even small images to ensure that that button displays properly. And they’re also backup or fallback styles already built in. So if the main button design doesn’t work for a simpler version of the button, something else will show up. So they’re really designed to be accessible with features like alt texts and descriptions, so people even using screen readers can use it and see it.
Jeff Randolph:
So, good for deliverability in making sure that your UX is good, your user experience, that you’re not giving somebody a button they can’t work with. But also making sure that when someone receives your email, that it doesn’t have just a big red X over where that image is supposed to be so that the image doesn’t come through.
Angela Ridpath:
Exactly.
Jeff Randolph:
Well, before we walk away, we should probably say some of the things we like about MailChimp for small businesses. It’s first, super easy to into, and the cost is not terrible. Right?
Angela Ridpath:
Right, right. They have free versions, and then you can also upgrade to different versions of MailChimp that have workflows built in. And it really does make starting out an email campaign pretty easy. And you said something earlier about authenticating your emails or making emails deliverable, which is a big concern now, because there’s so many people emailing. And email competition is so fierce right now that there are a few simple technical steps that MailChimp and some of the other providers do to really help prove that your emails are coming from a legitimate source. So, that makes it less likely that they’ll be flagged a span.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. So, plenty of reasons to use MailChimp, but also just a little red flag there. Hey, you may want to talk to somebody who really knows email. Angela Ridpath, thanks for being with us on the show.
Angela Ridpath:
Thank you.
Welcome back to the podcast. I am joined by Kemet Coleman. He is a musician, he’s a creative consultant and brewery owner, strengthening the cultural identity of urban Kansas City. Kemet, welcome to the show.
Kemet Coleman:
Thanks for having me, Jeff.
Jeff Randolph:
Absolutely. First the brewery’s been open for a little bit now. Give us that origin story. Tell us that process.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, we’re coming up on year one, actually, June 30th. We’re really excited about that. But if we would go back a year, almost a year, we were really in the thick of things last summer, really trying to get this frantic mode of getting open by the time our liquor license was coming.
Jeff Randolph:
Uh-huh. Yes. Timing.
Kemet Coleman:
The timing.
Jeff Randolph:
Administrative timing.
Kemet Coleman:
Oh my God. It was like landing a plane.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
The backstory, though, a lot of people like to know about is how it all got started. I worked at Boulevard Brewing Company in 2013.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
I was a tour guide there.
Jeff Randolph:
Hey, that’s something we have in common, by the way.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
We can get to that. Yeah.
Kemet Coleman:
Okay. All right. Keep that in mind. Yeah. At 2013, I was a tour guide there. That was my first foray into craft beer. I didn’t really know a lot about craft beer. There were some things that I liked, I had tried, Tank seven. I had tried maybe Flat Tire or something like that.
Jeff Randolph:
Sure.
Kemet Coleman:
And so I didn’t know too much, but I knew that it seemed like a cool industry to be in. And I was, at the time, a full-time musician looking for some extra cash on the side. And so Boulevard was one of the companies that I applied for, and they hired me. And I was a tour guide there and learned a lot about craft beer, learned a lot about the brewery itself. Learned a lot about the brewing process. I was in the guest relations department, so we were the face of Boulevard for a lot of the tourists and guests that were coming. I had to really immerse myself in the culture.
Jeff Randolph:
Right.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
You’re studying up at that point.
Kemet Coleman:
I was studying up.
Jeff Randolph:
There’s a script. Yeah.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, exactly. As well as the products. I had to memorize the products and tasting notes and all those things, ABVs. There was a lot to learn there, and it was just so much fun. I really love that. And after my time there, after about a year and a half, I still went dormant with the beer industry, stopped drinking craft beer as much ’cause I wasn’t exposed to it as much. I was just doing my other things. I had a kid at the time, but always had this idea of having beers of my own because from a marketing perspective, I’m somewhat of a marketer myself. I always thought that it’d be cool to brand a beer. I’m going to wrap this story up a little bit.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh no, don’t. I mean, go for it. We’re good.
