365 Entrepreneur: SLIM of Loose Cannon Ent
words by: Le’Deana Brown
How is St Louis yours?
I bought it on foreclosure about ten years ago. I’m dead serious. I run it, it is what it is. Actually, I was born into it. My name is Slim and that’s how I got the name St Louis Is Mine. God did that, God and my daddy.
When was your first concert?
I don’t even remember, it was some like, local people at a gym. I can’t remember.
Did you win?
Of course I did. I always win! My first party was actually in my mama’s club house, in her apartment complex. Then I moved to skating rinks, gyms, all that type of stuff. Then I just started do shows in the club. My motto was, you got to know who you are. Start off small and build clientele up .I started at the smaller venues, and sold them out then worked my way up. Some people can look at other promoters and try to do it too big. If you can’t afford to get it done then don’t do it.
What do you think about working together and partnering with people?
Even with that, everybody has got to be able to handle it. Even though I say I win all the time, you got to be prepared to take a loss. If you can’t recover from a loss, you shouldn’t even try it. Make sure you can take a punch.
When you say “St Louis is Mine” you’re, not only taking the good stuff but you’re taking the bad too. How do you take that responsibility and carry the crown when it gets heavy?
It’s always heavy because they’re expecting a whole lot out of me. It’s like they look at my life through a microscope, and when people ain’t winning in the streets it’s my fault. When they shooting, killing and robbing, it’s my fault. They putting that on me. You got to have tough skin when it comes to things. You can’t really pay attention to the negative. Concentrate on the positive and know that for every million that love you it’s ten that hate you. Are you going to listen to the ten that hate you or the million that love you? I just listen to the majority and the majority like me. The ones that don’t like me, they opinion don’t mean anything anyway.
Is the State of Emergency concert series one of your ways of taking care of your city?
Yeah, of course, that’s what I built that for. You know, way before Mike Brown, way before all that I came up with this concert because of all the killing and shooting happening in the city. I wanted to have the artists that they listen to every day come tell them. Instead of preachers, school teachers, lawyers, people in suits that they evidently aren’t listening to. Every time I have a concert it’s a cease fire, cease violence thing. Nobody shoot. Everybody knows that day is a peaceful day.
@LooseCannonSlim