A Greg Gate$ Interview Series
2006 Urban South Entertainment

DVD’s have taken over as the next dominant physical media of Hip-Hop. Everywhere you go, everywhere you look somebody is making or selling a DVD. But before there were all these other Hip-Hop DVD’s coming out there was All-Access. Started by Long Island, New York native James “Kraze” Billings, All-Access DVD Magazine is one of the top selling DVD magazines in the world. In just 4 years, Kraze has turned what was a new media outlet for Hip-Hop into the dominant form in the game today. However, Kraze isn’t looking to limit himself to the DVD game, he’s branching off into other ventures outside that realm that will eventually make him a true power player in the business in the next five years.

Read about how he got started in the business, what his plans for the future are and how Long Island and the Dirty South have a lot more in common than you think.
Gate$: First of all, where did All-Access DVD come from?

Kraze: Back in ’98 I was into doing documentaries so to speak. I had come up with this concept called “Street Poetry,” which I had entered to the Urban World Film Festival. From there, I was playing around talking to a lot of my boys. We use to buy magazines, but speaking to everybody they really never read their magazines. So I said if I came up with the concept of a magazine that you could watch instead of reading I thought people would really pay attention to it.

G: How long has All-Access been out and what have been some its highlights?

K: We started in 2002, but we actually had the volume done in 2001. I believe in May of 2002 we released our first issue. I’d say we were the first to coin the name “DVD Magazine.” There was nothing out there that had that paraphrase to it. When we came up with the name it was to describe something brand new. One of the major problems we had at that point was the DVD technology was so new that people thought it was a DVD about magazines. So, the first uphill challenge we had was to educate the public about our product. It took us about a year and a half just to educate people on what All-Access the DVD Magazine was. It’s a number of highlights. We have 13 volumes out up to date. We’ve talked issues and broke stories you never saw before because it was live and direct in your face and you heard it from the artist. One particular story that we broke was the Gloria Velez and Joe Budden relationship. We caught them on film talking about their relationship, their intimacy, which is so rare to hear people speak about so candidly. It was a very, very good issue for us. Green Lantern was another break out story because no one never knew why he had to leave Shady/Aftermath.
We’re constantly pushing the envelope on DVD journalism and that’s one of the biggest things we pride ourselves on. With us it’s just not putting a camera in an artist’s face and just letting them talk. Our style of interviewing is a little more personal because artists are very comfortable with their surroundings with us and what we bring to the table. There’s not an issue that you can’t pick up and say you did not hear a full story from that artist’s side. Like volume 10, when Gucci Mane and Young Jeezy where going at it. Everybody heard Young Jeezy’s side, but no one ever heard Gucci Mane’s side. We had the opportunity to work with my man Mad Linx from BET. We worked a situation out where we sent him down and he got the footage for us. Also, when Fat Joe, Jadakiss and 50 Cent was going at it, we had Fat Joe’s side and Jadakiss’ side on the whole beef with them making that record with Ja Rule.

G: Have people started to imitate your format because I’m starting to see a lot of DVD’s that seem similar to All- Access.

K: Imitation is a form of flattery. I’d like to say we influenced a lot of young brothers to pick up cameras, build up things and opportunities and a financial gain at the end of the day. Of course with us coining the name DVD Magazine and 70 percent of the DVD’s out there use that phrase it’s definitely an honor to say that we were very instrumental in building an extension of Hip-Hop. It’s funny to look back and say ‘Wow, I wish there was a little more creativity to what other cats do.” At the same token, that’s why we’re in the number one slot.

G: I know people always compare you to Smack and point to the fact he’s got a distribution deal with Koch, but you’ve some of your own special things going on don’t you?
K: Smack is the ying to our yang. Smack was always our friendly competition. About a year ago Smack was able to secure distribution deal for an album with Koch. What he decided to do was add his DVD content to his packaging. So when that happened of course everybody was like “Smack is doing this. Smack is doing that. What are ya’ll going to do?” Our goal was never to be a Smack or never to go into music. Our goal was always to elevate to television or film.
So, while Smack was focusing on music, little be known, we were already in negotiations with a couple of television or cable networks already. We had an opportunity, first and foremost, with Koch a year before Smack did. We turned that deal down. See a lot of people don’t know that we’ve been offered deals Universal. We’ve been offered deals from Koch. We’ve been offered deals from several different distribution companies that we turned down because we felt like the opportunity for us and the direction we were going in it would not work. Some of the things we were able to do was secure a television deal with Starz Encore Cable Network. We did a 12 episode deal which allows us to be on [Starz in Black] for a full year.

