Rance Rob Your Favorite CEO: JWORK

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IT takes balls. IT takes guns. IT takes doing the stuff that nobody else is willing to do like changing clothes in a dirty NY bathroom. IT takes going blind in the trenches. IT takes sleepless nights and thousands of flyers being handed out. IT takes staying together as a unified front at all costs…even the risk of losing it all. Most of all IT takes being able to move like the military while keeping the mindset of a King while your world is spinning. Kings take risks because the rewards are greater. Fashion crew JWORK Limited isn’t any different.

Darrell Hunter, Andre Wilson, and Jermaine Jenkins are different. They’re not like you. They’re not trying to be like you. Great doesn’t come from imitation; like the great Eshon Burgundy said “As long as we imitatin’ everything remains the same…” It takes some confidence, some narcissism, some selfishness, but then at the same time it takes selflessness and people-focus to do what these three have done so far. Hanging out with Team JWORK has to be like hanging out with A Tribe Called Quest during their 5 Mic days. Maybe it’s like hanging with Dame, Jay, and Kareem during those early Roc-A-Fella days. Naw, let’s make this relevant; hanging with them has to be like hanging with Damon John and the FUBU crew when they were doing whatever it took to get their shirts on EVERYBODY. This interview isn’t just about a clothing company, it’s about doing something greater than yourself at all costs. This is the Justified Wealth of Real Kings.
Welcome fellas, it is my pleasure. Who do we have sitting with us?
Team JWORK: Darrell Hunter- Chief Marketing Officer, Andre Wilson Chief Operating Officer, and Jermaine Jenkins CEO.

Cool let’s get into the origin of JWORK Limited. If anybody goes on your website they can definitely see why this started but could you break it down a little further as to why you’ve created this movement?
DH: Fashion I mean, coming from where we came from fashion was always in our background. You know, everything we did was trying to be flyer than the next dude so it was a natural transition for us. Jermaine and I have always had the desire to be different. Whatever everybody else was wearing it wasn’t what we were wearin’. Jermaine always had that eye for high fashion. People started to take note of that real early in high school and it wasn’t long before Jermaine was helping people put their clothes together. That’s where the dream started.
AW: To add on to what he’s saying, with JWORK the main reason for us creating it is to remain exclusive. We initially came out with jerseys and evolved into using various other designs. Our goal is to also build a strong team that is getting bigger and stronger. We really try to follow the vision of our CEO with design and we just all collaborate with each other and try to put out our JWORK designs and make a stronger culture.
JJ: They basically hit it all on the head. JWORK is about keeping it exclusive and to make everyone who wears it or has worn it in the past feel like they are living the 5-Star lifestyle. JWORK means Justified Wealth of Real Kings; and Queens for that matter. We want to make sure people feel really good when they put on our designs and I heavily doubt that people will be wearing the same exact shirts, they might be wearing a lot of JWORK shirts, but not the same exact ones at the same exact time. That’s why we created it. Just to be exclusive.
That’s hot, that’s hot. Alright, so you guys have always been the fly dudes. But how far back do you go? When did this style collective come together?
DH: That’s the beauty and the beast of it; we all grew up together. Jermaine’s dad and my dad grew up together. We’ve known each other all of our lives. I met Andre when we were in the 2nd grade so it’s always been a bond and unity with us because we are friends first. Now the beast of it is that they say it’s hard to link business and family or whatnot so every now and then we butt heads on a family level and have to keep the personal separated from the business level and vice versa but it makes us stronger in the end.
JJ: They went to the same high school and I went to a different school called Brookhaven which is the foundation for how I dress and I act. I’m originally from Philly but Brookhaven just instilled this style and mindset that either you hot or you’re just not hot. No in-betweens. So I had to switch the clothes around and throw on a cheaper shirt from somewhere like Schottenstein’s with the expensive Phat Farm jeans and as long as I had my Jordans on I was always fresh. Then from there I started putting everybody’s looks together like a stylist but I just like seeing fly stuff and not everybody looking alike, like some clones.
Now, you guys are touching an angle with a twist that is pretty impactful: Royalty and Military. I’ve seen them done separately in the fashion industry but not together. Why is it important for you to merge these in the JWORK design concept?
JJ: Well, Andre and I actually served in the military. Andre served at Kosovo. We both did six years. I served in Iraq. I was injured there in November 2004. I lost my vision actually for 2 months so when I came back I could see totally different. I have a love/hate with the military because a lot of my passion came from the learning experiences I had in the military. Kings always had knights with them; you know, men that were skilled and trained for war. So we had to merge those. I hate the military but I love it at the same time. I support the military in everything that it does. But it almost took my life, but on the flipside it gave me a brand new one. I feel like I’m Reborn.
DH: In a lot of ways we’re doing something different; but it is really different from what’s being done right now. If you go back in history there was no separation between royalty and military; they went hand in hand always. We just feel like we brought it back full circle, back to where it is supposed to be.

