We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kainen DuBose. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kainen below.
Kainen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.
If I could change anything it would be to follow through and stay consistent no matter how blurry the path might look. I’ve ventured from my original expertise many times in hopes of maybe figuring things out a different way, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it takes away from the bigger picture. I would’ve also decided to delegate more than try to do everything myself. Usually, my drive to not delegate comes from me trying to deal with people who offer services, yet aren’t reliable. In turn, I learn the skill that I once reached out reliable. In turn, I learn the skill that I once reached out for and master it for my own use, which is a gift and a curse. I do many things very well, but when those things begin to stack on top of one another, it becomes a bit overwhelming for one person. I get a lot done alone, but it makes me wonder how much more fruitful these visions of mine could be if consistency and knowing when to delegate projects would be the two things I would do differently if given the chance to do things all over again. This process of having a team would probably decrease the amount of capital I invest out of my pocket into my brands, but I can’t cry over spilled milk now. If I put up the entire investment, I make all of the profit on the backend. Even though this might be taxing on me over extended periods, me, it’s truly worth it for me since I’m capable of doing so.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Kainen DuBose, age 28, and I originally entered the realm of art with music back in about 6th grade when I began to play the trumpet. I quickly advanced in relation to learning and ended up being recruited by the high school for the Honda Battle of The Bands. This would’ve been in Atlanta’s Phillips Arena at the time and would mark the first time I felt the buzz of a crowd and just how influential music is. From there I dug deeper into this new love of mine. By the time I started high school, I signed up for choir to attempt to polish the minor skills I already had as far as singing to women in the halls of the school here and there. I quickly advanced in this field as well and soon became part of the competition choir our school offered. I traveled locally and out of state for competitions, and yes, we were winning often. Once I did that for two years, I changed my choir elective to marketing. While taking that class, I often competed for DECA in and out of state, often winning along the way. At this point, I had enough singing skills to attempt to record myself, so I began to learn how to use Logic Pro X around the end of my 11th-grade year. I would sit over my friend, Patrick Sullivan’s shoulder and imply absorb everything he did while asking a plethora of questions along the way. It started off rocky because of course, I want to figure everything out myself, but this skill eventually molded my entire future. Around this time, I was making beats, though pretty bad, beats nonetheless. I convinced myself to get a laptop mic my mom used for work and a 2005 black MacBook specifically to put my skills to the test. Things worked in my favor and I simply started putting all of my musical skills into one harmonious mixture. Ever since I did that, it’s been more about marketing than music. Which I essentially predicted many years before. By the time I entered college, I was known as the guy with the studio in his room on campus. I didn’t have a job at that point, so I simply recorded people for money. Random, but I also used to write full college dissertations for money, which is where the majority of my income was coming from at the time. I began to upgrade my equipment and my hunger for the arts increased greatly. I would regularly drop music and many people on campus knew me solely for the fact that I did music well, and made it completely by myself. Eventually, I would leave college and lose sight of my vision for about 2 years, simply trying to find myself and learn who I really was inside. Once I made that connection to my inner self, I was unbeatable. Since then, my songs have been featured on tv shows such as The Robinsons, which was a show about the Sugar Hill family. For a while, I was traveling to New York on a mega bus just to be able to have the opportunity to work with a producer who was a part of the Sugar Hill Family by the name of Rhondo Robinson. Rhondo was the first person with major pull to genuinely believe in me and listen to my vision as well as help me implement it. Since then, Rhondo has grown to produce for major acts such as 6lack and even has a production placement on the latest Fast & Furious. I would take a trip up there every month just to get better and work with people who were in much better positions than me, such as the time I met Velous casually while I was working in the in-home studio. They truly showed me what work ethic is if you want to make it in this industry. This opportunity helped me refocus back on my music and brought the hunger back out of me. I started releasing music again on Soundcloud at the time and I was doing amazing numbers exceeding 20 thousand views a song then I soon met my relationship with depression. Nothing really causes it, but once I started experiencing this it would be very hard to create. I wanted to have conversations about things they wouldn’t have even wanted to hear such as marketing my music or even finding showcases. At that point, I dropped the majority of my friend groups and went ghost for about a year and some change, while still creating. During this time period I was creating, but hesitant to release anything. All a sudden I had no more reassurance from outside parties. I had to turn into my own machine. Covid hit shortly after this, so I had much more time on my hands. While still creating music, I started a content-based Instagram page that would eventually go