Kemet Coleman:
All right. Yeah. I kept having the bug, kept going down these rabbit holes of like, well, what if I opened up a brewery? And if I opened up a brewery, what would it be like? And I definitely wanted to do something that was east of Trust, and this was in 2015 when I had these thoughts. I wanted something east of Trust. And so I looked at a couple places. A couple of years roll around, after those attempts die down, and I’m back on it. I’m looking at more places because people keep talking to me about breweries and stuff. I guess I’m becoming a beer guy. And we looked at a place, a location on 30th and Trust, and that’s where the combine is now. That didn’t work out, didn’t have the right kind of partners and financials and all that stuff didn’t align, and it was not the right time.
I looked at 2,000 Vine, which is where we ultimately wind up actually in, I looked at that in 2017 when my friend, Shimari, who’s one of the owners, took me on a tour of these two buildings that were abandoned. They were owned by the city. They were stone. They looked like stone ruins at the time, but I thought it’d be really cool. I thought it was a cool spot, but they were in no way ready for a brewery to be there at that time.
Jeff Randolph:
Right.
Kemet Coleman:
That died down. And the partner that I was working with, we parted ways eventually. Pandemic rolls around, and I’m a marketing director at Startland, as well as being a, not full-time musician, but a musician. I’m working on music and stuff and gigging. Not really gigging ’cause 2020, but definitely doing music.
Jeff Randolph:
That put a damper on the gigs for sure.
Kemet Coleman:
It sure did. Yeah. I was doing Zoom gigs.
Jeff Randolph:
Zoom gig. Hey everybody.
Kemet Coleman:
Right, right. Yeah. I was there for about a year, definitely had the entrepreneurial spirit. There was something burning inside of me that really wanted to express itself. I parted ways with Startland and really went down this rabbit hole of opening up a brewery again. And my partner was like, you keep talking about this brewery. When are you going to do it? I was like, okay, good call. Good idea. It’s 2020 and I’m already reassessing my career. Where do I want it to go? I had released a beer with Crane Brewing and released an album at the same time at 2020. I’m pairing beer and music already.
Jeff Randolph:
Okay.
Kemet Coleman:
I’m already in this lane. Yeah, I just felt like it was a great time to do that. I was working on a building on 39th and Indiana. And so the building, it’s an industrial building, an old firehouse from the ’20s, art deco. It’s really cool. It’d be set up nice for a brewery. It’s on 39th in Indiana. That neighborhood is not necessarily ready for a brewery.
Jeff Randolph:
[inaudible 00:06:23].Kemet Coleman:
But I did wind up asking Woody, who’s one of my partners with Vine Street Brewing, because I had met Woody at Boulevard and took him on a tour, and then I went to his beer festival a couple years later. And so I had him in the back of my brain. I said, if I’m going to ask somebody to start a brewery, I want it to be Woody ’cause he was a home brewer and one of the other Black guys that I’ve ever seen in the beer scene here at the time. And so I asked him and he was like, wow, okay. And we hadn’t talked in years, right? Just out the blue, hey, you want to start a brewery?
Jeff Randolph:
And you’re like, yeah, yep, that’s it.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Done, done. I was waiting for this call. This is the call [inaudible 00:07:01].
Kemet Coleman:
I’ve been waiting on you.
Jeff Randolph:
And sitting by the phone.
Kemet Coleman:
Exactly. I asked him, I think he was shocked, but didn’t resist. He said, let me think about it. He thought about it for about a day. He got back to me the next day. He’s like, look, if I were to do something like this, I think it’d be really beneficial if we do it with someone who has a more of an engineer mind. And there’s this guy named Elliot who, he’s also a home brewer. He’s also a brother, a Black guy, and it would be really dope if he could do it with us. In fact, I think we should do it with him. I was like, look, I’m not a brewer. I’m a marketing guy. I’m a musician, so if you need help brewing, let’s go. Obviously, and I knew that Woody was a very creative brewer. He’s very innovative, and he comes up with really bold recipes that are sometimes a little too adventurous for some people.
Jeff Randolph:
You have to appeal to a certain market, but then there are other people who really want to have those exciting beers.
Kemet Coleman:
Oh, yeah. There are people who swear by this.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah.
Kemet Coleman:
There are beers that he created as a home brewer that people are like, they still talk about to this day.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
He’s also into things like pickle beer, which I’m not into personally.
Jeff Randolph:
Not everyone is.