So it’s like that yin and yang you can’t have one without the other and that’s what has happened. It’s been separated and JWORK is bringing the truth back to the game…
Now JWORK stands for Justified Wealth of Real Kings… Why is that statement so important? That’s really a deep acronym. What does that really mean if you could break that down?
DH: We’re all kings, every last one of us. That’s the way we see it and live it. We say Justified Wealth of Real Kings because we feel like what you do on this earth justifies what you get. So when we say Justified Wealth of Real Kings if you want to be a real king then to us that means you have to put in the work. You have to justify that wealth; you have to justify that lifestyle to be able to live it.
AW: A lot of the times people go out and try to do whatever they can in order to make money. They just want to be rich. What we’re trying to bring out in people is the wealth aspect. We want people to be wealthy. To us wealth lasts longer than riches. The stuff that we do even with our artwork we feel like it’s timeless and will last for years to come and that’s exactly what wealth does
So it’s more about leaving a legacy than anything. It’s about doing something to leave a legacy as opposed to doing something to sell out real quick.
JWORK: (In Stereo) Exactly
JJ: Justified Wealth of Real Kings took a long time to come up with. It took me a super long time to come up with that. We came up with so many different names but nothing really stuck. Then it hit me: Justified Wealth of Real Kings. So I shot a text to my team and everybody ate it up. They loved it instantly and it was just there. It was like a gift from God. This is what JWORK means. Like Andre and Darrelll said it’s timeless. We want JWORK to be like one army, one band, and one sound. And that’s what Justified Wealth of Real Kings means to me.
So you all have been at this for a minute. What was that first “IT” moment when you just knew that you had to start a company and do what you’ve been doing?
JJ: Well, Andre and I used to buy blank jerseys when Mitchell & Ness was really big. You remember when Fabolous hit with the “Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh-Da-Da-Da-Da-Duh-Duh…damn” (Lil’ Mo ft. Fabolous Superwoman Pt.1). Fab said he had the most jerseys ever, more than anybody. Since he had money I said I’m gonna have more jerseys than anybody. Then we started shopping on the internet finding the rarest jerseys. Then I started finding blank ones and re-designing them with years and all kinds of stuff and wearing them out to places like the B-dubs (BW3’s) and the Icebreakers. People with $350.00 Mitchell & Ness jerseys on would be stressing me about where I got the jerseys. Then we would lie and say we got them custom made in Japan and that’s when it all started.
From what I’ve observed you all are way more than 3 guys making what is right now t-shirts. I know you’ll be expanding the line soon but you all have a team that works as a cohesive unit towards one goal: to make JWORK global. What is the defining moment for JWORK to say this is what we dreamed about. What will be that “we made it” moment? Will it be that fashion house in NYC? What is it?
AW: What I envision is to be international. That is one of our main goals; to basically get rid of that so-called urban title that they put on clothing lines. We want to squash that. We want to be global. That is why we focus the meat of our business on the online store. And also being strong leaders of the global community and create a movement that reaches around the globe. That is what we hope to accomplish.
DH: Everything we do is community driven. So a lot of what we do behind the scene is community oriented. Then above that we want JWORK to be the brand, a household name. We want you to sleep on JWORK sheets. We want the interior of your car to be laced in JWORK. We want your kids’ backpack to be JWORK. But that is still step one. JWORK goes so far beyond that with businesses and other ventures. JWORK is the tip of the iceberg for us.
Okay, so how does the engine work? Who does what among you? Who’s the go-to-guy for design etc.?
JJ: I think we all have our strengths and weaknesses but at the same time we play roles like the military. As the CEO I’m like the General and then Andre is second in charge so he’s like the Lieutenant General and Darrelll is the Major General. Then we have Mary Soeum, Brandi Walker, Chris, Joffrey, Nate, DJ, basically what I did was build a team outside of Andre and Darrelll knowing what these people can do. These people were tested like basic training. They were tested in their actual fields. Our seamstress had to sew like 40 of our War Hog shirts when they first came out. That was a test for her. Then Mary Soeum is under Andre, she went to school for Operations she’s his main partner. We have Brandi that graduated with a Communications degree so she’s under Darrelll and our Marketing division, as is Nate. Chris Fullen is a tattoo artist so he is with me in the Design Department. Christie Crumbie is in Marketing with retail experience. So we just broke down the team to the best of our ability, made a chain of command, and ran with it. When it comes to executive decisions we have the 3 main people that talk about it first then we push it down the chain and run it that way.
When it comes to creativity I run everything through my team first and then they make the decision. It’s not just me coming up with designs myself I come up with them but I talk it over with my team because (in Stereo) “We have designs for days…” and the crew breaks out in laughter.
The whole team basically goes with the flow and we test people. I want to stress that. Brandi had the task of putting together the whole “Day and Night” photo shoot we had this past weekend. That was her first test and she passed with flying colors. It was the best photo shoot that we ever had. She executed my vision perfectly. I also have to stress that God gives me a lot of my visions. I can call my team and say God just gave me a vision that’s gonna make us a million dollars. I say that all the time. I shoot them the idea and they’ll say that’s dope or they’ll say “Jermaine you need to get a new vision.”
That’s precision man. That’s professional business. Many start-ups need to hear that. Okay, I have to bring this up. I saw that something pretty big happened for JWORK Limited; ya’ll had your shirts all over 106th and Park. The DJ…what’s his name?
DH: Pro-Styles (friky friky; making turntable scratching motion) Pro-Styles…haha!
He was on 106th front and center all in the camera rocking the shirt and I saw that you all were there. What was that like for you guys?
DH: That day was crazy man because we basically gorilla bum rushed 106th and Park. We just drove to NY on a whim and said we’re going official. We bagged up like 50 shirts and just went in there. We handed out shirts to everybody in the crowd. If you see the footage of the actual show you don’t see what actually happened because I think they cut a lot of stuff out. We had most of the crowd with JWORK shirts on. That’s not what you saw when you saw it on TV. We almost got in trouble. They were talking about kicking us out because cats were in there waving shirts in the camera and going crazy.
It was crazy, that day was bananas but it was definitely a blessing. We handed Pro-Styles the shirt and I think Jermaine got it to him. He was like “Yo, Pro-styles I brought you something, can you put it on?” He said I’m not even supposed to do this…so big-ups to Pro Style for that. He went in the back threw the shirt on and the next thing we know he’s on live TV. (Laughing)
JJ: He didn’t even go in back. He was getting set up at the DJ Booth and I was like I’m gonna say something. I had to gear myself up like Jamie Foxx or something. (Everybody cracks up) I said “Pro Styles I got this hot shirt for you.”  I showed him the new Robot shirt and he was like “I’ll throw that on right now!” It matches my shoes too! This is the same thing that happened when I met Young Joc and a lot of other celebs and then the next thing you know it’s on TV.

