0:00
that's right man that's why they're here today that's why they're here today I love it my brother and I grew up
0:08
collectors yeah DC and Marvel Comics tcal still collected my brother got
0:13
rooms full of comic books and from back in the day and yeah one of the reasons
0:19
DMC from Run DMC who also is a writer and created comics on his own it's true
0:25
when we grew up we we related to these characters you know black panther you know Incredible Hulk a lot of these
0:31
people were folks that were superheroes to us yeah and we would read these story lines and many times we didn't see
0:37
representation of ourselves wow right and we didn't know what to do about that we still did it but how about if we did
0:44
see that representation of ourselves equally as others and so that's what attracted me I found this man on IG and
0:52
I was following black Sans for a while and just really seeing what they about and I really love the artwork I love the
0:59
graphics and um the way they created their characters is really topnotch and sophisticated to me um high quality you
1:06
know and even how they tell their stories to me is pretty incredible so I reached out to Manuel and said hey I
1:13
love what you're doing uh keep up the good work maybe one day I could voice a character I'm not sure how long ago that
1:21
was maybe a year or so oh it was like the beginning of 2023 oh [Â __Â ] okay wow
1:27
that was a long time ago and um and since then we gradually stayed in contact and I said one day I want to
1:33
have you we'll have you on the show just be patient and the man was patient right
1:39
and here we are today and he brought his incredible wife Jazelle who was also co-founder of Black Sands him here with
1:46
him I want to welcome them to the show Manuel and Jazelle theoy right yeah man
1:52
they are here hey come on come on man clap it up we here you here Brother come
1:59
on man you you own your own multi-million doll publishing house now
2:05
how about that right wow congratulations thank you was it worth Mo was it worth that much when we first started
2:12
communicating oh it was pretty good at that time oh it was okay okay was pretty
2:17
good that time was pretty good that pry when did it start and why did it start I think
2:24
really what what it started was just the fact that when it comes down to like um Mak stories right I've been a history
2:32
buff forever and I always wondered why I keep seeing stories about European history you know Greek mythology uh you
2:39
know even Chinese stuff I'm like yo I love three Kingdom Period oh this is amazing right and I'm like why is there
2:45
nothing from Africa at all right and every time we talk about Africa there's only like two topics right Warlords or
2:52
or you know anti-slavery movement or something I'm like nah n no I know about
2:58
the history and stuff like that so eventually once I got into the position to actually start writing stories right
3:03
I said I'm not going to just make like a story that's just entertaining I want to make something that is going to actually teach people about you know history
3:10
culture right politics of the ancient world right and then make everybody unambiguously black right so so so make
3:19
sure that people knew that that you know I'm talking about us right and I'm not going to be beating around a bush about
3:25
it and you know we tried it out in 2017 y we went on daughter right um raised
3:32
$20,000 instead of 4,000 that I was going for and ever since then I just started running with it right and
3:37
message was no more slave stories time for Kings right and that's been our message ever since you know just and
3:44
when you started what did you what have you released so far yes oh we we probably released like 75 chapters of
3:52
all the books that we do and we have a couple of like series that we have Jazelle has been doing a lot of um
3:57
children's books so she has like a Mory Family Adventures that story about a black family traveling the world
4:02
together regular stuff no dinosaurs no none of that stuff just straight up families traveling together now that's a
4:08
popular genre on YouTube for for in real life right parents with their kids just going around the world right so but that
4:15
was something that we did back in like 2017 Black Sands the Seven Kingdoms that's our most popular series that's
4:20
been going on forever plenty of titles there right and we also sold like 250,000 copies of that so okay so you're
4:27
doing great at what price point $20 each for $20 each yeah let's talk
4:32
about Kevin Hart um and actually being appear appearing on Shark Tank how did
4:38
that process start me and jezelle been applying for years oh wow so so I remember the first
4:45
time when Manuel applied we didn't get in so he was like okay we have another opportunity to apply so I think it was
4:52
on clubhouse they was looking for like was it open calls or something like that so he yeah right when that started
5:00
yeah so he stayed on clubhouse for like 6 hours he was like I'm going to wait and make sure I get on here and talk to
5:06
somebody from Shark Tank so we can get on this show he this 2020 this is yes
5:11
around that time and sure enough he got a chance to talk to one of the producers