viral named Protect Atlanta. Once it did so, I quickly asked myself what can I sell or provide to these people at a minimum price that can add up abundantly. I chose to explore the world of fashion, solely to provide merchandise for the followers of the page. I found myself falling in love with learning new techniques from how to dye something efficiently to learning how to fully sew and embroider things myself. Eventually, IG banned my page due to the crazy content, so here again, I was with no business of my own. I quickly rerouted into another brand by the name of Wokenwoods that connected to the teenage me more than anything. Back when my brothers and I would shop at Ross or Pac-Sun and try to find the best graphic tees for obviously the cheapest price point, we could get multiple. I wanted to make that reality real again for kids and adults alike. The goal was for those in less fortunate circumstances to look just as fashionable as someone who can afford nothing but a designer. This required me to put actual love and sacrifice into my brand because I was essentially losing money when I first started the brand. I would often give away clothes or sell them for a price point of 15-25 a piece because money isn’t my goal at that point. Outreach was. In every club I hosted at the time; I had my clothes on along with everyone around me. Every DJ, model, and business person I interacted with would receive an item upon our meeting or interaction. Eventually, it became a “what is this brand?!” effect, which allowed me to finally officially launch Wokenwoods and charge a slightly higher average price point. The price point doesn’t need to be high if the amount of traffic is abundant, and I realized this early. Now I host events for my own clothing brand as well as incorporate my music at these events which is just more marketing power for me at the end of the day. Since then, the clothing has taken off which has given me much freedom in my music life to make better music and implement better ways to gain outreach and further traffic for both endeavors. Wokenwoods isn’t a thing but more of a place for people like myself. People that came up a certain way, but never let it affect them. My clothes might not have been the most expensive, but I made do with what I had and made it look good at that. I’m not the only person experiencing this on Earth and I want to connect more with that side of the industry instead of solely focusing on profit from these people I somehow relate to so heavily. Wokenwoods is a place for people that might have started with one skill and ventured into other things, yet their peers tell them that they should only do that initial thing you’re known for. Wokenwoods is for the resilient and multifaceted, yet connects with higher ends of life such as wealthy brokers and musicians. This allows a full circle moment where people from different walks of life now have this one thing in common, even if it is something as simple as wearing the same brand; or being multifaceted and unheard themselves. I’d like to change the world with my music and clothing, which is going to take an unwavering amount of consistency and resilience, but that’s what I’m built for anyways.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Word of mouth and being seen as crazy as that might sound. For a while during my quarter-life crisis, I was a club promoter that would literally be out every night no matter what. This ended up working in my favor eventually because every single person I’ve met has their own network and connections they can extend to me in order to accomplish a common goal. Let’s say a celebrity hears make clothes as I’m hosting their event, 9/10 they’re going to at least inquire about me doing merch for them as well. This business model quickly shoved me into rooms filled with people much more successful than I am. They didn’t know me well, but they wanted someone like-minded around, and I was their guy. I like to consider myself as they fly on the wall because I would end up in these situations and just sit there and absorb everything being said in the room. Always kept my mouth shut and simply implemented the things I’ve learned. Many of the celebs and successful business people I do business with knew me before either of us was in positions that could benefit one another. I grew into my success with many of these people, regardless of how ahead or behind they might be from me now. Now I’m simply enjoying the fruits of my labor because the seeds of these trees were planted almost a decade ago. All i have to do is keep going and keep creating. Crazy to see just how much can change when you believe in yourself more than anyone else ever could.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Yes, I wish I knew how to market on social media much better early on before many of the services began charging for promotion of their own. Had I figured that out before the social media sites rolled out their own services to “promote” people I would probably have hundreds of thousands of followers now, but when people began to pay for these services; it blurred the lines between who was actually good and who was simply better at marketing. Don’t get me wrong, the industry is 90% business and 10% talent, so I completely understood how detrimental it was for these sites to begin to provide services to boost one’s page. All I’m saying is that it greatly hurt the outreach of those with a genuine following because now anyone could be popular overnight without ever putting in the true “leg work” that was much respected by the industry itself. Had I focused on my following and marketing way more before the era of social media ads and promotions, I’d be exactly where I’m trying to be now but that’s life. You live and you learn.
Contact Info:
- Website: Wokenwoods.com
- Instagram: TheKainen
- Facebook: Wokenwoods
- Twitter: TheKainen
- Other: https://linktr.ee/TheKainen
Image Credits
Victoria Walsh took the picture of the shot in the air, all others taken on my iphone or digitally rendered