Kemet Coleman:
But anyway. Elliot was on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. He likes boring beers.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
He asked Elliot and Elliot said, no. He straight up said, no, I’m not doing this. I’m about to go to grad school. I’m about to get a promotion with my job in Honeywell. There’s no way I would do this. His wife actually encouraged him to do it. She said, this could be a dream come true. And so thank God for his wife
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, yeah. And thanks from the Kansas City community to his wife.
Kemet Coleman:
Exactly. Yeah. Anyway, he got back to Woody and he said yes. And so then we were thinking about the location, 39th and Indiana was an initial option. We surveyed the area and was just like, the neighborhood is just not ready for this yet. We started scouting other neighborhoods and 18th and Vine was at the top of the list because at least from my perspective, I guess I proposed it because one, it’s at the crossroads of a lot of different things, tourism, and it’s an entertainment district, so there’s locals already there. And then it’s a hub and hotspot for Black culture, which is something that we would like to elevate, especially as it relates to music specifically.
Jeff Randolph:
Right.
Kemet Coleman:
It was a no-brainer when we thought about location-wise, and then when I showed them the space, ’cause I had already seen it in 2017.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
When I showed them the space, they were blown away. They were just like, wow. They got really excited about it, and then they all agreed that that’s where it would be. And so we went down this long rabbit hole of acquiring the space and then signing a lease and all that stuff. Yeah. All that whole process from that very initial thought in 2020 to opening up in 2023, that was almost three years.
Jeff Randolph:
Let me pivot to the building for a second, because that whole building piece, the entrepreneurship often comes with those skill sets that you find out that you need that you didn’t have any concept that you would need going into this project.
Kemet Coleman:
Right.
Jeff Randolph:
It’s a 150 year old stone building that used to be the water and street department headquarters, and you turn it into a brewery. What was the most surprising thing about walking into that environment and going, well, let’s see. I have a marketing background and I like beer, and that’s what we want to do, but now I have to know building code. What was going on in that process?
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
What was surprising about that?
Kemet Coleman:
Well, okay. Actually I have an urban studies background. I went to UMKC and studied urban studies. One of the things that you study is development. And so we did proformas and we did site surveys and all kind of stuff like that, work directly with the architecture school as well, and the planning department.
Jeff Randolph:
Uh-huh.
Kemet Coleman:
I already had, at least from college, some context on how this process works. I knew what a developer was or a real estate developer was, or I knew triple net leases and stuff like that. There was that already there. And so over the years, it had been 12 or 13 years since I had been to college. And as someone that went to MKC and studied urban studies, I got relationships with people in real estate. Shamari, my friend being one of those people. And then the developer community is not huge. You’ve got larger scale, you’ve got small scale, you’ve got micro. Yeah, I was of already in the real estate space. That helped. The other thing that helped also was I went through the process before of concept to brick and mortar. My wife and I started a brick and mortar on Broadway called Masalon Studios. And so it’s a coworking space for salon professionals.
Jeff Randolph:
Okay.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. And we worked with an architecture firm just down here. Actually, I forget their name, but they’re huge architecture firm just down the street here.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. And then we worked with contractors, and I learned a lot from that process.
Jeff Randolph:
You learned a lot from that.
Kemet Coleman:
I learned a lot. That construction company is now bankrupt.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh. Oh.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that’s a whole nother story. Luckily, and that was a learning lesson for me because I knew at that point I didn’t want to be directly related to the construction process at that moment and trying to start a business. We actually worked with a developer who took the blow of all of the contractor issues and contractor benefits as well that we didn’t have to deal with. Yeah. I mean that was that. I will say, to answer your question though, what I didn’t know about historic preservation was-
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, sure.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. It’s an entirely different animal than repurposing something that’s already pretty stable and already got decent bones. Our building, the stonework, I mean, everything had to get repaired. The stone work had been previously done. Before we got there, there was no roof, there were no windows. They wound up doing a lot of work prior to us even getting there. And even as we signed our lease, they found out that we had to replace the entire first floor, concrete floor.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. We had to demolish the entire floor, and I have pictures of that.
Jeff Randolph:
And put a new floor in.
Kemet Coleman:
And put an entirely new floor, concrete floor, in that. And so while they demolished the floor, they discovered that several, at least 12 or 13 of the original steel beams were so deteriorated that they had to get replaced or repaired.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
And so we had to go through a special, I forget what it’s called now, something with the city, but that set us back six months.
