We recently connected with Ray Landski and have shared our conversation below.
Ray, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?
The Docu-series is called ” U GOTTA RESPECT The Legends of Hip-Hop Legacy ” It features Legendary Hip-Hop artists such as Redman, Naughty by Nature, Lords of the Underground , Rah Digga, Joe Budden etc. The idea came from me being a Barber who loves HipHop debates . It was originally was written out in October 2005. We began taping and documenting between 2006-2010 . Put into a time capsule until 2020. In between that I took my Barber career to another level by opening up Xclusives Barbershop,
winning Barber Battles, became a licensed Barber Educator and created a grooming give-back back program . During the pandemic I retrieved the visuals. After watching the Yeezus Docu-series on Netflix in 2021 ,it influenced the team and I to put the Docu-series into production. Sept 2022 we won for best Documentary in the Newark International Film Festival along with various nominations in various Film Festivals. We are currently in the process of a launch later this year in 2025.
Ray, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m Ray Landski , an Xclusive Barber 1st and foremost. My parents met in a Barbershop and gave birth to a Barber. How dope is that? Creativity has been my second nature as long as I can remember. ( way before non-creatives used the term loosely lol) . Since 2020 I’ve been using Canva for my creative space to be Xclusive ( Exclusive) to keep my ads fresh and with a strong attraction to potential clients of Xclusives Barbershop and new supporters and :U GOTTA RESPECT…Docu-series. To keep things in place and structured as possible is honoring time to my beloved clients with an appointments only system. Also continuing to be true the Docu-series supporters by feeding them the core content that attracted them to begin with.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
One time a salon owner down stairs from my first Barbershop tried to block an opportunity for me to open up and expand to the larger space next door. She blackmailed the owner that she would sue him if I was granted the space. Even drew up a contract that dictates my operation. After being legally consulted I signed the contract. And changed the name of my Business name to Xclusives which made her contract worthless, especially for court lol. I refused to allow anyone to block what I worked for. And it was fun to turn drama into comedy lol.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The biggest lesson is not to rush or skip any step of the process during the journey. If you skip 20 steps then you will have to backtrack 40. Starve your impatience and feed your patience. At the end of the day you will realize that patience is the power.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Ugottarespect.com
- Instagram: landskixclusives / ugottarespect
- Facebook: Ray Landski
- Linkedin: Ray Landski
- Twitter: Ray Landski
- Youtube: Ugottarespect & landskixclusives
- Other: Tic tok: ugottarespect
Image Credits
Photos by Alquan Spencer