Led Black (00:00)
What up, what up everyone, it's Led Black and Octavio Blanco. This is the latest episode of Uptown Voices and today we have a special guest, my friend. I think he's a visionary in uptown culture, life. He is the founder of Mask Hospitality, but he's the man behind the Uptown Night Market, the Bronx Night Market, the executive producer of the Latin Food Fest. We're gonna get into all that. But you know, they have a lot of questions, Marco, cause you know.

A lot of people are to be losing this year, things that are very near dear to their heart, but we're going to get into that. Marco, how you doing, brother? Talk to me, man. How you been?

Marco Shalma (00:34)
How you doing, my brother? I gotta go after this introduction. I can't beat that. That's it. That's the pinnacle of the show, I appreciate you guys having me over here. It's exciting always to be here. I appreciate your support over the last almost decade. know what mean? All love, Thank you, brother.

Led Black (00:38)
Hehehehehe

Octavio Blanco (00:40)
you ⁓

Led Black (00:49)
Like what's going on?

Sure, love brother.

How you doing? You doing good?

Marco Shalma (00:57)
doing great. know, this is like we had the final push of the Latin food fest right now, know, final like pre-production. This is the biggest project I've ever produced over here in New York City. It's kind of kicking my butt a little bit. I'm not going to lie, but we got this. You know, I mean, we have a great group of people and a great cause. a combination of those two is just something that is different. You know, we brought everybody from uptown, everybody from the Bronx to kind of help us. You know, we had Brooklyn setting it up, you know, and these people that we work with for the last

seven, eight years. you know, we know we make it happen. You know, it's uptown in the Bronx spirit.

Led Black (01:33)
So what is the Latin Food Fest? Tell me, what can we expect?

Marco Shalma (01:37)
man.

Latin food first. I can tell you the story of what it started. You remember we started that as another iteration of the night market. I started the night markets from the Bronx night market, kind of took over the city when it comes to the night market, and then Pinnacle was the Apta night market. Then we realized that most of our vendors are Latinos, immigrant, first generation Latinos, and it's a big boom. Every couple years the city undergoes a different kind of trend of food. We have some African,

of Caribbean and then we have the Latino and then people are loving that and it's like such a gateway for culture. know, food is such a gateway for culture. Everybody that's, you have like people that are hardcore Latinos that understand the food, but then you have people exposed to Latin food and through that to the culture and it just kind of, it's incredible. So we did the Latin night market in Dyckman you know, and that thing was a riot success. It's just like a different vibe. You remember that day?

Led Black (02:14)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Right off the bat.

Yeah, first one was amazing.

Marco Shalma (02:38)
I mean, I'm saying you remember that you were the MC, man. I was like, what am doing?

Led Black (02:42)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a beautiful event.

Marco Shalma (02:45)
It was such a good event. was such a vibe. And he sent us such a message of like, this is something unique. The following year, we took it into the next level. We took it down to Pier 76 by behind the Javits Center and it exploded. We had like, you know, like the massive stage and really kind of a lot of ton of space. We had a great weather coming up on us and it was fantastic. You know, that was the biggest event that I did to date in New York City. And it just felt incredible.

Octavio Blanco (03:15)
you

Marco Shalma (03:15)
So, know, of course, me, you know,

the glutton for punishment that I am, I'm like, OK, that was great. This big thing that we did. We're going to top it up right now. So I went on and closed the deal with Industry City and bring in five different zones of activity. Like we have a street festival, we have a music hall we have a museum, which art, we have a dining room, we have a courtyard and a courtyard full with activation, games and whatnot.

Led Black (03:45)
Wow.

Marco Shalma (03:45)
about

chancla throwing competition. I mean, listen, it's incredible. I kind of pushed for also the chancla avoiding competition. The team kind of nixed I thought the avoiding for me being remember being a kid, know, chancla or the rolling pin. The real sport was to avoid it from your mama's when she throw it.

Octavio Blanco (03:48)
Ha ha ha ha ha!

Led Black (03:48)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Alright.

Wow.

Marco Shalma (04:07)
And then

we invented this thing called Lucha Chancla, which is basically we're creating like a Lucha Libre's, you know, like a arena. And then people come in with giant inflatable chanclas and they're fighting and story nights like family food and stuff like that. We have a soccer kicking area. We have a full on, we have a secondary stage where we're running every day like a Bad Bunny lookalike challenge to see who looks the most like Bad Bunny winning prizes, empanada eating.

Led Black (04:16)
Mm-hmm.

That's hilarious.

Marco Shalma (04:36)
contest, hot sauce eating contest. We have something that we kind of brought up. It's called a drama mama. So basically we want to see everybody's best telenovela moves, you know, like the little thing, like the look and all that thing. Exactly. And then we brought a nice big chair, like, you know, like a abuela chair. So we want to see the drop, you know, with the whole, that when they sit down.

Led Black (04:46)
⁓ God.

So

that's hilarious.

Octavio Blanco (05:00)
Ha ha ha!

Marco Shalma (05:02)
And the old thing is gonna be like, we brought the curators of BAM in Brooklyn and Summer Stage and they curated a full lineup. Anything from Dominican, Puerto Rican, Peruvian, Mexican, Colombian, every kind of music that you can imagine. And any day goes with two great headliners. Then you have a DJ set up in the outside and you have a DJ set up inside. ⁓

Led Black (05:16)
Wow.

Marco Shalma (05:30)
So

we wanted to create something like ⁓ a Latin culture Disneyland. Like you come over there, we want you to spend four or five hours and eat good food and dance and enjoy. And everywhere you got like an Instagrammable moment that we created, like set up that kind of Abuela's house and Abuela's kitchen and like a chair, like a telenovela chair and really just kind of went all out on that thing.

Led Black (05:32)
Wow.

Wow, that's amazing.

Wow.

Marco Shalma (05:59)
I mean, this is the biggest budget I've ever played with in New York City. I'm not going to lie. But it's worth it. You know what mean? So September 13 and 14, that's like three weeks from now, almost like less than three weeks from now. I'm like saying that and I'm a little bit shaky. I'm not going to lie to you. In Brooklyn...

Led Black (06:05)
Wow. What are the dates? What are the dates, Marco?

What?

Octavio Blanco (06:20)
And Marco, before

I can't let you go, you mentioned the budget. What kind of budget are we talking about? What's the ballpark? Can you give us a number? Because I think that'll really let people know.

Marco Shalma (06:30)
Yeah,

the entire production and all the things is costing us north of 350, you know.