5:16
and next thing you know we was on the show I'm like wow you know so I was glad that we didn't give up even though they
5:23
told us no the first time mhm you know um we just kept going for it who were
5:28
some of the Sharks when you got actually got on the show I heard Mark cubin in the clip was Damon John there at the
5:33
time no Damon John was not there um Kevin Hart was a guest shk in his place
5:39
so it was Kevin Hart Mark Cuban o l um Kevin o right Barbara yes bar bar what's
5:47
it the other one yes it'll come to Kyle look it up she'll tell us yeah yeah yeah
5:53
okay but yeah they were all there they were all excited about it um we getting multiple offers on the table they cut a lot of it right because they want to
5:59
keep it down to a certain amount of time right but but we were on point man I was going there guns blazing I knew my
6:05
numbers well yeah you got that energy so so how does it work Mark cubin and Kevin
6:11
Hart both invested in the company yeah so what happens is usually they have an offer on the table right time right and
6:16
we did we did uh get that offer um but when we went back into the into into um
6:22
negotiations right he said so I tried to like make it where it was like more of a structure of you're not going to pay me
6:28
for my my stock or whatever right because it kind of like lowers my value of my company and everything else so
6:33
instead it's going to be you know goals oriented right you hit this or whatever then I'm going to you know release the
6:39
stock to you right basically and and and that's a way to save my investors right so they don't get that har harsh
6:45
devaluation right and and everything else but at the end of the day you know things were moving too slowly and I also
6:51
was going to be getting losing a lot of like creative control yeah especially on the movie side uhuh right and and at
6:58
that point I was like I can't do that you know what I mean so we all parted ways on that like maybe a year after or
7:04
whatever so the deal never went through yeah deal never through but then the
7:09
terms were too yeah they they were they were unachievable whatever un alignment
7:16
what what what okay so now so now you're you're still independent then right yes independent but I am a partner with Carl
7:22
Reed now Carl Reed is the um president of well he was the former president of lion Forge animation uh and he also was
7:29
co-founder uh of lion Forge the straight up you know the the comic brand and stuff like that so he's been in the game
7:36
forever making movies and doing all that stuff and then he went independent himself because he just wanted to make
7:41
cheaper movies you know how you know lion Forge and stuff like that they went to hundred million dollar Transformer movies right you can't do nothing with
7:47
that right it's like it's not even going to make money off of it but it's about popularity and just being a part of the system so he wanted to make movies that
7:53
were like more like three million $4 million movies that were great stories but you know they W can make a profit
7:59
weren't yeah they actually make a profit they weren't going to do that so he he started his own thing he always wanted
8:05
us back at lion Forge after he got out first thing you did call us up we made that deal happen and now we're we're in
8:12
production for our anime uh you know which should be in movie theaters CU we do have connections for all that to get
8:17
to the movie theaters uh Nationwide probably in the fall in the fall good
8:22
epic Round of Applause man Manuel Jazelle so so I feel like I read
8:29
somewhere that you was in talks with marvel at one point is that true uh it was actually uh Dark Horse Dark Horse
8:36
okay dark horse of course yeah the industry is kind of funny because uh the
8:42
comic industry is very much old school right entrenched in his in it traditions
8:47
and stuff like that so what happened was a lot of interest from editors right editors would be like oh this amazing
8:52
story amazing stuff crazy fan base huge social media presence we love this let's
8:58
bring it back to to the office bring it back to the office the guy you know their their their distributor right a
9:06
diamond usually right we'll go and tell them yeah there's no way we're going to make a profit off of this right because
9:12
you know in order to first of all comic book industry is a non- return industry
9:18
so in other words comic book shop can't return a book if it don't sell yeah so they buy a very limited amount of books
9:24
that they don't know mhm period right and if you got a story about ancient Egypt and stuff like that you know just
9:31
in general that's something that's a hard sell black ancient Egypt even harder sell so it's like so it's like
9:38
just the fact that you'd have to basically educate them so much to get them to even buy three copies in their
9:43
store it's like it's like it's it's you know you probably spent more money on marketing than you actually sold so no
9:49
matter how good the book was it wasn't going to fit in the industry right so I had to do it myself okay man give it up
9:55
