only a handful of employees yet big goals...so get in y'all

https://variety.com/2021/biz/news/james-cuthbert-rock-the-bells-ll-cool-j-1234967498/

May 5, 2021 6:46pm PT

LL Cool J’s Rock the Bells Wants to Create Hip Hop’s Version of Classic Rock

By Cynthia Littleton


LL Cool J’s media and e-commerce venture Rock the Bells is poised for a growth spurt now that the company has raised $8 million from private investors.

James Cuthbert, the former BET and Coca-Cola marketing executive who joined Rock the Bells as president in October, tells Variety‘s “Strictly Business” podcast that the company plans to invest that new capital in content production, merchandise and e-commerce opportunities and infrastructure to work with brands on marketing and sponsorship opportunities.

In Cuthbert’s shorthand, the pillars of Rock the Bells (named for LL Cool J’s 1985 hit) are “content, commerce and experiences.”

“We think those work together to form a flywheel,” Cuthbert says. The first priority is to bring more staff into the company, which at present has a handful of employees. “It’s important to have the right human beings,” he says.



Rock the Bells began a few years ago as a channel devoted to classic hip hop on SiriusXM. The popularity of the channel inspired LL Cool J to formally launch a company last year with media at its center and commerce and brand partnerships as a big part of the business.

At present, Rock the Bells is producing short-form content for its website and social channels about key artists and their eras. But the ambition is much greater.

The goal is to rev up “short, medium and long-form content, all with the underlying thematic of elevating classic hip hop and building cultural bridges for people who have yet to fully discover the mythology that sits in our classic hip hop,” Cuthbert says.

Rock the Bells defines classic hip hop as stretching from the birth of the form in the early 1970s to the mid-2000s. That’s a wide net of demographics. Cuthbert is encouraged by the fact that a large percentage of the listeners for the Rock the Bells on SiriusXM are under age 25.

“Imagine if somebody had wrapped their head around building a brand (that encapsulated) classic rock,” Cuthbert says. Rock the Bells aims to be just that for the hip hop arena.

“We are working with brands who want to authentically play in this space,” he says. “If you want to leverage hip hop, we can help.”

“Strictly Business” is Variety’s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. New episodes debut every Wednesday and can be downloaded on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

https://afrotech.com/rock-the-bells

Interviews

Rock The Bells President James Cuthbert Talks Turning Classic Hip Hop Into A Thriving Empire

Bernadette Giacomazzo


Posted on May 04, 2021


Rock The Bells President James Cuthbert Talks Turning Classic Hip Hop Into A Thriving Empire


When Rock The Bells announced that it had sealed the deal on an $8 million Series A funding round, few people were surprised at the company’s success. But no one was less surprised than James Cuthbert — the company’s president — who has been hands-on with its growth and development for quite some time.

“What we were doing was giving these heroes a platform,” he told AfroTech. “But we didn’t just want to profit off of the greats. We wanted to curate their story and tell it in a respectful way while also giving a fun, culturally relevant history lesson to our base.”

The company — named after the classic LL Cool J song of the same name — does just that. The website is just one channel of many under the Rock The Bells umbrella. Other channels include a SiriusXM station of the same name (hosted by LL, of course), video curation of some of the greatest moments from hip hop’s golden age, and of course, an online marketplace that makes everything from clothing and footwear to books and audio equipment available for purchase.


The new round of funding will be used to help grow the team, create a more diverse cohort, and specifically execute a strategy that will lead to the development of other episodic content. Of the latter, Cuthbert says that the focus will be on hip hop’s history in the hopes that it will shed light on many of the genre’s pre-digital tales of the tape.



“Hip hop, in this way, is no different from any other genre of music,” he said. “It’s an intergenerational thing. And, believe it or not, about 30% of the listeners and clients — those who patronize the site — are from the so-called ‘new era’ of music. So contrary to what people say, there is certainly no shortage of people who want to learn their history, and that’s what we’re here for.”

But the Los Angeles-based company isn’t just about paying lip service to the greats. Perhaps because of the LL connection — a man who, himself, played a pivotal role in the golden age of Queens, NY hip hop — Rock The Bells works to make sure that those greats get the coins they may have missed out on in their prime. As a result, some of those greats — like Kool Herc, Big Daddy Kane, and Roxanne Shante, the latter of whom cast the template for every female rapper in her wake — have an ownership stake in the company today.

And while it may seem strange that a former BET and Coca-Cola executive would have such a personal tie to the golden age of hip hop, Cuthbert says it’s surprising that people are surprised.

“Rock The Bells is one of the few companies that’s owned and operated by the creators of the culture,” he said. “If anyone deserves to profit off of hip hop’s legacy, it’s these men and women. Hip hop gave a voice to the voiceless — something it continues to do to this day — and I couldn’t be happier that it’s finally getting its due.”

Editorial note: Portions of this interview have been edited and condensed for clarity.