And for me, know, I mean, it's a lit and, know, without getting into that thing, we wanted to build something because let knows me, you know, I dream, I dream big. Otherwise, why dream at all? And the vision, the vision is beyond just this festival. The vision we already started right now. We already started about working on 2026 with a national rollout in five cities around the country. And coming back to New York in September next year, like, you know, of course, Hispanic

has to be in New York.

trying to do like a trade show, almost like a, you know, almost like, you know, remember like when New York Food and Wine Festival, you know, with a combination of a trade show and a food festival with activities. That's the goal. The goal is five days of like Latin food, culture, music, products, you know, like everything around that, you know, and, and we wanted to create something that is like, you know, the vision is to create something that is like really magnificent. work with, I work in this business for the last

Led Black (07:12)
Wow.

Marco Shalma (07:40)
eight, nine years. And throughout this period of time, know, like 80 % of my vendors are Latinos, know, first generation or immigrants, you know, and, and you, you, you, hear when you bond and I travel, I was just talking to Led I travel every year to Latin America, different places, you know, just to enjoy the, and learn and absorb the culture and understand that. And it's so connected. I'm so, I feel so connected to that. My entire team is Latinos, by the way, like it's, it's something and you know, and they're like the biggest

this drive force behind this because this does not work. It's a mission combined with passion. You call it whatever you want, but we love it.

Led Black (08:18)
Yeah, yeah

Yeah, and it's interesting right because I'm really happy for the land full for us super happy that is happening But I'm a little sad about the uptown night market right like you created something really really special in the uptown night market You know ⁓ you created a space right there like

I told you this before that you created something, but it took a life of his own and Harlem was in the Uptown Night Market. Harlem came out every month and they showed out, they danced, they came out fly and you created that space. it's like a lot of us are sad that it's going away. So what can you say to those people that are kind of sad that there's no more Bronx Night Market, there's no more Uptown Night Market? Why? Why is it going away?

Marco Shalma (08:57)
Damn, you gotta put me on the spot right there, but like let's do it, baby.

Led Black (09:00)
You know, you have

to ask the question, you know what mean? Because it's like, I love the uptown landmark. It's five years strong, Beautiful thing. You know how people thought it might have been Columbia? Like, you just done with it, you on to the next.

Marco Shalma (09:07)
Yeah.

Well, here's the thing, know, first of all, about Columbia, I want to say that Columbia has been really supportive, actually, in that thing. I was kind of a little bit upset when people kind of jump on them because it's kind of like, you know, they've been very, very supportive when we wanted, when we were considering doing the weekly, they gave us the space, they gave us like some support. They really kind of helped us with everything that it's not because of that, you know, I realized, you know, like over the last five years, we created something that is like incredible. I want to say to you, like, you know, you know, I've done like all the night markets or whatnot. This is the one that I'm most

Led Black (09:23)
Right.

Marco Shalma (09:44)
proud

of and most connected to because it was a team effort first of all but also the way that it's connected you know everything sometimes there's like a space and time that is so special and so unique that a spark just kind of lit and this is what it was it was like the perfect storm you know and and we created that and you remember because we started the Uptown Night Market with like a delayed event we had like rain now we got flooded and we had to cancel and then we came back the next month you know and I

Led Black (09:57)
Right.

Bye.

Marco Shalma (10:14)
lost money, I lost like $30,000 on the first one, and then I brought all the vendor back, no fees, no nothing like that because we were gonna do that. And you know what? In a way, started off limping came out to be the most incredible kind of experience, opened so many doors for us.

Led Black (10:27)
Joggernaut.

Marco Shalma (10:32)
what we realized over the last couple of years, you know, there's a rule. I have this tattoo of like evolution on my arm. You I have a lot of tattoos, but this one. And I always kind of remember like, if you don't evolve, you dissolve. You know, that's kind of my focus in life, you know? And I think like we want to kind of get to the next rendition and in Harlem. So we've been working on some stuff that's going to be like more like semi-permanent, something to take the kind of experience that we're doing and bring it into like a different place because it takes a lot of work

Led Black (10:56)
⁓

Marco Shalma (11:02)
to do what we do. We work all month to get to that one day. You're in the business, you're in the know how, you've been partnered with so many organizers, you organize stuff yourself. So many things has to happen and so many things have to come together. while we love it, we still have to kind of deal with like a lot of the stuff, the city and the permits and this and that. And we appreciate that, but we also want something that is gonna

Led Black (11:04)
I could imagine.

Marco Shalma (11:28)
to

be one we want to we want to advance the you know the platform remember you know I wish I was one of the first one in the city you know like there was Queens nine market and then came Marco Sharma and we kind of helped turn the city into something now if you look on the calendar in the city there's a lot of events in the city you know when we started there wasn't a lot of it it was like five events going on in the city so you have to understand also the market and understand that there's there's a demand for something

Led Black (11:48)
Right.

Marco Shalma (11:57)
else. Like there's a saturation of this kind of type of things, no matter how busy it is, you know, still because we're still busy, but then we want to do something else. We want to elevate that. We want to take it to the next level. We want to support the community. We want to increase like the, you know, whatever we did in a micro, we want to get it to the next level. So for me, it is like the natural place. I learned in my life, in my business life, I learned like it's better, you know, like, you know.

Led Black (12:09)
Bye.

Octavio Blanco (12:17)
in a month.

Marco Shalma (12:24)
leave before it dies. You know what mean? Right now, we're gonna live and everybody's gonna speak about the Aptan 9 market for the next three to four years and every time they're gonna remember the party on 12th Avenue, it's gonna be such a sweet memory. And on to the next thing, you know, we're not abandoning in Harlem and Uptown we're here, we're not going nowhere. We're just gonna bring the next thing and the next thing that's gonna...

and lead New York City in innovation, in focus, in aesthetic, in everything like that. Because once we did that, we cracked the code on this kind of type of things. Now it's time to kind of lead the rest of the city, the state, and the country with the next adventure. And you know.

Octavio Blanco (13:06)
And you didn't

Led Black (13:07)
Love that.

Octavio Blanco (13:07)
just...

You didn't just crack the code. mean, I think that one of the things that's so cool, you bring life. You don't bring life. That's not the right thing. You're the proof of life to folks that don't believe that there is life, that there's like commerce, that there is a thirst for this type of event in our communities. Remember, this is the vision of what most of the world thinks of that place underneath of the

Marco Shalma (13:32)
Exactly.

Octavio Blanco (13:36)
of the bridge where you do your uptown night market is from bonfire or the vanities. That's where they got lost and there was like the barrels burning and people are still stuck on that image of uptown, but uptown is vibrant.