man Emanuel and Jazelle are here yes indeed we're going to get into some more questions um I was um cuz I follow you
10:03
and so I hear some of the conversation you have online couple questions first I want to ask you how how do you get
10:10
people from our community you got a lot of people that invest in congratulations people specifically from the black
10:16
community have been investing into your company right what kind of feedback have you been getting and how were you able
10:23
to make that happen you got a couple jelle I have a couple but I want to see
10:30
which one stuck in your head so the feedback has been amazing they really believe in us and
10:35
they trust us and we built a loyal community and they see oh they're a strong black couple so you know we can
10:42
tell they're true leaders so they feel comfortable investing in Black s entertainment history black history
10:49
before slavery and that's something you don't see these days is very rare So I
10:54
know our community could be also apprehensive and skeptical at times right and I see you guys probably get
11:00
that kind of backlash as well what's happening with the money is this going you don't get none of that I get none of
11:06
that I'll tell you why because I'm a big receipts guy so literally everything I
11:11
do I have receipts for and I'm not I'm not like a person who flexes ever so I'm
11:17
very very I I I I I've live way be below my means right um and what happens is we
11:24
do audits because we're raising Capital right raising capital and we funer and we have investors and we have credit
11:31
investors who want to invest in the company so we got to do Audits and these audits are deep dives into our books how
11:36
we spend our money how we get paid how everything's done and once they see that you know anybody who tries to call you a
11:42
scam would be like look it's right there it's right there like this is exactly how the money's going line for line you
11:49
could check it yourself and because of that basically and we kept hitting our um deliverables right every time we set
11:55
a goal we Excel that goal every year and because of that people just like trust
12:01
pure they're working on pure Faith at this point it don't matter what I'm doing they're going to be on it now thing about it is I'm also tapped out
12:07
too because social media is a very finite thing yeah like there a there a wall you hit right you got you could tap
12:13
out as you can get as much as you can and then you hit a wall and what happened was with us I think my wall as
12:19
far as like my short-term wall is like 1 Point $2 million something like that
12:25
right like I can raise that easy that's your thing right that's your that's your sweet spot I get like 1.5 it's like oh
12:31
man I got the world got to help me nowz I'm running out of people you know um but but they've been doing amazing thing
12:36
I think we got like 1300 investors right now wow uh and the averages was the
12:42
average before we started like like before we hit a million we were at about 1,00 per person $1,100 investment per
12:51
person per person and that's regular people there ain't no there ain't no celebrities nothing like that that's
12:56
regular Mom and Pops now think about it is we got a lot of like Educators who who love us yeah so we have a lot of
13:03
people who are teachers um um lawyers doctors you know
13:09
all these upper level people in the in in in the black community that are like that have like even grandparents talking
13:14
about oh yeah I love black sand 12 grandkids that's why I got this you know
13:20
this stock it's a tool yeah it's a educational tool at the same time inspirational tool when you when you
13:26
read these stories Jazelle you got a military background don't you yes I do okay what what branch did you serve in
13:33
Army okay man they put you in first thank you oh both of you guys yeah
13:40
so yeah how how has um first of all thank you for your service thank you how
13:45
how does that play a role in how you do business and how you guys function a lot of discipline
13:53
structure um fear is out the window like you can handle anything any bad
13:59
situation that comes your way you're like okay I can take this on you know any challenge we can take on so that
14:04
military dis discipline instructor really help us um as far as um running
14:10
our business yes okay man we going to open up the phone lines 888 742 3 3 4
14:16
five we GNA come back y'all got any questions for them if you're in the anime if you're in the comic books if
14:21
you're a writer okay if you're a writer if if you're trying to get on Shark Tank a voice actor you know whatever and and
14:30
I that's just you and Heather okay all right all right I see how it is all right cool 888 742
14:37
3345 shade45 man great day to be alive black sand entertainment is in here we
14:42
got Jazelle Emanuel dor is here with us listen follow them on so I need every
14:48
citizen right now to check this out go to their social media page Black Sands
14:55
entertainment that's Black Sands enter entertainment that's b a c k s n DS
15:03
entertainment and um and check out some of the work they've been doing they got over uh they've been raising a lot of
15:10
