We were lucky to catch up with Ben Gipson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ben, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

In the spring of 2022, there was a choice I had to make: stay with teaching full time and take a $6k bonus OR leave my stable career and focus on my business full time to see it scale to what it could be. Most of my life, I had been fortunate enough to pursue ideas or concepts in my spare time but never at the expense of my livelihood and main source of income. See, starting a business is no easy task but neither is taking the leap of going all in on what you believe could become something important for the community. And yet, after the past year of teaching, which was emotionally and mentally tumultuous, I knew that if my business was going to “beat the odds” and thrive quicker than normal, it was going to take my full time and energy. So, I decided to take a risk and jump into the uncertainty. And after a few months, everything started lining up. I was meeting the right people to help grow my business. I was placed in the right opportunities for financial stability. And every element of ambiguity became clearer each week. Now, I’m in place where the future is foreseeable and closer than projected. All it took was taking a risk.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Ben Gipson, a mixed guy who grew up in central Arkansas but transplanted to Kansas City in the fall of 2018. My business is called Underground Homies- an artist promotion & management company that focuses on connecting the city to its local artists through experiences and marketing. As a musical artist, my friends and I continued to see the struggles of local talent expanding their audience and growing into more than just being a local legend. If you were a big name, everyone supported you. But nobody was fighting for the little guys, the underground homies, which is where our name came from. We are working on solving this issue by building up the local talent and creating the “break” they need to become known around the country and world.

The way this is accomplished is by:
1) providing touch points around the city where the city can encounter artists and experience their work (music, poetry, visual art, etc.)
and 2) crafting a strategic brand and marketing strategy that engages businesses and audiences on a digital platform.

What sets us apart from traditional labels or management programs or even other art initiatives is that we do most of the work for our artists to gain exposure AND we keep it partner with local businesses to make it happen. Having the local businesses support the local homies helps create a pride within our city and the talent it produces. Currently, we are launching a musical artists endorsement program called KC Built Artist which is allows businesses to invest their consumer base and capital into local artists and in return there is a network of content, exposure, and partnership between the artist and business. Basically a local brand champions a local artist! Stay tuned by going to kcbuiltartist.com

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

A key element that has helped our reputation within our market is knowing what we are talking about haha. I think there are a lot of people who jump into industries and fumble through (which we still do) but they want to have the big breaks or big meetings without a solid foundation of their vision and gameplan. Thankfully, we continue to strive to grow, learn, and process through every movement and every step we take as our business grows. This helps us go into meetings with big names in the industry or big companies and not seem like we are just some side hustlers who want to do a cool thing. They can see we have a clear gameplan and that we are taking our job serious.

Also, being hungry to grow and learn goes a long way. People who are older and wiser in the industry are always looking to help the young and driven companies/people get to a place where they are because they know that we all start from the same place.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

For us, our pivot came over this summer (2022). My co-founder and I took a trip out to LA for some business meetings and dreaming. Our big question- how do we become profitable for ourselves and our artists? Initially, we were focused purely on creating local experiences and a digital platform we were going to build. But then the moment of ingenuity came for us to manage and create an artist program that would accelerate not only our connections and opportunities for both UH and artists but also a steady revenue stream for the company. So we pivoted our main efforts to learn and grow in artist management and that industry. And it has been such a fruitful pivot thanks to the right connections and the continual opportunities that come every week. Plus, this pivot will create a greater impact for local artists and help us achieve our dream of replicating Underground Homies in similar markets across the US (and maybe globally).

Contact Info:

• Website: www.undergroundhomies.com
• Instagram: @undergroundhomies
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/undergroundhomies
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/undergroundhomies
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFcX1q9mj9WRT6DAD53D5Hw
• Other: www.kcbuiltartist.com