I’m starting something new. It’s called Brick Studio and I hope it can be of some help to people. More specifically, Brick Studio is for creatives entering Web3 and distributing their work on the blockchain(s). The timing of this is no doubt in sync with the current phenomenon of NFT’s, meme coins and all the headlines that draw the ire and curiosity outside of the crypto space. But personally, the events that inspired me to create Brick Creative Studio feels like a need rather than a venture.

But I should pause. I’m grateful to even be writing this. The days I struggled to level up from restaurant busser to barback in a SoHo bar still linger in my mind despite the current reality being so different. I have many people to thank for that, as well as plenty of others for keeping my spirits during the moments I felt low. It’s part of who I am and partially why I’ve been compelled to take a dive into the crypto space. Crypto is very much the amalgamation of years and years of technological and mathematical advances, and poetically, it is perfectly suited for those with a wide range of interests to thrive within it, but crypto is stuck in a paradox solidified by the old industries’ models of commerce currently enabled by tech. Crypto is in need of the people it isn’t the most inviting too. Who will survive in crypto if my brother and sister are not here? While this includes historically exploited cultural groups, it transcends to the individual and the experiences we’re limited to as we’re still in the early phases of Blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana.

Part of what I’ve learned through the path of being a college-dropout from Newark, NJ that somehow navigated their way from street canvassing for a wage (yes I’ve had a lot of jobs) to a 2x tech co-founder while engineering an avatar-based social-media platform, is that experimentation is key to survival. On many levels, it’s how the human race got here, yet traditionally, that experimentation, those activities that allow us to find ourselves in a commercialized world, have been reserved for a privileged few at the expense of those on the outside, leaving many to be the subjects of markets rather than active agents within it.

The subject is what I felt like through much of my early 20’s. Around then I was embracing the starving artist dream, shutting myself in to write daily, wandering around north Brooklyn and surviving off a daily diet of $5 beef dumplings from “Good Chinese”. I entered the 2010’s valuing the medium of words which plummeted in value yet still had a major impact on how we perceive the world. Words: A precise form of expression and cheap to transport to servers across the globe.

After writing for a few years and getting used to the pile of rejections I was building up sprinkled with acceptances offering little to no money for my work, I felt the immediate constraints of Web 2 business model: ad-based revenue and the increased monopolization of digital space. Blue-chip publications shutting down, major layoffs even at the new rising companies and the Facebook-driven pivot-to-video era. It was time to learn new skills, but I also understood that I shouldn’t leave it up to the market to tell me what writing was worth to me; Only I could determine that--if only I could eat off determination alone. There was value to what I had learned from writing though. The biggest was how to be creative. How to make something from nothing. A blank page laughing back at you, waiting for the alchemy to start. There are few things more humbling yet stimulating all at the same time.

The tech thing was supposed to be a lil thing on the side, an avenue for consistency that allowed me to sit on my ass so my body would have the energy needed for writing. Jobs of hard labor will get you thinking very economically about the required movement of your knee joints. First, there was an IT program I did, 15 weeks of hardware and networking 101 that led to an A+ certification which in hindsight was nice but so minimal for what I wanted out of the experience. I wanted access to cool offices, and colorful lines of code flowing down my screen like the Matrix but mostly I got all-male office spaces, knowledge of Windows 7-10 and the many plots by mischievous devs to wipe Internet Explorer off of the tech landscape (in all seriousness, I do have to thank the program for the foundational knowledge that’s gotten me this far for FREE99). Despite the conceptual rug pull I was still into technology. The 15 weeks and summer internship I had at graduation fostered my initial thirst for tech. I learned to appreciate the science and narratives that drove the industry. I still wanted to learn more, despite not being able to identify a personal “dream job” within the space. After the internship and being in the presence of other technologists I started to understand the functions of corporate life and as I strayed away from my comfort zone I drew closer to understanding what I enjoyed doing the most with my time: making stuff.

Surprisingly, this vague statement of self did not make me more attractive to the Googles, or Amazons (yet), but it did leave me open to learning any and every tech stack that might allow me to make a cool digital experience. There was a mobile boot camp, an uneven program that lasted 9 months but introduced me to a community of diverse emerging tech talent in NYC, as well as some of the first people to believe I had a future in technology. Because of this, my head was kept in the world of code while I hustled side jobs that would usually bring me out of the momentum from a three-day binge of Udemy and Codecademy. I fumbled through new experiences, conducted research and development for broken repositories, and gained immense respect for the specialists in the field. However, I will say that I differed from the specialists and my interests were wide and fluid to the creative desires of the moment. If I was going to succeed in tech at this early stage I needed to learn how to collaborate in order to make the software I desired. I didn’t know enough to be an anti-social 10x dev pumping out test-driven code, but understanding the strengths and weaknesses of others and understanding how I could be of help was a short-cut towards my goals

But finding the right place to apply your skills is a challenge in itself. Most stories like these are followed by a high count of applications and rejections, to an eventual acceptance with company swag on the first day. And while the rejections were there in my case, the application count was relatively low. After going to two tech non-profit programs, attending endless office tours, data centers, and the interviews at random startups that I never heard back from, I realized that the charm of tech culture only extended so far, and assimilation still burdened an industry that has historically fanaticized oddballs. The randomness continued: freelance dev jobs for whatever stack people paid me for, and teaching gigs paid by parents that often had no idea what they were paying for. It wasn’t until the homie Cameron Flowers, a former instructor from the coding boot camp, hit my line needing Android dev help that the randomness of my experiences started to look serendipitous.