Jeff Randolph:
It’s so iconic though, the finished product.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
I hope that you can look back on it and go, yeah, worth it.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
I mean, I’m far enough away from it now [inaudible 00:14:25].
Kemet Coleman:
Oh, it’s definitely worth it. I mean, it was definitely worth it. And I knew it would be, because sometimes you just have to have a little vision.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
Sometimes you have to see it before it’s there to see it in your mind. And I knew that the neighborhood really needed something like this.
Jeff Randolph:
Right, right.
Kemet Coleman:
And I think there are some cultural assets down there that are amazing. They need to be reinforced by businesses like this.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. Completely. And so you said in an interview that you don’t want to just be known for being the first Black owned brewery in Missouri, that you want to be known as a catalyst for change.
Kemet Coleman:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Randolph:
‘Cause you’re bringing together the culture, you’re bringing art, you’re bringing performance, you’re bringing music.
Kemet Coleman:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Randolph:
It’s a community venue. Do you have a vision for what’s about to happen there if you look at the 18th and Vine District and even all of Kansas City?
Kemet Coleman:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Randolph:
Jump us forward 20 years, what do you want to be known for there? What does that look like in 20 years?
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. I mean, I think we really want to create a crown jewel of Kansas City in that neighborhood. I mean, it is the crown jewel. Only acoustically. People’s memories are tied to the music from that neighborhood when they get there. There’s some opportunities for us to improve. And so what we want to see is our brand and our business being an example for what development can look like as we see infill, as we see more housing, as we see density, as we start to repair some of these buildings that are deteriorating. Hopefully these are the things that can strengthen the neighborhood to not really get it back to where it was, but in the past, it really had this strong heartbeat. We want to strengthen that heartbeat because I think that area is the most sacred cultural place, that asset that the city has, at least when we talk about the last few hundred years.
Obviously, this land was occupied prior to us being here.
Jeff Randolph:
Sure.
Kemet Coleman:
And I don’t want to diminish that, but I do want to say that that neighborhood is very special. And so over the decades I’ve seen investment in the museums, and that’s great. But I know that museums need support. They need other types of businesses to bring people down to do that. And there’s other businesses like the restaurants, the bars, the venues, the businesses. There’s a call there. There’s a lot of great bones.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh yeah.
Kemet Coleman:
And so we need to get some meat and skin on these bones. And so our vision is to help propel the rest of the neighborhood, and especially the South Vine area where the castle is, the Carroll Coal bridge going even south to 25th Street. 20 years, I would love if there was a gateway, almost like Chinatown that said 18th and Vine or Jazz District or Vine Street or something, to really give people a backdrop of, like Disney World, the big cast.
Jeff Randolph:
A different land.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, different land, right? You’re entering into a very intentionally, culturally rich place.
Jeff Randolph:
That has a feel and also some darn good beer at the same time.
Kemet Coleman:
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
If you search Vine Street Brewing and the White House, you get a result in that search set, which is fascinating. Tell us that story.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. I went to the White House in May of ’23.
Jeff Randolph:
As you do, as we all do.
Kemet Coleman:
Oh yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Everybody who was a former tour guide at Boulevard has done it, I’m sure.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Actually it was about, at the time of this interview last year, a year prior. I was sitting in bed watching Netflix, and I get a text message from Mayor Q that says, the vice president has requested me to send someone from Kansas City to the White House for an entrepreneurship round table discussion, a minority entrepreneurship round table discussion. Would you like to go? And I was like, so I’m just watching the show.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
I’m just sitting here in bed chilling.
Jeff Randolph:
I’m watching the Tiger King just like anybody else.
Kemet Coleman:
Exactly. I’m watching Tiger King, Real Housewives, whatever.
Jeff Randolph:
Real Housewives. I’m there. I know.