Marco Shalma (13:42)
Yep.

Led Black (13:49)
and Octavia,

but it's also in the movie Juice, that's where Tupac, the end of Juice, that's where Tupac gets killed, so yeah.

Octavio Blanco (13:53)
True, true.

Marco Shalma (13:53)
Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (13:58)
Right,

Marco Shalma (13:58)
Yeah,

yep, yep.

Octavio Blanco (13:58)
so there's this vision about this uptown that's like...

Grimy and yeah, yeah, there's griminess and all that good stuff. But but there's life here and you Had the guts to say to the market I'm here bring your dollars bring your bodies bring your soul bring your appetite and come in and come and join us So I trust that you're not going anywhere, but I really really want to know what's next uptown and for the fact the fact of the matter is One of the things about uptown in Manhattan in general is that we have a space here

So like, where do you find the kind of spaces and the kind of places where you can have the kind of vision and bring that vision to life? Because you are a visionary.

Marco Shalma (14:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. First of all, I appreciate that.

Everything you say is correct because it takes me back to the beginning doing this scene in the Bronx. And one of the reasons we started that in the Bronx almost like a decade ago was because two things. One.

Small businesses from uptown, Harlem and the Bronx would not be accepted to the Queens Night Market and to Schmorgersburg and to the other thing. know, there's been like such an hierarchy over there and look down on our people when they do stuff. Two, people would not come from those areas to celebrate anything with us because we are, you know, we're not bougie or stuff like that. We created the Bronx Night Market and then we went with that and we were able to, one, to get a lot of local people to start small businesses.

Led Black (15:04)
Good point.

Marco Shalma (15:24)
You

know, I mean I'm talking about stories that I can tell you like for hours about people that saw us and then went and bought a George Foreman grill and came in and worked and then couple years later like you know, like they have like a restaurant or multiple restaurants or sold stuff or sell stuff in Whole Foods, but also you the idea of like they were able to be accepted now all the vendors again and accepted to smorgasbord and Queensland market and this with this why because like the lender there's no difference, know, they they they kind of

learned for a while there, know, led and it felt a little bit like that because we were like almost like the jumping, you know, the jumping starting point for a lot of vendors. They will come. They will start with us on a low level. We will work with them for two years or something. And then they will go into like other markets, you know, which for me was like my team would kind of get upset. And I'm like, what are you talking about? This is your this is our purpose. This is what we do. If if if God put us over here to help to be a

Led Black (16:19)
Yeah, right.

Marco Shalma (16:24)
stepping stone to businesses and that's the role that we're to do because like this communities were not allowed our community were not allowed down there to do the business were not accepted over there and then there's the element that was in the Bronx and then we went to Harlem and it continued like that but then it was something different now that was it was like bringing the rest of New York City to Harlem into nowhere land you know 12 Avenue because you know anybody that shows up in 12 Avenue on a second

Led Black (16:32)
Right.

Octavio Blanco (16:46)
Thanks.

Led Black (16:48)
Right.

Octavio Blanco (16:49)
Yeah.

Marco Shalma (16:54)
of the month. It's not there for the businesses or the restaurant, it's there for us. And we came by the thousand and the thousand everywhere from Brooklyn, from Long Island, from Jersey, from Yonkers. They come over there and they celebrate with us because that's the best party in the city. the second Thursday of the month.

Led Black (17:10)
Right, I agree. Yeah. Yeah,

and that's exactly it. You created the best event, the monthly event, you know, uptown for the last five years in a row. You know what mean? So it's going to be missed. And is DJ Cozy going to be involved with any of them? Because DJ Cozy used to rock that crowd. DJ Cozy was amazing.

Marco Shalma (17:25)
I called

him yesterday, I called him yesterday, I said like, listen, I got two more events before this. If you're not gonna show your ass over here, you cannot work in Harlem no more. Listen, the next two events, September 11 and then October 9th, are going to be stacked up. I'm gonna say you right now, we're also having something else a little bit. It's a little surprise. We're also coming back on October 30th for doing Halloween party at the same

Led Black (17:36)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nice.

Ooh,

Marco Shalma (17:54)
So we're gonna do like

Led Black (17:55)
nice.

Marco Shalma (17:56)
a big Thursday Halloween, October 30th Halloween party at You know under the bridge so that will be like the finale finale, you know, but it will dress it up a little bit and and that one is gonna be a little bit of a sign of what we are planning to do that this this is you know, we wrapping up on October 9th, but then October 30 be coming back and we're gonna give a little taste of what's coming and that you know, it's going it's gonna

Led Black (18:03)
BOOOOM

Marco Shalma (18:23)
It's gonna drive a lot of people crazy. You know, it's gonna be fun

Octavio Blanco (18:26)
You

Led Black (18:27)
Nice, it's not farewell, it's just, we'll be back.

Marco Shalma (18:32)
It's always will be back. know, like, you know, I like to, I like to challenge myself and my team, you know, I like to lead. I like to be, I like to innovate, you know, I think we did a good, we got a good end alone, like the night market scene, you know, we opened the door for a lot of other organizers. We opened the door for a lot of artists, whether it's like visual or musician, you know, you guys know already how many musicians started with us and how many small businesses started with us and even visual artists, you know, it's been such a long, launching pad

pad for like so so many people and it's great you know and we got it down you know I think like right now it's for us to take it to the next level of sale of guys because the game is also like you know how can we feel satisfied ourself how can we kind of do some more how can we gonna increase more visibility there's a lot of stuff happening in Uptown right now there's a whole revolution happening in Harlem anyway from Harlem to Washington Knights Uptown entire Uptown is an experience I don't want to say Renaissance because it's being used too many times and not really in a great

in the world. But you what you guys are doing, what you guys are doing in the Heights, you know, and what's coming up from Harlem, it's just making uptown the most, the coolest, the most dominant area in New York City, you know, and that's what we want to put, you know, we talking about bringing, you know, we working right now to bring uptown Oktoberfest, you know, and owning Oktoberfest in New York City because, you know, and combining 300 different businesses into

Led Black (19:46)
I agree, for sure.

Marco Shalma (20:00)
the biggest happy hour series of events throughout octoberfest We're talking about stuff like that. We're talking about stuff that's going to change the map, that's to change everything that's happening. And with good partners like the congressman and local businesses and whatnot, we'll get it done. And this is it. I don't remember going below 96 for a while. Is there anything else?

Led Black (20:23)
For real, for real, why?

Why? That didn't exist. I don't even know what that is.