Cam and I had similar attitudes toward the tech landscape in what we viewed as persistence of old systems modernizing their tools of oppression and exploitation towards the most vulnerable communities. The triumph of Web 2 after the Bush-era recession meant the consolidation of a wide web that felt less worldly and more monochrome. Cam’s solution was radical in the form of Floreo Labs, a grassroots movement in technology, first with the reinvention of tech education and then with the modernization of the community which was THC. I came on as the first Core Engineer a month after its formation informally tasked with hacking together the technical needs of our community. Along with that, I was an early member/participant of THC,  which mostly consisted of attending group co-working sessions at Cam’s apartment uptown and getting to know the dope folks who stopped by. Eventually, when some money came through and the vision was closer realized, that weekly meeting turned to daily coworking at members-only spots, hotels, cafes and anywhere that tolerated us and our team of interns and collaborators. The tolerance never lasted long. But eventually, we struck gold by finding Ethel’s Club, a wellness-focused co-working space at the time that focused on POC’s,  and became members. Our community grew and we were no longer tolerated but embraced. An example of this was Naj, the Founder of Ethel’s Club’s blind eye to the size of our entourage which clearly broke their visitor policy.

When the pandemic came, our lean, remote-friendly work style was fitting for what was previously called the future of work. Companies started to seek us out, my workload expanded, and I found myself moving from a core engineer to a CTO and Founding Partner, leading engineers, students, and meetings with Executives at Fortune 500 companies to figure out the infinite next steps.

A year into the panny, 2021, and our founding team saw the gains of previous years labor. We adapted and formalized and began to strategize for years instead of months. It was around then that I thought back to my days of writing and that transitional time when I was still figuring out how to flip the skill to a bag; an old thought persisted: I wanna make things. But it was now followed by another vague, but guiding sentiment: I wanna make things that the people touch. My work at Floreo was very much tied into non-profits, enterprise technology, and Education and as the success grew, I was more and more removed from the code, a natural by-product of management and the position I took, no doubt. And while the impact was tangible, I felt less like a Creative Technologist with every initiative that came through the pipeline.

So I expanded my work and started working with Eternal, an avatar-based social platform, in the spring of 2021, doing backend infrastructure work and researching early use cases for Web3 as the product progressed with a team of folks who knew way more about this than me but were always patient and gracious enough to put me on. One of the benefits to the role is being a part of a hyper vibrant Crypto community in Brooklyn, which is memefied to death on Twitter but is quickly becoming a node of influence in Web3. With the change I was exposed to whole new dimensions, learning while building like always, and finding new answers to old problems I had previously accepted as an infinite reality for creatives in our monopolized internet. But with the growth, I was finding old things that no longer fit.

The reality of success is knowing that you can only repeat said success a finite amount of times. I guess that’s why we should value all the wins. But admittedly, the crew at Floreo was very much focused on getting more wins, and I was focused on the dwindling connection I had to my creative side. It was hard coming to terms with the differences in vision and realizing it was best to step away from Floreo Labs and my role there, but I think everyone involved, including the founding team, Cam, Kheperah, and Naomi have come out of the situation with a stronger focus and drive to serve the community. Plus with an industry with so few Black founders, it’s hard to picture the path to liberation was through centralized agendas, but rather through a blend of community-oriented, decentralized approaches.

And so that brings us to the present day and why I assume you’ve been reading. What’s The Brick? First, the Brick is inspired by Newark, NJ, my birthplace. Secondly, Brick Creative Studio is an ecosystem, a vibe, and a space for Web3 creators, but to fight my habit of ambiguity, I’ll divulge a bit more.  The main focus of Brick Studio can be summarized as such:

• Onboard Creatives, and developers into the Web3 space via education, consultation and community building.
• Create art projects and build tools that redefine the creative space and the community engagement creators can have with their supporters.
• Give creators equity in the creative economy and provide opportunities for the diversification of income through tokenomics and sophisticated Defi strategies.

Each initiative is in service to the creative and the people who shape the digital landscape and culture. The idea is to bring more people in and build laterally, and what that looks like is ultimately up to the creatives that we work with at Brick Studio and what connects with our community.

We’re all still early, and I don’t know if WAGMI but I’m glad you’re here now. Thanks for reading. I’ll be taking some time to reflect and love over the holidays and I hope to get back to y’all with more early next month. If you wanna learn more check out brickxstudio.com and follow @_brickstudio on Twitter, or if you wanna talk or collaborate feel free to reach me personally at bobby@brickxstudio.com or info@brickxstudio.com. Peace, blessings and prayers out to those struggling over the holidays: you are loved <3

Boubacar “Bobby” Bah