Kemet Coleman:
Bridgerton. Anyway. I’m looking at this text message with disbelief, and so I put my phone down. I’m just like, there’s no way I just got that text. And I’m like, all right. I went back to the show, picked the phone back up, it’s still there. I’m like, okay, that’s a real text. And I’m like, duh. Yeah. Okay, when? Give me details. He was like, all right, cool. I’ll let them know. I don’t have details yet, but you should know soon. Yeah. It was two days later after that text message, I had to go to DC. Short turnaround time. Basically, yeah, I went to DC and met with the vice president as well as about 20, I think it was 30 other Black business owners from around the country who were all in different industries. There was some guy working on some stuff that has to do with supporting the space industry. There was a guy who started a luxury shoe company.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
Lots of different types of industries in that room. It was really cool, and it was young men, so I was like, oh, I’m still young. I’ll take it.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s right.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. It was really cool. Spent a few days in DC, which was really beautiful this time of year. I got to walk around, got to take pictures with the VP. I got take a picture in front of her seal and stuff like that. The coolest thing about this trip though, was as she entered the room and made her rounds introducing herself, she was like, you’re with the brewery, right? And I was just like, what? You know that, right? Yeah. I’m a little starstruck, but she was like, ah. She said, I wish you could have brought some for us. And I was like, oh, dang it. I was like, all right, next time.
Jeff Randolph:
Even if it’s 9:00 in the morning where we’re hanging out recording this, I’m going to pretend like we’re drinking one of them.
Kemet Coleman:
Exactly.
Jeff Randolph:
One of your [inaudible 00:21:05] beers.
Kemet Coleman:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Randolph:
You’re an artist, you’re a rapper, and producer, NPR music just listed you and your music as one of eight Kansas City artists making a mark on their communities. The newest album is called Duality. You’ve explored six themes, like good and evil and light and dark and love and hate. Describe that project for us.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, yeah. Duality is really this recognition of how dual our universe is and how that balance is key.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
And so pretty much in everything I have ever done has been dual. It’s either music business owners, it’s like…
Jeff Randolph:
Right, right.
Kemet Coleman:
It really is that. And so the concept is large. I made the music really approachable though, really dance forward and explorative in those different regards. Yeah, each song revolves around those topics, and they do so in a way that’s probably more personal for me.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
People probably wouldn’t pick up on it unless I explained it to them. But that was the point of that project was really like an inner recognition that also, I’m assuming people can probably resonate with, folks that either feel dual or see how life is balanced that way. It’s a deep concept, but when you listen to the music, it could bang in the club.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. Oh, absolutely it could.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
100%.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
No, it was great stuff. And what were we listening to at the top of the hour when we first got into the show, we were playing your new single.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Tell us about that.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, the new single’s called Android. And Android is a song that is dedicated to all the Android users out there who get marginalized for having green bubbles.
Jeff Randolph:
I appreciate you tackling the topics that we all have on our mind.
Kemet Coleman:
Exactly.
Jeff Randolph:
You’re helping, you’re really helping.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. Definitely.
Jeff Randolph:
No, look, thank you. Thank you for letting us play that. That is outstanding. We are happy to have it.
Kemet Coleman:
Of course.
Jeff Randolph:
Kemet Coleman, are you ready to go into the lightning round?
Kemet Coleman:
I’m down.
Jeff Randolph:
We’ve got some questions. We’ve talked broadly about topics we would talk about ahead of time, but not here.
Kemet Coleman:
Okay.
Jeff Randolph:
From this point on, no way to know what’s going on. Let’s start with that dinner party question.
Kemet Coleman:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Randolph:
You’re having a dinner party with anyone you want living or dead, or let’s call it a happy hour.
Kemet Coleman:
Okay.
Jeff Randolph:
We’ll say that we’re having some beer.
Kemet Coleman:
Yep.
Jeff Randolph:
Who’s on that list? Who do you want to have around that table?
Kemet Coleman:
Are we talking one person or group?
Jeff Randolph:
No. Let’s have enough people to really talk to.
Kemet Coleman:
Okay. Dead or live?
Jeff Randolph:
Either, either.
Kemet Coleman:
Okay. I’m going to go with alive to narrow it down.
Jeff Randolph:
Okay.
Kemet Coleman:
All right. First person will probably be Quincy Jones.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, okay.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Okay.
Kemet Coleman:
The way he’s been able to maneuver through decades and eras is pretty ridiculous when it comes to developing musicians as well as redefining his sound and being adaptive to any circumstance. He’s definitely top of the list.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, for sure. Yeah. Who else besides Quincy Jones? That’s a great choice. Wow. Yeah.