Octavio Blanco (20:29)
Well, I think what's cool, yeah, you

Marco Shalma (20:29)
There's nothing there.

Octavio Blanco (20:31)
said is there's nothing there. You know what it is, is that unfortunately, New York City.

The people, there's not a lot of people that live down there, at least not a lot of people. There are a lot of rich people who are living all over the world, global community, but they're not people living there. There's not like local community the way that Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood has local community. People actually living here, people actually looking to improve their neighborhoods and do stuff that's nearby. They don't want to be going. After the pandemic, we don't want to get on a subway anymore. We want to do our stuff.

Marco Shalma (20:55)
Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (21:06)
where we live. We want to have our stuff where we live. One of the things that you were saying that really sparked my imagination was, you know, that you wanted to have a big ⁓ event and I just started imagining like the, you know, the Jacob Javits Center, you know, kind of situation. It's huge and it's vibrant and it's exciting. But one of the things that like...

I was thinking was you might be the conduit for like the next

huge Hispanic brand to hit the scene. I don't know about the folks that have gotten big names after being on your uptown night market. Tell me, what's your favorite story of like a vendor or a performer or somebody who's come into your sphere and then left it like a changed business, like hitting it with all their pistons.

you know, charging.

Marco Shalma (22:05)
Yeah, mean, there are quite a few of them that we remember. There's empanada folks that kind of went on to revolutionize the way that empanadas are being eaten, of star in his own TV, like in TV shows or Food Network and creating like this. He basically the guy who made the chopped cheese empanada and all that kind of stuff. We have a group that's African, three African brothers that did

Burger like a smash burger joint and now they own like four restaurants burger restaurant and three chicken restaurant, you know We have a Dominican lady from from the Heights did like vegan food who then go went on to I Remember she came over there the first time I swear to god this is one of the stories like you know with that with a George Foreman grill Doing chimis and then like, know later on just like I had like three restaurants, you know I mean and explaining we have people that like now in the Whole Foods, you know and I can the frozen

section in Whole Foods National, you know. And that's just like from the food kind of perspective, you know, we're talking about artists, know, like, like, it's still artists are still like that. But you know, like the idea of like bringing like some top level kind of collaboration with like

Led Black (23:06)
Yeah.

Marco Shalma (23:18)
royalty, NYC royalty, which is like Latino group that, know, the Bronx and he's from the Heights and they do it like killing it. The Afro for me, like one of the memorable moments was like, you know, late when we brought in Afrodominicano, I have never seen anybody tear it up like the way they did. That was like my favorite kind of situation that they did over there. You know, I think like for us in overall is, you know,

Led Black (23:21)
Yeah, I know who they are.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Marco Shalma (23:46)
seen over the last couple of years, people that, you know, that...

content creator, influencers that started off with like 5,000 and came working with us and now has millions of followers. I have specifically talking to two of them right now. Like I have millions of followers traveling the world because they started and they did content with us for a little bit. You know, we have a bunch of artists that has, you know, has shows in Harlem that moved over, that moved and start playing everywhere. Some of the jazz players that were starting with us on a small level kind of getting booked everywhere in Harlem. And I'm like sometimes looking and I'm like, what? You know, it's like,

Led Black (23:57)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Marco Shalma (24:20)
It's so nice. Or like somebody told me like the other day, like, you know, man, I'm sorry, I'm booked somewhere else. know, like he got booked in a place that I helped him get booked and I can't even show for me because that and I love it. Don't get me wrong. My goal is, you know, I, you know, I.

Led Black (24:21)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Marco Shalma (24:37)
I always used to say, and that's not me saying that, somebody said, like, my genius is helping other people find their genius. Somebody told me that in the beginning, some ex-girlfriend or something. She said to me, Marco, your genius is helping other people get to their genius. And I was younger and I thought, like, that's such a shitty genius to have. And then I realized...

Led Black (24:56)
Hahaha

Marco Shalma (24:58)
You know what I Because I wanted to be like this businessman genius or media genius. And then I start thinking about it. you know, and honestly, I fell in love with that because this is the biggest genius, you know, helping, helping people get and reach out their maximum or opening the door for them. If you look on to my Instagram right now, I'm starting this thing like in for a while and this is for fun. You know, it's called expedite. I'm literally giving vendors and small businesses all the secrets just here, you know, just like giving them like,

how to sell, what to sell, aesthetic, branding, all that stuff. It's just like, here, take it. So we've seen people, I have a friend of mine that I mentor right now that run markets and festivals and events and all that stuff. We have people that open studios or whatnot, restaurant, beyond that. And we created a little bit of a group. Even people that work for us in operation. We invested in

Led Black (25:53)
Mm-hmm.

Marco Shalma (25:58)
two people that work for us in order to create a company to rent out equipment to other events and stuff like that. it's it's you have to understand always and the mention that the mention is like this, you know, we hear and especially in uptown, we're here to build a big table. if the big if the table is not big enough for everybody to sit, you break the table, you build a bigger one because there's room for all of us and we all need to support each other, especially in places that is harder, you know, historically to break

through, you know, and the reason to do this, you know, because I'll tell you this, and it's my biggest motivation over the last 10 years is in the Bronx and in Harlem, create situations that up and coming business owners, up and coming artists, entrepreneurs or whatnot. Don't think that making it means that they have to leave their neighborhoods and their hometown, you know, because if you lose your best and your brightest every generation because they have no facility to kind of grow, then you never

Led Black (26:29)
Right.

Mmm.

Marco Shalma (26:58)
going to grow as a community. You lose your brand, your top people, you know? And that's... You don't want that situation because you want them to stay, you want them to develop, you want them to help innovate, you want them to hire more people, you want them to create opportunities, you want... That's what you want. So in the Bronx and in Harlem, it's always been our goal, you know, open the door, let everybody come in and help them kind of do that. Because why? Because you're creating like a bigger platform for everybody to succeed. And you know,

Led Black (27:01)
That's a good point.

Marco Shalma (27:27)
Thank God, you know, we do well. We do well because we do good.

Led Black (27:33)
I love that. Do well, do good. I love that. And I wanted to give an example of someone that kind of blew up. I saw the first at the Uptown Night Market was Harlem Seafood Soul Harlem Seafood Soul really blew up. They were on the high and the whore. They've been everywhere now. They're everywhere. And I first saw them there. Performance wise, the tap dancer Omar Edwards, I remember just watching him perform there.

Marco Shalma (27:42)
yeah.

Yeah.

Oof.

Led Black (27:57)
And I'm like, I've never seen anyone do tap like that in my life. Like I've never seen that. In a market with a-

Marco Shalma (28:01)
and in a market, in a market in...