money they got a lot of people in the uh in the community that has invested um the the Seven Kingdoms black sand Seven
15:16
Kingdoms have sold over 250,000 copies thus far and growing um they've been on
15:23
Shark Tank you know they're independent and listen you have a part people still
15:28
have a chance to be an investor correct yes yes absolutely up until February 7th so we're in the finish line right now
15:34
like like this is it so so if you want to invest how you do it you have to go to wefunder.com and then look up the
15:41
Black Sands anime on there uh you know we're at $1.2 million right now so we up
15:46
there right and just look at every people's if you have you can always check the information in the video as far as like what the campaign's about
15:53
the cast because we got people like TC Carson you know Deborah Wilson Eddie Griffin uh you know and you know we just
15:59
got a a lot of people in the like we cast and you yeah okay all right you
16:05
know we got to sit down I see all you negotiated with Kevin Mark cubin I don't know we'll see all right okay we got Sam
16:12
from Alabama on the line Sam welcome to the show what's up Sam thank you very much love oh yo thank you brother what's
16:19
your question my question is how can I be and now I don't have enough money to invest
16:26
but I do want to be a consumer I love I I learned I learned how to read some
16:31
comic books okay wow W that young man I'm 72 years old that
16:39
man is who he he he I got grandkids and grandboys he is who I would have been if
16:47
I had had opportunity this young man this man I just want to know how can I
16:52
get some of his his uh books or whatever I just know how that how can you book
16:58
all right so the the best way if you want physical books you go to blacks sands.com or Amazon that's fine you know
17:05
they buy I got that written down from me too um also you can also go to our Patron if you like digital books and you
17:11
get all our books for like $5 if you sign up on our subscription uh we have all our books ever released on there so
17:17
it's like 67 books yeah so you can get all that for like five bucks right off the bat okay dope and then they trying
17:25
to get rid of our history they trying to get rid of black history I'm I'm trying to see learn about my black history
17:31
that's my fight that's my fight right now because you know all this you know especially after the election man you
17:37
that Dei de fight against black people right it's like anything good in black is Dei so so we got or
17:45
woke same difference right difference difference right um Sam well you have
17:50
you have a fan in me and I love y I love love you too Sam and hey brother I love
17:56
you always call up and support the show too Sam you know definitely definitely definitely you're super
18:02
Citi good thank you man Dave and Harlem is on the line go ahead Dave what's up
18:09
Dave hey I'm hey lightning strike twice today huh how you guys doing what's up
18:14
for good news this morning wow good toar he said lightning stroke twice today I told you I stay online so my question is
18:20
this he you know he answered part of it with the investment opportunity you said go to weed I didn't write it down I was
18:26
driving I just pulled over so what is it called again yeah wefunder.com so it's wfu n d r right wefunder.com I got it
18:35
yeah wefunder.com it's one of the three websites that they use for the the the federal government uses to crowdfund you
18:42
know like like stock and stuff like that so it's great opportunity for people who are not normal investors right to
18:48
actually invest in companies that are small businesses so yeah go over there check it out do the information get the
18:54
research in don't click right away and invest get your research in right and and then make your decision you got time
18:59
so go ahead man Dave we appreciate you you're super citizen Man Black Sands entertainment on social media blacks
19:05
sands.com um direct Amazon you can get on patreon um go all these platforms you
19:12
can find their work Tracy G has a book and these books are Immaculate by the way yes they really really are the
19:19
artwork the quality this infrastructure of the book is these books will last you a lifetime
19:26
Tracy Heather you guys want to talk you got a question or because hea well go ahead I ain't
19:32
I'll as as magnificent as as these comic books in particular are I also think
19:38
about I would say a number of people who critique comic books in general in terms
19:44
of adults reading them specifically and will judge them as being childish as
19:50
immature the only way to learn is through having like a very dense 250
19:56
page book you know what I mean what would you say to those folks about the
20:01
benefits of reading a comic book at any age well well firstly and this is more
20:07
of our educational space that we come in right all our books are middle school and above as far as like the age range that they're supposed to be reading at
20:14
uh but the content is made for a ya audience right so adults can enjoy it just as much as kids kids like it more
20:20
because you know the character is a bold Unapologetic they they really throw hands right so they're like oh this is