Kemet Coleman:
Thanks. Probably Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Jeff Randolph:
Thank you for this. Yes. I will take any moment to promote Neil deGrasse Tyson on any show that I have a microphone on or any speaking engagement.
Kemet Coleman:
Right.
Jeff Randolph:
If you can get a Neil deGrasse Tyson thing going on.
Kemet Coleman:
Yes.
Jeff Randolph:
Absolutely.
Kemet Coleman:
First of all, this man has the best speaking voice ever. Second of all, the way he can synthesize complex information and data to folks so that folks can understand it.
Jeff Randolph:
To educate, yes.
Kemet Coleman:
And to educate, and to be passionate about it and not sound like a pompous erudite.
Jeff Randolph:
100%.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. That’s pretty cool.
Jeff Randolph:
And to break it down for people to be able to say, hey, he has a position, but he’s respectful of yours.
Kemet Coleman:
Exactly.
Jeff Randolph:
Even if you’re completely wrong, he’ll say, oh, yeah. All right. Well, for the rest of us, I sometimes think this or that humans need this.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. I love how he keeps room for everything.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. And does it while drinking very big glasses of red wine.
Kemet Coleman:
He does.
Jeff Randolph:
With grace.
Kemet Coleman:
Yes, with grace.
Jeff Randolph:
Spectacular.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. Yeah. I want to be like him when I grow up.
Jeff Randolph:
Same.
Kemet Coleman:
If I can squeeze one more in here, there is Madam CJ Walker. She was the first female millionaire and the first Black millionaire. She started a hairline product company. I would like to know her secrets and how she scaled that way back in early 1900s, late 1800s.
Jeff Randolph:
That is a well stocked dinner party or happy hour. That is spectacular.
Kemet Coleman:
Yes.
Jeff Randolph:
I love it. Do you have a favorite style of beer, that desert island style of beer that you could drink all the time? Doesn’t matter. Pour me one of those while I decide what I’m going to have next.
Kemet Coleman:
Oh man. That’s tough. I don’t actually. I mean, I really don’t. I don’t have one. I maybe have two or three that are on the short list.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
I love a saison.
Jeff Randolph:
Yes, thank you.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. Yeah. I love a good saison, I like the spiciness, sometimes I like the clove and the banana.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
I really enjoy saison. I love Tank seven as well. Our saison is fire. I love it. It’s called the Hood. Saison is great. What else?
Jeff Randolph:
I had the Hood saison the last time I was there.
Kemet Coleman:
Oh, yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Yes. That’s going to be a highly recommend for me. That’s a good one.
Kemet Coleman:
Thank you. Yeah. I’m very seasonal, so depending on the weather, that changes what my preference is. This time of weather, we’re in May right now, so it’s not too hot, not too cold, a little overcast, vibey.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
I would drink something like an English mild, or I would drink maybe a pretty approachable hazy IPA. Yeah, I’ll try whatever though. In the winter months, I’m doing stouts and porters.
Jeff Randolph:
Stouts and porters. In the winter when you need something to cuddle up with.
Kemet Coleman:
Exactly.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah.
Kemet Coleman:
And I’ll do a pilsner in the summertime. I’ll do a pilsner whenever, but really, usually pilsners are occasional for when I’m just trying to have a long conversation, just hanging out or playing games, going to the game.
Jeff Randolph:
My summer beers have been Mexican lagers of late, where it’s just that I’m watching someone mow the lawn for me, and I’m working up a sweat just looking at them.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
And you go, yep, that’s it. I got to have it.
Kemet Coleman:
I agree, actually. I would say Mexican lagers do it for me because they have enough body or enough flavor and a little bit of a body to make you feel like you’re drinking a little bit more than carbonated water.
Jeff Randolph:
Right.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, it’s just a very interesting, and the yeast flavor is actually really appealing.
Jeff Randolph:
It is good, it is good. You’ve got a strong marketing background, and you lead the marketing effort, of course, at Vine Street. Tell us about your agency, because why wouldn’t you have several other hats that you wear? You also have a creative agency. Tell us about that.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, Kemet Creative. I started it really just as a catchall for all of my endeavors back in 2018. It involved music, I’ve been actually making Squarespace website since 2011. My first website was my own, and so I needed a website. I didn’t have any money to hire anybody, so I was like, I’m just going to do this.