We couldn’t get a hotel for just a few hours for less than $400-500 so we slept in the parking garage for 3 hours. I got dressed, fresh as hell in the parking garage bathroom. The grind is out, the struggle is out, we hungry, we starving. I’ll put it like that. That’s how serious we are.
AW: I’m glad you mentioned that Jermaine, people see that we got on TV but people don’t realize what happened for us to get there. It was cooold that day! We were out there for a while before they let us in. We bum-rushed Rocsi outside before she came into the studio. We attacked her and gave her a shirt. The grind is out there. This is an everyday thing.
It’s kind of like rappers with their demos back in the day. Cats would go to Jack the Rapper back in the 90’s and all the producers would check you out and someone got a deal. It’s funny that when people see a business at its success or zenith, they never see the grind it took to get there like the sleeping in the parking garages.
There’s this misconception in fashion that when your garments get on TV or something they automatically think you are rich. They’re like where’s the Rolls Royce and all of that?
JJ: I go thru that all of the time. Even at the barbershop I got harassed after the 106th & Park show. Like I tell everyone on Twitter and my blogs I still work a 9-5, I still work every single day, very hard, not as hard as I do on JWORK though. JWORK is my life and my dream. People gotta understand that it takes a while. People think that because your stuff is on TV that the next week I’m writing million dollar checks or I should be taking them shopping or out to eat or whatever. I still have a mortgage, I still have a son to take care of and we’ve far from “made it.” Every day we communicate saying we got so much work to do. We’re at negative zero. I don’t know where “they” think we’re at; I just think that “they” don’t know what it takes to make a business successful.
So that means that ya’ll are not taking me to Hyde Park (an expensive steakhouse) after this? (laughter breaks out)
JJ: Now get it right though, we save a lot of money and we do a lot of things in a very methodical way. Like Andre said earlier, wealth is not solely of the pockets but of the mind. I believe in saving a lot of money. If it’s from your paycheck or whatever you’re getting paid from just save a lot of money because you can still live that 5-Star lifestyle. We can go to Hyde Park and get a steak next week when I get paid (More laughter). You can live the good life, you just gotta be smart when you doing it.
So the whole thought process is to plan it out. In the military no unit goes to battle without a plan or you’ll be annihilated. So what you’re saying is that the military background has helped you formulate a plan to reach your goal right?
JJ: It has helped us a lot. Andre and I moved up in the ranks and it helps in everything we actually do. We’re not saying we’re the best company out there but we’re going to be the best business out there. I’m not saying I’m the best designer out there but I’m going to be one of the best, one of these days soon because we’re driven, we’re passionate, we want this, we’re starving, every day we dream of JWORK, every day we talk about JWORK, we eat JWORK. I text Darrelll in the mornings asking what’s the plan for today even though we already got the plan for today, we got the plan for the next 2 weeks, the next 2 months. There’s something new that we can plan for to make this so much better and the military had a lot to do with that planning.
JWORK was in the planning stages for about 3 years and I don’t think people understand the importance of that. What made you all say that no matter how long this takes we’re going to come out right.
JJ: I wanted to rush coming out because I’m like a top gun type of guy. Yo, I got this idea let’s do it lets do it, let’s do it. It is so good to have smart business partners. You need smart people. Andre and Darrelll actually slowed me down a lot. The most boring part of JWORK was doing paperwork, talking to companies, trying to sell our dream to companies. Then we realized we don’t have to sell this dream to anyone but ourselves. Big up to the JWORK team all of them. They slowed it down and made it a reality instead of just my dream. Me, Darrelll, and Dre’ couldn’t do what we are doing by ourselves. There’s no way we could do this without Brandi, Mary, Chris, without Christie, Joffrey, without Nate, Nakira, Corey… everybody that’s down with us. There is no way we could do this with just my crazy thoughts. We had to push this and take our time. I want to attack so hard and they do the planning and it’s great.