20:26
awesome action sequence and all this exper they're discovering new places so they love that right awesome monsters
20:32
great but then the adults love it because of the politics they're like yo wait a minute man what's called you know
20:38
Manoa is really scheming right now you know like they they like these these they're like this is actually a deep
20:43
dive into the ancient world so two different fan bases love it for for for
20:49
different reasons but the problem is this right when the last time you see middle schoolers buy anything yeah word
20:56
so they don't they don't write the checks so you got to make sure the adults approve it and love it and that's
21:01
that's what we've been doing that's why we our fan base you know how do you get investors right it's like it's like they
21:07
have to be fans too they can't just be like people who got it for the kids they got to love it too so that's why you got such a dedicated fan base in there that
21:14
are older right because they're like wow this is actually a really good story and my kids love it too I'm sold right so
21:21
two for one deal I'm curious and thank you guys again for being here but I'm curious as a married couple how does
21:28
that work cuz that's a lot of balance right I me I'm using that word it's a lot of balance it's home life it's work
21:36
life is is it's business you know and and sometimes you know that can be
21:41
difficult um even when you're not family but especially when you're family how are you guys managed or how have you
21:47
managed that uh to me it's all about respect you know so we respect each
21:54
other we love each other if we have a problem with each other we address it quick and resolve it quickly and forgive
22:01
quickly so I think that aspect right there is very important for us that we use in our marriage life
22:08
um and we both like I said have the military background we have so much in common um not only do we work together
22:16
we love to travel together so it's a lot of things that we have in common that we love to do and I think um the number one
22:23
thing is respect respect and and forgiveness give forgive easily
22:29
youg exactly so I think would you recommend that then for people families
22:35
that are in business we know a lot of restaurants and all of that yeah but one thing is this right cheating is a big no
22:40
no in any uh marriage right okay to cheating okay so so I know I'm going
22:46
straight to cheating I I wanted to make this clear running a business without your spouse is cheating because you're
22:53
in love with that business you're going to give a lot of attention to that business and if and if your spouse is seeing all that success or what or or or
23:00
struggle going on and they ain't a part of it in any way shape or form they going to feel some kind of way you need
23:06
to make comic book about that that would be interesting he said he said so this is how you play the game right they have
23:12
to be involved and it has to be a clear separation of powers so in other words I
23:17
have certain responsibilities you have certain responsibilities I don't order nothing from China I don't know anything about China I don't know anything about
23:23
Imports I don't know anything about you know you know calling people to set up appointments and and and school dist
23:29
School distribution that's jelle's job if it goes right Jazelle gets all the credit if it goes wrong Jazelle gets all
23:35
the credit but the whole point is she has
23:41
she has her specific yeah she has her responsibilities and her achievements
23:47
and I got my responsibilities and my achievements and because of that no like stepping on on each other's feet is how
23:52
you end up having arguments and fighting all time right so this is important just to be able to divide that right and make
24:00
sure that they're never jealous of the business they can't be if they're a part of it yeah the business is a side chick
24:06
hey wait okay video games could be the side chick there's a lot of things a lot of
24:12
side checks a lot of things could be fun Tracy backed out so so here's the
24:20
thing um I've already U landed my role as what who am I you're a soldier man
24:29
know sold I thought I I'm a soldier in the military too with
24:36
them yeah I'm with them but you know my character is going to survive something I don't know yet he ain't going to die
24:42
he ain't going to die thank you do he have a does he have a name yet n we what
24:48
we going to call him that's going to be a trademark infringement I'll get the money all
24:55
right uh okay so but Tracy and Heather they they have been hired yet and I thought maybe they could read from
25:01
something together many glasses so we got our we got our boy assar the main character the prince of KT he is just
25:08
won the night when a Spartan Invasion happened on the island of monoa his
25:14
allies so they survived the night but they know there's going to be a lot more war coming during the day so now he's
25:20
trying to talk to the queen of manoah because they're are matriarchy uh and
25:26
he's going to decide well help decide how they're going to defend the island
25:31