Led Black (28:04)
Octavio, he had a band. He was doing tap and he had a backing band and he was jumping off of platforms and doing things with tap that I've never seen, right? So that's something special, man. Those are moments I'll never forget. And another thing, I say DJ Cozy, DJ Cozy is such a dope DJ because I see him basically work a crowd and he had everybody moving like, he would start with reggae and then go to old school hip hop and then go to R &B and everyone's singing and dancing.

Octavio Blanco (28:09)
I love it.

Marco Shalma (28:25)
yeah.

Bye.

Led Black (28:33)
Those were special moments, man. So thank you, Mark. I really appreciate it,

Marco Shalma (28:36)
I appreciate you. you know, everybody got to understand how important Led has been to this journey. You know, you know, every time I have some questions or I need something like that, I always kind of consult with them because, know, like who knows uptown more than Led Black, you know, mean, nobody knows uptown more than that, you know, connection or whatever. And you know what, I really appreciate that, you know, I think, you know, and this is something that I got to say, your love to uptown and your hope, your big art to like everything that's

Led Black (28:42)
thank you, brother.

Thank you, brother. Thank you.

Marco Shalma (29:06)
happening over here and supporting artists and businesses is infatuated. We see that, we love that.

Led Black (29:11)
Thank you, brother.

Marco Shalma (29:13)
with the Latin Food Fest. You one of the spaces I had to secure a secondary space in Dyckman, you know, and, you know, and we were kind of like, cause we were like on the fence, you know, cause I still want to come to Dyckman because honestly, like I have so much fun in Dyckman. is like low key. One of my favorite places in the city, just, you know, to, to work with the people to work with the people to hang out with and just like the vibe over there, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's magical. And we still want to do this event that's going to start

Led Black (29:19)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah, for real.

Marco Shalma (29:42)
from the Plaza all the way to La Marina. I'm closing, it's either this year or next year. It's happening, you But the thing is, you gave me a phone call about the Latin Film Fest. was not even, bro, whatever you need, boom.

Led Black (29:45)
Wow.

The whole thing. Dope.

Yeah, no, for real, for

real. no, we were sweet. Because we were at October 24th, I mean, September 21st, we're doing the block party. And he had that day locked already for that, you know what mean? I, ⁓ and Calypso was like, let me talk to my brother. And he, Marco was like, yo, whatever you need, let's work it out. And it worked out that we could do our thing there, but it was because of him. Cause this man always is a, he's a good brother, man, for real.

Octavio Blanco (30:12)
Wrong.

Marco Shalma (30:24)
It wouldn't, you know,

even if I started like that, it's never because you know what? At the end of the day, it's the relationship and we all see eye to eye, what you guys are doing over there with the Latin Film Fest is incredible. It's just an institution already, you know what mean? This is something fantastic, something just to look at and to learn from because here's what it is, you know, and this is why I love what you guys are doing as well because it's the standard that you are defining. It's not like, oh yeah, we're just gonna do

Led Black (30:40)
Yeah, for sure.

Marco Shalma (30:54)
something that you know, we know, and this is not a big, we know that we can get away with a lot of things out there in the Bronx. We can get away with a lot of things. And a lot of people think they can get away with that. But at end of the day, when you create standards, people show up because they want that. They want to feel elevated. Our community wants to feel appreciated, considered, elevated. know, yes, we all like a good block party. We all like a good, you know, chill zone.

Led Black (31:13)
right.

Marco Shalma (31:23)
whatnot. But the real respect is by like doing stuff that you would do downtown, uptown in that standard, you know, and you guys setting the standard. mean, I've seen what you guys do and how you do it. Anything from marketing to promotion to organization to the structure. And this is how it should be. You know what mean? We got to bring that standard, you know, because our people know how to do this and they know how to do it better than anybody. Because guess who is working downtown as the people, as the food people, you know, as our people?

Led Black (31:42)
Yeah.

Right.

This is right. Yep.

Marco Shalma (31:54)
They're all the rules like the soldiers that running around and making everything happen. bring that energy over here and into subject that matters to us, into experiences to that. We're not getting too political because it's not my thing. But I love what you guys are doing,

Led Black (32:11)
You got it brother. And let me ask you question, because it's like with the New York Latino Film Festival, I like the fact that I'm just a member of the team, right? And I'm just working, but it's a big team effort and you run a big team. what are some insights that you could give us like about what that takes, right? Because it's tough running a team. I like sometimes, know, with Uptown Collective I do everything. With NYLFF New York Latino Film Festival, I'm just the cog in the wheel. And I like that too. How is it that you manage these complex organizations? Because that's what they are.

Marco Shalma (32:40)
I will tell you what I tell everybody when they talk to me about a team. Don't have one, you know? That's the first thing. It's not, you have to be...

When you are running a team, especially when you're kind of fighting out to kind of grow, you are the psychiatrist, you are the brother, the sister, the mother, the father, the uncle, the cousin, you're the bank, you're everything. And you've got to switch personalities. You've got to switch the hats with everybody and you've got to put personalities. But this is something that we've done in the past 10 years, the idea of creating a system. What helped me succeed in my businesses

in my adventures is the fact that I do not give any discount about the way that we do things and communicate. We create structures that I hold everybody to the highest standard to in those structures. Yes, we have a large team, but we have proper meeting. First of all, you pay people right. And then you have proper meeting, you have proper communication, checks and balances for everything, responsibility and accountability. The biggest thing that I keep teaching my team is like a

accountability and responsibility. It's always your fault. Everything is my responsibility, same with everybody else. You take responsibility onto that and that's how we fix it. It's not about blaming anybody, it's about fixing things and learning from them. The idea of the main key that I always say is follow up and follow through. That's like those two. If I had to distill my entire business career into two terms, would be follow up and follow through.

how many times I heard from people is like, is like, bro, you know what, we weren't going to do something but you relentless. So that's okay. Let's,

Led Black (34:20)
Hehehehehe

Marco Shalma (34:21)
You know what mean? It's just like,

know what it is? And people say that, bigger people say that before me. It's like the difference between a successful man and a successful businessman and a not successful is that extra couple of times that that successful man tried. know, it's the same two people, just the one that succeeded tried that one extra time or two extra times, you know? So for me, it's like, it is what it is. It's like that. It's that relentless attitude. Follow up, follow through every day, man. If I send you an email,

following up on that email. I'm following up on the follow up. I'm following up on the follow up of the follow up. Why? Because of this. You see I'm serious. You'll be serious with me and my team see that, you know, I wake up at four o'clock in the morning, not because, know, like those like all those tick tock influencer wake up, drink the water. I wake up because it's my only quiet time of the day after eight o'clock in the morning. It's just email phone calls, Asana pinging all that kind of WhatsApp. You know, we have like you.

