7 days to Essence Music Fest

June 28, 2018By Kalilah Wright

7 days before Essence Music Fest....

1. The coils on my machine don’t fit my bottles (too tight)...
2. I might be charged $800 on way to move the machine from the truck into the Convention Center. (One way!... thats $1600 brush to move it a couple hundred feet)
3. I have 0 bottles. They are coming from overseas and haven’t arrived.
4. Trying to wrap my head around driving 20 hours in a 20’ truck to NOLA.
5. We have no shirts ready.
6. Just got thrown a monkey wrench and have to go to NYC for a business opportunity.

This is the life of an entrepreneur. I have 7 days TO FIGURE SHIT OUT!

So last year I attended Essence Music Fest. The black men with their glowing melanin was out SHINING! The women in crop tops and colored hair was out flexing! And I was in formation with the rest of them enjoying the festivities of Essence Music Fest.

It was my first time there and I was in awe of all the blackness and greatness happening around me. I got to eat endless shrimp po-boys and drank liquored daiquiri's from the drive through until my heart was full. It was all great vibes. You got to rub shoulders with celebrities and I bumped into people like Bevy Smith and Issa Rae and Bozoma Saint John and it was cool just to say HEY GIRL HEY!!!!!

It was an amazing time. This year, I have a different agenda, I am going there to work. Mess in a Bottle was selected as one of the vendors for their market place and I am honored, nervous, excited, and shit... I have a lot to solve in a short period of time. We are launching our first ever Mess in a Bottle vending machine. Shit is about to get really real. I think when I bought this thing, I didn't think about HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO MOVE IT AROUND. I mean people asked me, but I was thinking, "how hard can that be". SHIT! HARD! Its just a big ton of steal. 830lbs to be exact and the shit is just... HEAVY. The logistics around moving it is hell. Its all this conversation that need to be had about moving it and what we need to move it and not to add, the coils I have for the machine don't fit my bottle.

SMDH! 7 days. and here's the bat shit crazy part... my homegirl/ PR girl/ marketing person/ hype man and i are DRIVING this shit to NOLA. Like bruh... did you know I hate driving. This is going to be an adventure and what has made me so successful thus far is my will to not give up. I am crazy and everything is figureoutable.