so this is the conversation are there any legends about ancients on this island originating hundreds of years ago
25:39
what an odd question my queen this is serious I know that centuries ago there
25:44
were some legendary Warriors from our past that all disappeared overnight there was a natural disaster that caused
25:52
a massive collapse at the mountain the earthquake lasted weeks was it related
25:57
to ancients unconfirmed but it is odd that the greatest warriors of an error all went to the mountain in question
26:04
that day and disappeared I saw them in a vision a
26:11
vision just trust her on this I'm skeptical Sparta is about to attack
26:18
listen just give me 50 veteran soldiers who have the ability to carry heavy weapons hammers maces or anything that
26:25
will have a blunt impact that I can do Ward relay those orders my
26:31
queen I'm going to menz you're injured don't push
26:38
yourself ouch and seene we're [Laughter]
26:45
H you ain't got to rush to tell us we hi we y'all need to stop playing around and
26:53
hire us y start to change up right there he said multiple characters y'all
26:59
better stop playing with us we do it all bab talking about here we do yo play them Heather's
27:06
commercial welcome to laws of the game pay attention you might learn something
27:12
law one be a student of the game d just dominates law two practice practice
27:20
prti ridic Lord three see everything she
27:25
has eyes in the back of her head Lord four used out to your advantage when I was a kid I used to play grown men for
27:32
slurpy money now I got my face on a slurpy cup law five hoopers stay hungry triple
27:41
double record and a triple double sandwich L six pull all the strings l s
27:48
make them proud L 26 call your shot 48 53
27:54
67 come in clut learn everything earn everything
27:59
thank you Nike I just wanted to let y'all no y'all
28:06
ain't hiring no one of be we've already
28:12
been this is and it was and always will be there you go my brother let me tell
28:18
you something too if you listen if if if you're listening uh to man will talk about these story lines these are based
28:24
on true history right this is real history and one of the thing about um these books is you offer a lot of
28:31
antidotes about history yes you know and we're reading from these passages but you talk about kimet the relationship
28:37
between Kim and Kush uh back in the day in those regions and what they meant and
28:42
you talk about what you know Greek mythology and and Roman history most of
28:48
that stuff if not all was stolen Out of Africa so when you hear that's why you
28:53
see all these different versions of names and all this these stories that sound so similar you know all of these
29:00
different things you see existed it breaks my heart before these I won't
29:05
even call them civilizations because they weren't civil before these war machines were
29:11
manifested you know they got all that information from these places right
29:17
that's why this book is that's why these works are important that we support Black sanss Entertainment because
29:24
they're functioning from a place of truth yes education entertainment and
29:29
just dope ass stories and visuals man congratulations man we finally made it happen brother yeah man yeah come on man
29:36
give it up man 2025 is going to be aens successful year for it really is thank
29:41
you this movie is is is my life right here I done put everything into this basket you know and the fact it's going
29:48
to be moving theaters and stuff like that and if it hits right when it hits I
29:53
just want when it no I'm saying I'm talking about like the sales right so when it hits hit the numbers right uh I
30:00
just want to cut that check man I would to cut that check to all the investors cuz this is a profit sharing round this ain't a stock round ain't no you know
30:06
one day you'll be able to sell your shares this is a profit sharing round when's that final day to get in in
30:11
February the 7th oh February 7th yeah cuz once that date comes right I mean I
30:17
mean once that movie actually premieres right within two months we're going to know exactly what the numbers are right
30:22
and we cutting checks immediately there you go there you go so if you want to be an investor you know but do your own
30:29
research and no offense to you just as a just for us just we're on radio so as
30:35
as liability goals media ethics yeah I can't tell you what to do you got to go
30:40
see it for yourself do your own due diligence um if you want to be an investor on your own accord but I can
30:48
tell you that I like what they do yeah right and it's something that I would invest in um as I'm lending my voice to
30:55
the movie all right man hey listen thank you for coming through Jazelle great to meet
31:00
you okay we've been communicating Manel proud of y'all man y'all doing this big
31:05
man y'all awesome for the community right give them a round of applause y'all want to follow them go to Black
31:11
Sands entertainment on IG blacks sands.com yes go to patreon look for
31:18
blackand right on patreon you can buy the books direct buy them on Amazon buy
31:23
them direct from their website give them Round of Applause