Jeff Randolph:
I’ll do it. It’s Squarespace. I can make this happen.
Kemet Coleman:
Exactly. I did that, and then my friends were like, oh, you’re really good at this. Can you do mine? I was like, all right. I’ve been doing it since 2011.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
Now Kemet Creative has evolved over the years, and now we focus on web design and graphic design and music direction.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
And so those are the three tiers. And really our specialty is for organizations and companies that have community impact. That’s really what we’re, especially urban communities.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
Our clients, 2,000 Vine, we’re working on a Charlie Parker Festival out in KCK, Vine Street Brewing Company. There’s a lot of little community focused brands that we specialize in. Yeah, that’s that. And then the other thing that is really cool about Kemet Creative is that we are full service music direction or music agency. We can do music production, we can make the instrumentals that you need for your commercial. If you have a live event, we can set up staging, PA system, all that stuff. Really, it’s this marketing agency that’s enhanced by this musical background.
Jeff Randolph:
Man, there’s no end of hats that you wear on this one. How has your marketing background impacted the rest of your… Do you feel like it has prepared you for marketing just in all of these other areas where you came into the Vine Street and went, I’ve got the marketing, this is under control.
Kemet Coleman:
Yes.
Jeff Randolph:
Everything else I’ll worry about.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Did you feel prepared for that?
Kemet Coleman:
Oh yeah. Yeah. I think about marketing stuff all the time. I walk around the streets and I’m like marketing, marketing, marketing.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah.
Kemet Coleman:
I already had a game plan in my mind, and what I thought I had to do was what I did. But then there was also other things I had to do because we had to stay nimble and we had delays. And so how do you keep people’s attention for two years?
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah.
Kemet Coleman:
That was another thing we had to really focus on, and marketing played a huge role in that.
Jeff Randolph:
What area of the business do you wish you knew more about?
Kemet Coleman:
What business?
Jeff Randolph:
Well, gosh, we really do have to specify what hat you’re wearing at that point.
Kemet Coleman:
Right.
Jeff Randolph:
Let’s stick with Vine Street Brewing.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
And what do you wish you knew more about in that world?
Kemet Coleman:
Yes. Yes. I think we’ve got about a year under our belt of being a local brewery. I’m just fascinated to know what the process is for different breweries to scale and how to leverage relationships and how to determine what markets to enter in next. Really looking at scalability is what I would love to know a little bit more about. And I’ve got some friends in the industry that I can tap into for that. We’ve got to really walk and chew gum. We have to keep the lights on, but then we also have to look, have that vision three, four years down the road, what’s next.
Jeff Randolph:
Where are we going? Where are we going next?
Kemet Coleman:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Randolph:
Speaking of where we’re going next, collaborations are a popular way to go.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
I saw a very cryptic post on your Instagram about why are these brewers over here at Rochester?
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
What’s going on with that?
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, yep.
Jeff Randolph:
Do you have an ultimate collaboration, like, man, I want to do a collaboration with?
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. I mean, I want to do collaboration with all the friends, all of our friends and folks that we discover along the way. Really, and that’s one of my favorite things about the beer industry, was how collaborative it is. It reminded me of the music industry, because with musicians, it’s like, Hey, I want you to hop on this track. Are you down? And be like, yeah, whatever. I’ll go in a studio, knock it out, send it over. And breweries are the same way. Not all of them, but there’s a lot of breweries that are just like, all right, yeah. Well, I mean…
Jeff Randolph:
That makes sense.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, right?
Jeff Randolph:
What do you have in mind?
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. And you start talking recipes and you’re like, you want to do that together? I really liked that about it. And also when I worked at Boulevard, I realized that I thought that the recipes would be close to the chest, but recipes are not really the secret sauce. Really there’s so many different things to determine. The water, water quality, the pH levels, filtration, your yeast strain plays a huge part.
Jeff Randolph:
Yes.
Kemet Coleman:
Sourcing the hop, sourcing the malt. It’s like, I just love how it’s an open book there. And obviously once you get too close, there’s a little bit of competition.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s right, that’s right.
