by Asheebo Rojas (Class of ’23)
Franklin Street Market has risen quickly from a clothing brand founded by UNC-Chapel Hill students to a cultural catalyst on campus and beyond.
Eliam Mussie, a co-founder of FSM, sat down with Black Ink to discuss the brand’s origins, FSM Fest’s inception, what it took to book the artists, and what’s on the horizon.
How did FSM come to life, and who was all involved?
Eliam: Honestly, I think a lot of people, you know, have the dream of having a company or a clothing brand, especially nowadays. And, it was always a thought. I didn’t want to be somebody who was just another clothing brand like somebody else. You know, you always say your ideas with your friends, kind of just talking. And, it came up a lot, you know, “Oh, I mentioned this too, I mentioned this, let’s do something.” This was like second semester freshman year. We didn’t get started until sophomore year, first semester. Me, Myles Neely and Eugene Reynolds drove out to Fayetteville, rented a UHAUL, bought a machine for $1500, brought it back, and started a clothing brand. We actually never used it. We still have it to this day. We should probably sell it. But it just got that spark ignited for us. It started with Hunter Kouchi, and he helped us with everything in the beginning. And honestly, it just turned into like, you know, beyond a clothing brand. I think we are just a brand in general, something for positive change from events to community involvement, just trying to be an integral part of the community and beyond. And what started as a thought became an idea, became a design, became our first prototype, became a shirt, became selling out the first drop in 30 minutes, the second one in five minutes, the next one within the end of the day. And it just turned into something bigger than I ever expected.
Talk about the growth of the brand and what it was like to grow so fast.
Eliam: We had our first drop in March this year (and) had a festival six months later. The growth has been insane. Especially the Black community, people around us had been sharing and reposting. Honestly, it’s something that’s bigger than us, bigger than we expected. I really believe it’s bigger than me or us three, or whoever it may be. I really think it’s community. A community brand everybody’s part of.
Where did the idea of doing a festival come from?
Eliam: You know we saw a lot of things where, obviously, the culture at UNC was dead. When you talk to a lot of alumni, “Oh yeah, we used to have this. This was popping. We did that.” A lot of times, you kind of see it in pockets here and there, but maybe some frats or sororities doing a cocktail. You don’t really see that for students not involved in stuff like that — students of color, minority students, people who don’t have too much money. We want to bring our brand, not just clothing, but culture at the end of the day. The biggest thing is bringing people together. Regardless of color, race, demographic, we wanted to bring people together. Best way to do that is a music festival. We had about 70 to 80 vendors, from clothing vendors to student vendors. All of the above, just selling the merchandise and having a concert that people got to enjoy. It really started as a joke. We were like, “Nah, let’s do a concert, haha.”
What was the FSM Fest planning process like, including making connections and booking artists?
Eliam: To start anything from scratch is just different. I think everybody knows that. But, when you start from an idea, you just gotta cold email. You gotta ask a lot of people, “Hey, is this even possible.” “Yeah, it is, but, it’s going to take this.” Some people are like, “Oh no, can’t happen. You can’t plan something starting in May and June that’s happening in October because of capital, spacing and everything.” There’s so many factors that go into policing, parking, all that stuff. So it was just insane. It was a lot of emails, a lot of stuff. And it gets tough, when you don’t hear from people for a little while, you kind of put your head down. Then you get that one email they may send you, you know, maybe this is not the person that will connect you, but they know somebody and that person will connect you, then you kind of have a referral. So there’s a lot of back and forth, until we got stuff in honest motion, to where, okay, this is picking up steam there. And then, you know, the easiest part, believe it or not, was getting artists, the hardest thing was keeping two of them.
Can you go into detail about what happened with Young Nudy and Key Glock?
Eliam: We had a verbal commit and contract with Nudy, and it ended up becoming something where they got a date mixed up. I think initially they said that he’s actually not available. He got outbid, or there’s an offer in Vegas. Obviously, we can’t compete with doubling, tripling the price and all of that. It just wasn’t financially responsible. It came to a point where we had to get another artist, and we got Key Glock. There was a contract clause with Glock that was like we couldn’t promote him until a week before because Fayetteville State had him a week before. We couldn’t promote until after, so they could have as many heads go to that one. Turns out, a sponsor reached out and said we were promoting, but we were like, “shit, who are the sponsors? Where’s the bread?” because we didn’t have any sponsors. It was really, really frustrating because he ended up canceling as well. Then, as soon as we sent out the apology, Nudy’s agent reached out saying he was actually available for the dates. The manager got the dates mixed up. We confirmed his availability five times. Turns out he was available. It was just that small miscommunication.
Where did your biggest financial support come from for the festival?
Eliam: Financially, the biggest thing has been the union, the ticketing office with Victoria Boykin. She’s been a huge help as well as Leo Bennett. Leo’s dad, Myles’ mom and Victoria in the union were all integral parts of ensuring through moral, financial and all kinds of support that we can finance something. We had to rely on sponsorships, private and public, big brands and all that stuff. There’s so many parts that go into it. You learn that the benefit is now we have a proof of concept that we can go ahead and advertise to other sponsors.
So, what’s in the works for the future?
Eliam: One, we want to make this a two-day thing where either it’s maybe smaller artists or media on the first day, but focus on that local aspect. We really want to highlight local businesses, whether it’s students here at UNC or others at Central, State, and Duke. Doing something like that and having a day solely focused for that, to where it’s not crowded by music and where it’s open to the public. We want to be able to do something next year where we split it and increase the capacity and bring in bigger named artists to bring in an experience. We actually want to create a memorable experience, something that will be rooted here at UNC as a tradition. We’re going to change the name from “FSM Fest” to “Up on the Hill,” so it’s more UNC associated but also has more of a universal feel. You put an artists’ name in your head, that’s who we’re talking to, that’s who we’re working with right now.
