We were lucky to catch up with Ailo Blanco recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ailo, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

It was like 2014, I was 16, and my pops was tryna open up a shoe store. When we were coming up with the potential names, one of em’ that stood out on the list was ”clout”. Then I figured ah shit, Clout Records got a nice lil ring to it. Then that word became the grossest shit ever, like pumpkin spicee…just f*ckin nasty (laughing), I still rock with it tho cuz f*ck it. Then AILO was some shit I came up with around the same time while I was just doing homework and playing GTA. I kinda just made that word up to describe certain sounds I heard that I didn’t know the name of when I was still learning how to make beats.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Ailo Blanco, Pronounced (Aye-Low). I wear a couple different hats but it all falls under the umbrella of music. I started writing little raps and making beats initially around 13/14. I had this broadcasting journalism class in middle school that taught us how to edit videos on imovie which spiraled off to me getting into videography and playing with cameras. As time would go on, I noticed all of these skills went hand in hand with each other. By the time I was 15-16, I had just started recording my first few songs, they were f*cking trash (laughs) I had a baby a*s stuffy lil n*gga voice. lol It just wasn’t my time yet, but that shit was a fun learning experience. The homie sold me his studio setup for like $60 and I started f*cking around with that just kinda figuring out how to work everything, engineering some of my friends and other lil rap niggas I went to school with for practice. Learned a little bit about graphic design which led me to making covers & lil mock ups, which then led me to start making t-shirts and hats in highschool. So now at 24 I own and operate a record label, film production studio, clothing brand and some other shit I can’t tell y’all about yet but be ready gahdammit :) …all as an independent solo artist.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Going outside and talking to people, you know, connecting & all that good shit, letting muhfukkas know I exist. Its really not that hard as people try to make it seem. I’m not perfect, like I still got shy moments and my shit still isn’t “working” in a commercial sense but you gotta start somewhere. Like if I make a hoodie, then I wear it when I go to target to get some M&M’s or some dumb shit like that, somebody could notice it & be like “oh shit thats kinda fye, where’s it from”. Now i’m talking to them about how I made it & i’d show them my website where they could potentially buy one for themselves, maybe they won’t, but if the conversations good enough they may wanna learn more about you. It seems easy to say but those experiences do add up and you never know who you’ll run into or who’s watching. Just do ya thang.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

For the most part yea. I had no idea what the f*ck I was doing for a long time, honestly I still got shit to learn. I’d make my first few pieces on iron on or vinyl but this was like 16 year old trial and error shit. I didn’t get too crazy into it until I was like 18. Thats when I started doing mock ups for cut & sew concepts and getting more detailed with the t-shirt designs. I’d look up the best blanks, where to get stuff printed, who does custom fabrics…and all kinda shit. I found some local print shops in atlanta who did good quality prints so I started bringing my blanks there to make samples. Honestly thats probably the most fun part because it helps see the beauty in imperfection. Theres always some pretty good lessons to be learned if you f*ck up or something comes out funny looking. Not everything is gonna come out perfect on the first try, So having a V1 sample and a V2 sample side by side helps you fully see and a*sess where you may have missed something or went wrong. I think its a healthy technique for development. Plus its cool as hell to have an extra one to just f*ck around in, or just give away. More rare I guess.

Contact Info:

• Website: Ailoblanco.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ailoblanco (Clout Records)
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ailoblanco
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt0-2D_1sLk9v5XI7b9vTqQ

Image Credits
Ailo Blanco Nick May CSHADOWHD Vlad