Kemet Coleman:
It’s there, but it is so minimized in relation to all these other industries I’ve seen.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. I’ll pivot off that Boulevard question just to bring it up. My tour guide background, I was what was called an old school tour guide.
Kemet Coleman:
Oh, cool.
Jeff Randolph:
I’m elderly, it happens.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
No, an old school tour guide where it was before the sale to [inaudible 00:33:55] got. All of the tour guides were volunteers.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
We just came in and give one weekend a month, just like ROTC or not like ROTC in any way, right?
Kemet Coleman:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Randolph:
But after that, of course, it became a position and there’s structure around it.
Kemet Coleman:
Yep.
Jeff Randolph:
But you had to learn a lot about John McDonald in giving those tours. Do you look at anything that he did and went, man, yeah, that’s the way to do it, or, I’m glad we didn’t do it that way?
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. I think John McDonald played a huge role in this whole idea in my brain at least, because he was an artist as well, and a carpenter by trade. But his wife said something really funny when I was talking to them. At some point, she was just like, he said he went to do this and it was going to cost this. And she was like, well, we’re already broke anyway.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. What’s it matter?
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah, exactly. They moved above the brewery, which is really cool. And so, yeah, I was just like, okay, okay. There is really this grand sacrifice that has to happen, this super high risk, super high reward thing that has to happen. And so you really have to take a dive off of it. And I don’t think I would’ve been that confident if I didn’t see his house he did.
Jeff Randolph:
[inaudible 00:35:15]. Paving the way for people like the rest of the brewers in town who went, oh, yeah, I could do that.Kemet Coleman:
Exactly.
Jeff Randolph:
And not have to ask your dad for all of his retirement money.
Kemet Coleman:
Right.
Jeff Randolph:
And his dad was like, well, yeah, but if this doesn’t work, I’m living with you.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
We’re both going to be living in this building if it doesn’t work out right.
Kemet Coleman:
Yep. Mm-hmm.
Jeff Randolph:
As far as collaborations go, any musical collaborations that you’re like, that’s my ultimate collaboration I want to work with?
Kemet Coleman:
Oh, man.
Jeff Randolph:
Blank.
Kemet Coleman:
Yeah. So many. So many, so many. Where do I begin? There’s a lot of underground artists that I really like.
Jeff Randolph:
Mm-hmm.
Kemet Coleman:
There’s a guy in the UK called MPH. He’s really dope. He does garage house music. I’m huge into electronic, specifically house music as well. I love his style. He’s dope. Yeah. As far as the hip hop realm, I love to do something with Kendrick. I’d love to do something with Jake Cole. I would love to do something with, I mean, all these guys really. Tech N9ne. I have a song with Tech N9ne, but I would love to do another one. And yeah, I could go on. I mean, obviously Quincy Jones, that would be great.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. 100%.
Kemet Coleman:
Dr Dre. Yeah. I mean, OutKast.
Jeff Randolph:
I just feel like the more we put out there, and if any one of these come true, let’s just say that it’s the podcast that did that. Let’s say that was the love connection that made it happen.
Kemet Coleman:
Right, right.
Jeff Randolph:
Kemet Coleman, I’m taking you out of the lightning round. You’ve done a fantastic job. You’ve answered all of our questions.
Kemet Coleman:
Cool.
Jeff Randolph:
Where can people find you if they want more information? Throw out any of the locations where you want them. We’ve talked about a lot of different things today.
Kemet Coleman:
Sure. Yeah, yeah. For myself, you can find me at just kemetcoleman.com, K-E-M-E-T, Coleman, like the camping gear. And then for Vine Street, you can just find us on socials @vinestbrewing, and for Kemet Creative, just under Kemet Creative. Yeah, you can find me on there. I’m pretty accessible. Just hit me up on a DM or whatever.
Jeff Randolph:
Kemet Coleman, thanks for being with us today. We appreciate you stopping by and sharing all the love. Appreciate it.
Kemet Coleman:
It has been a lot of fun, Jeff. Thanks.
Jeff Randolph:
And that is our show. Thanks to our guest, Kemet Coleman, and thank you for listening to the Small Business Miracles Podcast. Remember to subscribe. Leave us a five star rating and review. Drop us a line on the website at eagadv.com if you have any thoughts. Until then, we’ll be out here helping entrepreneurs with another small business miracle.