You don't even know how many communication channel we have. So between eight o'clock in the morning and eight p.m. is ⁓ I belong to them. Four o'clock to like eight o'clock is the only time that I got for me to kind of really do my work, my thinking, all that stuff. So that's why I do that. You trust me, I don't want I want to sleep till nine. You know, if I could, you know, but you build a good team that knows what they do. And it's true. You're only as good as your team. You know, my team right now can run operation almost without me at this point. This is this is the

pinnacle right now. I'm the salesperson. All I do is sell sponsorship and come up with ideas of what to do and then navigate the board when they need to, you know, and it's a lot of work, man. It's it's it's nonstop. It feels like a therapy right now.

Octavio Blanco (36:02)
Well, let me...

Led Black (36:02)
Hey, you-

Octavio Blanco (36:04)
Go ahead, Lyd. Go ahead, Lyd.

Led Black (36:05)
And

I want to say like, community, small business is so important to you, right? Like with everything you do. Why is that? Why is it like you care? Why? Because a of people don't care. Why does it matter to you?

Marco Shalma (36:16)
I care because I came to this country 20 years ago and this country welcomed me and helped me come, you know, and become a citizen. And the community around me, you know, helped me do that. And I want to give back because, you know, like after wandering different countries around the world, this is like a place where you feel like home. And when you feel like home somewhere, you want to make sure that it stays good and you can contribute back to what it is, you know. And I come from a weird background where I didn't get much opportunities.

and people like me do not get much opportunities. And he's always look at me because, you know, look at him, he's got tattoos and he's got this and he's got this one and you know, and the way he talks and he's big and it's that. And I feel like I'm always fighting for the underdogs in this world, you know. So I'll hire the people that like the underdog, you know, with a good heart and a good intention and I'll teach them how to do whatever it is, you know. And it works with the community sense, you know what mean? Listen, I wish I could do more, you know,

I'm on four different boards, helping with the community and different things, from art to know, for youth, know, helping youth kind of with the financials and different kind of organizations.

But the key is for me what I learned is to teach, help people succeed with the money situation. Help people kind of create those opportunities for them. Help people get to that place where like we said before, when they can create a viable business, then they can kind of support themselves and then bring other people to the mix, now you've succeeded doing something. And the community is rich, you know what mean? Listen, there's...

Like anywhere else, sometimes there's a lot of bullshit in the community. We're not gonna lie to you about that one, you know what I Because like sometimes in communities, especially like ours in the Bronx and uptown, it's a lot of opinions, you know? A lot of opinions.

But you navigate through that because for me the focus is never about ego, never about bullshit. It's always about getting the job done. know what mean? we focus in, know, like, God damn it, you know, like I've had people that hate me along the way. I've had people that love me along the way. I don't, you know, those who hate me, they don't, you know, they don't bother me. Those who love me, they don't sway me. You know, at the end of the day, I'm just focusing on taking care of my small community, which is my business and my bigger community, which is the grand.

Where I live, you know, and that's focused like that So, you know, I don't sway either way like that and then and then my team does the same, know, they follow suit, man

Led Black (38:46)
That's awesome.

Octavio Blanco (38:47)
So Marco, you you talked about a little bit about your background, but tell us, I know, I want to know who Marco is. I know Marco the businessman. He's awesome. I love Marco the businessman, but I want to know where did that come from? You say you came here 24 years ago. Where were you before? what is your background like?

Marco Shalma (39:08)
You know, I come from a diverse background. have a Moroccan Jewish mom and an Italian dad, traveled around the world, been a lot of places. I spent a lot of time in Africa, in Europe, South America. For me, the real growth in my life is being when I settled in in New York City. I remember I came into New York and I was in Brooklyn for a couple of weeks and then I came to Harlem. My first apartment was in St. Nicholas.

this 136 in Saint Nick over there. know, talk about cultural shock. I didn't know what's going on over there. You know, I came over there, you know, like I remember, I never forget it. I took the train up over there. It was a Sunday evening and there was like dining room tables outside on the sidewalk. And people were having like, you know, eating. was in the summer. And I'm like, I've never seen anything like that. You know what mean? But it feels like so nice and easy, you know, and it felt like, you know, there was, it was loud, you know, kind of like remind me of like my,

Led Black (39:44)
Yeah.

Marco Shalma (40:08)
you know, Middle Eastern, Moroccan, and North African family, and he was just kind of laughing and whatnot. But at end of the day, you know, I traveled the world for a long time. I did a lot of stuff, you know, but never felt like I could sit down for too long. And New York made me like say like, listen, it's great. This massive city will humble you right away and it will put you to work. know, and it took me a few minutes as well to kind of get my bearings. You know, you got to learn the language better. You got to understand the customs. You understand the people.

people,

you understand everything.

And then slowly you do that, know, hard work, man, focus. You know, at the end of the day, like as an immigrant, like other, this is why I'm so connected to my immigrant demographic and community because it's like, you know, I know what it's like to come over here and start from nothing, you know, like working seven days a week for like $300 a week, you know, like that. And somebody is taking advantage of you in the beginning, no doubt about that, you know what mean? But then you make choices, you focus on some stuff and then you create opportunities.

So that's why I'm always going to support somebody who wants to take their future in their hands and open opportunity no matter how much you know Even in the hustle. It's kind of funny like you know when we talk about hustle We have you know we have this all like in uptown. It's all over the city, we have the nutcrackers, right? You know this is a thing that's happening. You know it's it's it's like so they come and

Led Black (41:27)
Yeah, yeah.

Marco Shalma (41:33)
to the night markets anywhere. And they sell their stuff. Now they don't understand that they risk our permit because the city basically doesn't want that kind of happen. basically, they being there saying that alcohol risks our permit, and more time than I can count, we have people getting sick of that cheap alcohol and ending up going on an ambulance. So it's a bad look for us, it's liability for the insurance and all that stuff. But at the same time, come on, I appreciate the hustle.

Like, know,

Led Black (42:01)
Right, yeah.

Marco Shalma (42:02)
somebody wakes up in middle of the night, go to his bathtub, fill it up with some grain alcohol and like this and start getting his own label and stickers. You know what mean? You gotta appreciate the hustle. know, the hustle.

Led Black (42:11)
Right, You can't knock the hustle.

