From the Boston Herald:
The partnership includes an online Karmaloop clothing store on GlobalGrind.com - Simmons’ “World According to Hip Hop” site featuring music, entertainment and other news with celebrity gossip and blogs. The KarmaloopTV.com video site and Global Grind also will share online content.
Karmaloop founder and CEO Greg Selkoe met Simmons - cofounder of the Def Jam music label and Phat Farm and Argyleculture clothing lines -through mutual acquaintances. They agree on where trends in clothing and youth culture are headed, according to Selkoe, whose 9-year-old Karmaloop should hit $65 million in sales this year. Both companies are catering to the Karmaloop-coined “verge culture” - open-minded, inclusive young people connected with the world via the Internet who are ambitious, socially conscious and entrepreneurial. That culture has evolved past being rigidly defined as “African-American,” “skateboarders” or “Latinos,” according to Selkoe. “They’re going away from defining themselves by race or ethnicity or even musical tastes to people who define themselves more by shared ideas,” he said. “It’s really like the cut-and-paste culture of the Internet, where people are sort of building on each other and taking different trends, cultures and styles and melding them together to create new genres of music and fashion.”
Selkoe and Simmons also plan other collaborations, including a possible fashion line. The 34-year-old Selkoe believes he has a lot to learn about business and charitable endeavors from the older Simmons, whose estimated net worth is approximately $110 million, according to Forbes.
“I always looked up to him,” Selkoe said. “Obviously he’s a super-accomplished guy who’s been amazing at shaping popular culture for the last 20 years.”
Selkoe also is working on separate plans to launch a cable TV movie channel with original programming similar to KarmaloopTV.com.
Karmaloop at 301 Newbury Street, not at Copley, not at the Prudential Center, only on The Newbury Line
Copyright © 2009 The Newbury Line
