"$5.3 trillion. That is the spending power of multicultural consumers in America. Less than 2% of advertising spend currently reaches diverse-owned media."
That gap is not a diversity problem. It's a business problem — and a massive missed opportunity.
I just got back from the BOMESI Summit in Detroit — and the setting could not have been more fitting. This is Motown. The city that proved, decades before anyone was using words like "multicultural marketing," that Black creative genius could move markets, cross demographics, and build one of the most valuable music brands in American history. Berry Gordy didn't just make records — he built an economic engine out of a community the mainstream had written off.
And Detroit itself? Thriving. Growing. The city has an energy right now that matches exactly what was happening inside that summit room.
Because the room was electric. I walked away having met the future of Black content creation — the creators themselves, yes, but also the agencies, distributors, and aggregators who are building the infrastructure around them. These are the people who don't always get the spotlight but are doing the structural work that makes sustainable, scalable Black media possible. Special shoutout to two people who embody exactly that: Rhonesa Byng and DéVon Christopher Johnson — the kind of leaders who make you leave a room smarter and more energized than when you walked in.
The insights were sharp, the conversations were honest, and the urgency was palpable. With DEI rollbacks accelerating and people of color being pushed out of media at alarming rates, the economic argument for investing in diverse-owned media has never been stronger. The brands that figure this out now will have a serious competitive advantage. Motown figured it out in 1959. The rest of the industry is running out of excuses.
GO NY GO NY GO
My New York Knickerbockers are in the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs for the first time since 1999 — and they're coming home to MSG up 2-0. The city has completely lost its mind. In the best way possible.
I was born in Queens. I've bled blue and orange my entire life through some genuinely painful decades. This is not normal. This is not something we were supposed to get to experience. And New York is treating it accordingly.
The market has spoken loudly: the cheapest seat at MSG has rocketed to $9,500. Let that sink in. It is literally cheaper to fly to San Antonio, book a hotel, and catch two road games than it is to sit in your home arena. Celebrity row looks like the Met Gala. Thousands are shutting down 7th Avenue after every win. Central Park is filling up with fans who just need to be around other people feeling this thing. The energy is being covered like a cultural moment, not just a sporting one — because that's exactly what it is.
For brands, this is the case study you print out and frame. This is what happens when a passionate, long-suffering fanbase finally gets a product worth buying — in the largest media market on earth. And the activation opportunities are sitting right there, wide open:
The Knicks creator community is massive, hyper-engaged, and already making content that's racking up millions of views. Thousands of fans are swarming Central Park and 7th Avenue after every game — that's a sampling and experiential marketer's dream. Subway snipes near the Garden, along parade routes, in the outer boroughs where the real Knicks faithful live — the whole city is a canvas right now.
New York is the most valuable stage in sports at this moment. The brands that move fast and show up authentically in these streets — not just with a logo on a banner but actually in the culture — will earn the kind of loyalty that a regular media buy can't touch.
The whole world is watching New York right now. Hey brands.... Let's GO!
NO NY NO NY NO
Also in New York sports news: Giants second-year QB Jaxson Dart introduced Donald Trump at a rally in Rockland County two weeks ago. His second-year teammate Abdul Carter responded on social media with a simple "I thought this s**t was AI. What are you doing man?"
Pop quiz: who caught more backlash?
If you said Abdul Carter — you're either Black, Muslim, a person of color, or you've been paying close attention. Yes, QBs command a certain deference. And yes, introducing a sitting president has historically been considered an honor. But the "keep politics out of sports" crowd — the same folks who made Colin Kaepernick public enemy number one for a silent protest— had no trouble doing the mental gymnastics to defend a QB leading a team chant while stumping for the most polarizing president in American history. Meanwhile, the other guy (who happens to be a Black Muslim) who had a one line reaction on social media became the example of how not to be a team player.
And then new head coach John Harbaugh — himself Trump-endorsed — scheduled a team meeting about keeping conflicts private... apparently not accounting for the fact that Abdul Carter had a pre-approved absence for Eid al-Adha (you can't make this up).
My prediction: Jaxson Dart just fumbled his endorsement bag in NYC (Sephora seems to be supressing the campaign), New Yorkers will let him know it, and sports media will continue to get this completely wrong.
Happy Belated Eid!
QUANTUM GETS THE GOODS
SUMMER MUSIC IS HERE
I somehow forgot I live in the birthplace of real house music — and then Memorial Day weekend reminded me. Solomun and Kaytranada bookended the long weekend here in Chicago, and I'm still thinking about it.
But here's the thing: when most people say "house music" in 2026, they mean something that would be almost unrecognizable to the Warehouse and Music Box crowds who built this genre in the late 70s and 80s. House was born Black and gay on the South Side of Chicago — and like jazz, like blues, like rock and roll before it, it has been absorbed, repackaged, and sold back to mainstream audiences with the roots quietly edited out. What gets called "house" on festival lineups and streaming playlists today is often a far cry from what Frankie Knuckles and Larry Heard were doing in those rooms.
Which is exactly why Solomun and Kaytranada are such an interesting bookend to the first summer of the weekend. Both carry genuine lineage. Solomun's deep, hypnotic sound traces back through European techno but is rooted in the emotional architecture of original house. Kaytranada brings the R&B and funk bloodlines front and center — closer to the Chicago and New York DNA, filtered through a Haitian-Canadian lens. They're kind of the same, but completely different.
I need someone to help me build the DJ family tree that maps all of this properly, because the language matters. For marketers, this is a familiar story: when a subculture gets co-opted, the original community that built it gets erased from the brand narrative. House music's commercialization is a masterclass in what happens when authenticity gets strip-mined for aesthetic. The brands that actually want to show up credibly in these spaces need to know the difference between Solomun's house and Kaytranada's — and more importantly, they need to know who built the house in the first place.
If you know the language, send it my way.
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