G: How many DVD’s were you selling in order for a cable network to come knocking at your door?
K: We could sell anywhere between 25,000 and 35,000 copies.

G: Well what’s the difference now from DVD’s to TV?

K: Every time our show is aired, we have access to 24 million viewers. It’s a whole different approach. It’s a whole level of business now. All-Access has become a brand that commercial America is willing to embrace. What people gotta understand is that this is a benchmark. We were the first to coin the phrase DVD Magazine. We made history. We already have a legacy. We’re the first to come to television in a national format on a major cable network. You have Showtime, you have HBO and you have Starz. That’s what it is. My deal is unique because I own my show. When I do a deal I do a deal that secures my longevity and my future. My deal is unique in a sense that we didn’t develop a show for Starz, they bought into All-Access. When we talk about the magnitude of where we are, we’re selling 25,000 to 35,000 copies now, I can only imagine by the middle of our season our numbers should double or triple. That’s not the only thing
we have on deck. We were able to secure a sneaker deal through Game Time Athletics. The name of the sneaker is the A-Dub. That’s another deal I came in as a joint venture.

G: So you’re like the Tyler Perry of the DVD game?

K: Nah, I like to say I’m the Bill Gates of the DVD game.

G: How has the South started to influence the DVD game to you and your coverage?
K: What I can say about the South is I never jump on a bandwagon. All-Access, we know what the pulse is of Hip-Hop. In this business you gotta know what’s going on before it actually becomes the popular thing. If you go back to volume 2, I had Lil’ Jon on the cover before it went six times platinum. I had Trina on the cover. The South has always been a part of my repertoire. I was in the South and the ATL early. For me the South is influential in its own way, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the DVD game. I just think it’s an evolution in Rap and everybody has their turn.

G: What has been the thing from the South for you that has peaked your interest as a person behind the camera?
K: First of all, I want to say this - I’ve always been a supporter of the South. I’ve been in living in New York all my life, but I’ve got so much family in the A. I bought a house out in the A this year. You’ve got to understand something, I’m from Long Island, New York. I’m not from the boroughs. When the South feels like New York always shuts them out, this is how we felt because we from the suburbs of New York. Don’t think suburbs lily White people either. My drug block was just as gangsta as any project you could go on. My neighborhood was just as gangsta. I just lived in houses and not a project building. What I love about the South is they broke through that mold the same way Long Island did in
the late 80’s and early 90’s where all the artists really reppin’ New York was really from Long Island. EPMD, Rakim, Public Enemy, Craig Mack, Keith Murray, the list goes on. I feel how the South feel. What intrigues me about the South is that they stuck to their own thing and they made country hot. They made being from the South okay and they all stuck
with that. I commend the South for that. That’s real to me.

G: What’s next for All-Access?
K: We started five years ago as the first DVD to coin itself a DVD magazine. Today, we have our own sneaker, our own national television show with a major cable network, we have the top rated DVD in the world. With that being said, man my future is promising. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a movie out with Paramount. We’re doing a lot of things. We partnered up with a technological company called Mad House Media that do these phone blasts. This is very new. Like you got your e-mail blasts, they can send out phone blasts to like 500,000 people. They chose us to help spearhead their campaign of building the awareness about this service. We were also able to make some moves outside of the country were now we’re in 50 different countries and 119 million households six hours a day every day with an infomercial. That’s also going to increase sales, so our projected sales in Europe this year is 1.5 million for 2007. The projections are within
the next three months we’re going to sell 500,000 copies which translates into almost $2 million. Look out for our downloads with i-pod. We just secured a ringtone/wallpaper/mobile episode deal with the Nickel Group. We just secured another distribution deal with Select-O-Hits. They’ll be distributing our stuff exclusively throughout the United States next year. The world is at our fingertips. If you shoot for the stars you might land on the moon.