AW: There are a lot of lines out right now that fall by the wayside because they don’t have a strong team to back them and that is why we’re taking out time building our team with specific people.
And they’re not in a hurry to get crazy paid. Like Queen Latifah said, “the fame comes before the money.”
AW: If you look at it closely, the reason that we are able to do so much is because of our team. We can actually do so much because we have different people in certain areas that are able to execute. We can do what we need to because of our strong united front.
It looks like events are a big part of the movement like the C.O. Tour fashion show. That’s a great feat since Columbus is not considered one of the “fashion capitals.” What made you say we’re going to come out with this fashion show and say “we’re going to put other people on and expose them and it’ll help build our name up.” Most people don’t realize that when you give more comes back.
JJ: First we got tired of people that know nothing about fashion putting on fashion shows just to make a lot of money. They showcase a lot of people from Columbus that do a lot of fashion but can’t really get out of here. So they’re telling these designers that we’re gonna put on a show and you can get in it and the next thing you know they’re promising them the world and saying “…we’ll have these people from NY calling and all of that. We’ll have this person and that one.” But from the C.O. Tour all the designers from last year got put on somehow: from interviews to job offers.
Everything we promised we did. It all started in the lab and decided that we should throw a fashion show. So we come up with the name C.O. Tour Fashion Showcase that we planned in about a month and a half and it went down. It went great and it was all about showing other designers. We said we’re not going to put on any fashion show; we’re going to do the best one we can. We gave as much exposure as we could. One of the headlines we received in top press was “Local Fashion Designers put Columbus, OH on the Fashion Map.” That started with the 3 of us and the JWORK team wanting to expand in Columbus. We are a fashion capital. Everybody is a fashion statement here so why can’t we be a fashion capital? It can be one and it will be. We have a lot on the table. We are going to surprise everyone in 2-3 years.
DH: C.O. Tour is a play on words; if you put it all together it is couture. The whole plan of the C.O. Tour is to TOUR. We want to go on the road with this like the Ebony Fashion Fair and tour. We want to go around nationally and show what we’re capable of. We have JWORK but we also have the C.O. Tour fashion showcase, which is about unity in the fashion world. It’s about helping put Columbus to the forefront and even Ohio to the forefront. The way we see it once that notoriety comes back here and more and more people start to make it from here it is inevitable that more of us can keep the trend up and continue.
After we break I feel different. I feel enlightened. I am encouraged. I’m a little more focused on executing my visions. Even if it means sleeping on the sidewalk to get that 30-second pitch time with an investor, or pulling the all nighters like Fashion Students do to meet those deadlines. Whatever it takes it has to be done. In war, the method of the battle may be ugly and the mentality may have to be gritty. But when the victory is won it comes across polished. Kings and Queens do what is best for the people in their domain. JWORK Limited is a movement that has clear direction and a vision for the people. JWORK is purpose and passion wrapped in power. If you’re going to do something don’t just do it to do it. What are you subject to?
www.JWORKLimited.com

Article by Rance Rob

I am the CEO of a Social Interest company called Ultimate Money Fight where "Savings Accounts Come to Battle!" My company gets people excited and going crazy about saving money because it's a competitive setup. Every month my Inc. gives away $250 to the Top Saver so that they can build on their Emergency Savings Fund.I learned the hard way that Finance is HARD. Even though the concept of money is really simple to be in a good financial position, most people SUCK at it. So I am developing a WORLD full of Money Fighters. People that take what they make now and turn it into wealth. Everyday at UMF someone is Kickin' Cash and Takin' names!!!Check out the website www.ultimatemoneyfight.com for more blog posts and information about getting your money right.

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