Marco Shalma (42:17)
The hospital

and me appreciate that. The business owner and me say, on, man. And they always come to me lovingly because even when I kick them out and I chase them out, they never get mad because they understand that I'm just doing what it is to protect my business and my community. I'm like, yeah, man, listen, I appreciate the hustle Just be outside the line over here. I don't want 100 people to lose the opportunity to make money because the city doesn't have good understanding of how to

Led Black (42:33)
Right.

Marco Shalma (42:45)
deal with y'all, you know what mean? But you gotta respect the huckle, man.

Led Black (42:47)
Right, right, right, for sure. For sure.

Octavio Blanco (42:52)
So Marco, I'm gonna come back to the fact that we want the Uptown Night Market back. We don't want it to go away. So what if somebody, let's say somebody, a listener, business person comes up to you and says, Marco, I'm gonna license your Uptown Market. I'll license you, you tell me the plan. You can have oversight and I'll do it.

and I'll pay you for that. Is that a business that you'd be interested in?

Marco Shalma (43:26)
You know, the...

The ego of me says like, well, you can license the business, but you can't license the vibe that I brought over there. That's the ego in me. And the business man is saying, where do you go to license? There's nothing over there proprietary because it's just like something, you just do what other people do with maybe slightly better or understand a little bit like, know, like element. I think it's like, you know, it's like, it's not even about that. If somebody comes out and says, your money, I'll give you the tips on how to do it yourself and do it, you know? You know how many times people come

to me and they don't believe like they asked me like how did you get the permit of you I said like well I'm in the middle of the event I can't talk to you but if you hit me up I'll let you know exactly I don't care you know like I love competition you know I tell this to my vendors all the time you know if they think sometimes they say to me like you know and I'm giving an example they say to me like well I won't there's another vendor selling the same thing over here and I remind you there's like 70 80 vendors the other one is like is like two city blocks away you know I said like listen if you really that worried about it

in the wrong business because you're not selling even if he's selling empanadas and I'm selling empanadas I'm not really selling empanadas I'm selling the experience of Marco's empanadas you know I mean and he doesn't have that he has his own thing like that so you know so when somebody is like I'm willing to give people and now we've given people the opportunity there's a lady in the Bronx you know that she came to us and she learned and we taught her everything we know and kind of really helped her I even made the sign for her she opened her own the Bronx vegan bazaar right you know that

girl Dominican lady right and I made the sign we did the graphic we both the sign and pay for it we helped to set up the first time we got the banners we got the step in the whole thing we helped that I do that there and then we send the old flock on a way like that now people don't understand that it's like

What are you doing? You just like creating a competition and say like it's not you know She won't do her own thing and she's going I hope she does well It's my job to do my own thing and find a way to innovate to be effective to be great to support you have customer service to be marketing It's my job. It's my business to do that. That's why it's like you know Anybody who comes to me said that you're I want to license that I tell them you're a fool man. You can get it for free you know But but can you really?

Led Black (45:40)
Yeah

Marco Shalma (45:43)
do it, you know what I That's the thing.

Octavio Blanco (45:43)
Can you do it? Yeah.

Led Black (45:43)
do it.

And what I want to ask too is how did you come up with the idea of night markets? Like how do you say this is how I'm going to change the game? Like how did that come about?

Marco Shalma (45:56)
man, gotta tell you that. You're getting me good right now, because I'm gonna give some story that people don't even know. You know that I've never been in a food festival until I ran a food festival for three years. Only on the third year I went first time to other food festivals. After three years. I've never been before, but I had a vision of what that can look like and what it needs to look like. The only thing that I knew for myself is like some aesthetic and how to make noise. You know, we know how to do noise.

marketing, stuff like that. And we learned everything the hard way. If I can tell you the amount of mistakes that I did, because my stupid ass did not just go and do a proper research where it could have done, you know? But like, I can't even imagine. Sometimes I think back and I say like, God damn it, you know, like you're really not about the money, bro, you know, because if you wanted to. But it was intuitive, you know, and it came from a different place. It came from a place like...

I want to tell you that we're the first one who blew up certain kind of style of marketing and social media and then everybody started copying us. We're the first one who started applying the idea of creating group chats, multiple group chats to promote and stuff like that and then people came and used that thing. We started, so many things we've done ahead of people just because we tried so many things and for me it's always try, always try. Sometimes my team will tell me like, god damn it man, we changing direction.

And I'm like, you know, listen, churches, I'm fluid. I'm like water. When the fact changed, I changed my mind. I don't care. And this is the thing, if you ask me about the team, and I'm a little bit all over the place, but...

What I, the best accomplishment I was able to teach my team to be, not to be rigid, to be flexible, to change it. We literally had, we launched an event and killed it in the same 24 hours and then brought it back again, like completely revised like that because we figured out after launch, it was a mistake, you know? So it's that flexibility that we created. You know, that's what really like, I think is the biggest accomplishment today, but you know, but

When I saw and I wanted the vision was to create a place where people can feel comfortable, you know, no matter who you are, no matter where you're from, and especially uptown, you know, especially in the Bronx. We wanted to create an environment that it was like, it feels so authentically us.

It's a little elevated when it comes to like the standard of operation and the branding, but still approachable that is going to feel. When people ask me, what is this event? I'm saying like, we, just a slightly more aesthetic block party, you know, and organized, you know, and, and, and sometimes I have a team member, she's fantastic. She's a producer for us. And she's like, man, they don't, they don't realize, you know, when he comes, when he gets busy.

Led Black (48:42)
Right.

Marco Shalma (48:55)
They don't realize how much hard work goes into making that. I said, this is how you know we are successful because we make it look so easy. People sometimes come in and think, what is this? I can just bring a bunch of tents and organize that thing and it's going to be the same. It's not.

Led Black (49:06)
Bye.

Mmm,

it's not.

Marco Shalma (49:13)
It's not.

We make it look easy because there's systems. We have spreadsheets and we have a project management tool and we have group chat and we have multiple meetings every day and we have SOPs and we have database and we follow up with people.

emails and emails and then DM and then text messages and then get them on a phone call and then you know and so you there's so many processes to make something feel seamless that that's the biggest compliment when they come over and they feel like everything is just like it's so easy I could have done it myself first of all no you cannot you know no you know no but and two thank you you know I mean because that's that's a testament the fact that like it feels seamless in the back you know

Led Black (49:53)
No, ⁓ you can't.

Marco Shalma (50:04)
I said it the other day, being a small business owner, half of it ⁓ is coming up with solution on the minute because everything goes wrong. this is half of the gig is really just fixing trouble as they go because everything breaks down. And the other half is acting like it was all planned all the time. ⁓

Octavio Blanco (50:21)
hahahaha

Led Black (50:21)
Hahaha!

Marco Shalma (50:22)
That's really like, you know, that's the suit side of the entrepreneur. That's it, you know.

Octavio Blanco (50:27)
I mean, look, when you were telling us about the first one that got not just rained out, but flooded and canceled, tell me, I want to hear that story. Like, you must have been shitting bricks. You must have been so, I mean, crestfallen. Like, that must have been like a horrible thing. But you said, fuck it, I'm going to keep doing it. I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to, I'm going to come back.

I want to hear like what was going on, like what was the story, what's the story behind that? Because I don't know if many people would have been able to survive that have happened. So tell me, give us a little bit more of the play by play of that, of that one.

Marco Shalma (51:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I'll tell you this, you know, it just remind me, I'll swing back and I'll come around.

There are two moments in my after career that made me, I would say like kind of like a little legend, right? The first one was opening date. It was July, July 8th, you know, and we, that was like the first time we did, we prepared for that for three months. We opened, we refused to shut down, even when it was like, ⁓ warning like warding up, blah, blah, blah. You know, there's going to be like some rain and all that kind of stuff. We got there, we set up.

Led Black (51:19)
Yeah

Marco Shalma (51:47)
All the things we just set up we put up the big stage everything around and then it just opened up and we were at that time we were still thinking about doing the up the hill over there, know from 135 to 138 and it opened up so badly and SCP the pipes the sewerage got

Led Black (51:54)
God.

Marco Shalma (52:05)
Stuck immediately the water came up all the way to my knees. I got a picture I'll show you my knee now tents are caving in falling down breaking down because of the heavy water and it felt like that was the remember that big big flood that's just kind of completely annihilated in New York a couple years ago like 2020 2020 or something it

We knew right away, ⁓ shit, that's it. You because we thought maybe it's gonna pass or one night it's not gonna be so bad. it was bad. Water came up and I said it makes me a legend is because...

The only everybody I'm looking at all everybody my team is hiding, you know, from the rain vendors are moving to the side hiding under the only tents that are still a bit like, you know, not broken down. water is gushing everywhere? What up to my knee? And I remember like this, the only thing that went in my mind, my Marco all eyes on you. You're walking up and down the middle so they can see you and you look at them in the eyes and let them know, don't worry. Well, everything's going to be okay. And I walked up.

and down, you know, they're all up and down to 138 from 135, like multiple times. And I'm looking and I'm, and I feel people's eyes burning through me, you know, and you know, everybody's looking at you just laser beam. And I'm like standing tall. And I, know, like

It's okay, we'll get them next time. Yo, that moment made me a legend because I kept hearing, till today I keep hearing about that time when vendors, my vendors come to me and says that you did not hide, not only you did not hide, you walked in there so we can see and that immediately kind of puts us in a different situation. That was the first moment made me Second moment is the night where Led and I did that.

Led Black (53:47)
Mmm.

Marco Shalma (53:54)
You know, the Latin Food Fest, Latin Night Market in Dykma, the first one. And I walked over them and all the beautiful Dominican ladies of Washington Heights looking at me. And I go down from the stage and I'm there. That's the second day, it me a legend,

Led Black (53:57)
Mm.

Hehehehe... Hehehehe...

That's hilarious.

Marco Shalma (54:10)
Those are the

moments, like, you know, that moment, like, you know, getting off the stage over there and walking through the space back to the other side to the thing. And literally, like, everybody's stopping me over there and talking and thank you for bringing it and whatnot. And, know, everybody rolling their eyes at me and stuff. mean, like, felt like those are the two. So it's completely different scenarios. But at the end of the day, it's just like made me feel good about like, hey, you know what? You you're in the right place and the right time doing the right thing. So you're good.

Led Black (54:41)
And it's funny, because that very first one on Dyckman, it was very ambitious too. Like it was, you you went from Quisqueya Plaza almost to La Marina. You had the two stages. It was pretty amazing, you know. At 10,000 people or something came out that night.

Marco Shalma (54:50)
Yeah.

yeah,

was insane. 10,000 people, two stages, we took three streets. That was the first time when I did a, you know, the city called me to do like a walkthrough and I showed up to the walkthrough and it was like 30 different people from like at least 20 agencies. I'm like, God damn it, what did I put myself into? You know, and you know, I've never ran into so many or not because you know, like, because literally everybody showed up and there was a lot of challenges, but you know, everybody was like emanate, you know, and like, the congressman was like,

really supportive of that to kind of make it happen you know so and and the DOT commission Adonis was you know they were everybody was like really super supportive of like making it happen they were you know everybody's just concerned you know but in the end of the day they see our events you know is like it's it's family it's it's friend it's food it's chill nobody comes over there to look for trouble

knock on wood five years, we never had any problem, any complaint, any situation, and we're gonna keep it like that because.

We send a different message. We send a message of togetherness, of support, of respect. Because this is I you, it's not like we coming over here and bringing some downtime bullshit into like uptown. We're doing something that is like to the core, something that belongs, something that is respectful for the community and help them kind of this. Remember, sometimes you work with people to connect with what they think they are in the experience.

Led Black (55:57)
Yeah.

Marco Shalma (56:23)
I think this is what happened in Uptown Night Market because we all feel that we are that, know, the center of the party or in the universe or whatnot. And we did that. So it's kind of connected to that, to the community, because this is how we see ourselves. We see ourselves as the best party in New York City. And that's what we did. So that ⁓ cognitive situation where we combine between how we see ourselves to how we are.

Led Black (56:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Marco Shalma (56:51)
That's that little sweet spot you know?

Led Black (56:53)
Yeah, and I could definitely attest

to that. I've never gone to Uptown Night Market and have any even semblance of beef or nonsense or you... And was all of Harlem, all of Uptown. Everyone was there and there was no problems. so let's go... let's right now, just to recap, there's only two left of the Uptown Night Market, right? 9-Eleven and 10-Nine, correct? And then the special 9-30 Halloween thing.

Marco Shalma (57:19)
I gave you the scoop right over here. You're the first one hearing that. Not even the vendors know about it right now because we started the process right now with this. We wanted to do something like that. I've been having, you know what I had? had a vision for a long time. You're going to laugh, but you know I'm crazy like that. I have a vision of creating a series that's called The Night Before The Night. And the whole thing is The Night Before The Night. What's the best night of

Led Black (57:22)
We got the scoop. We got the scoop.

Nice.

Marco Shalma (57:48)
the

year to go out, the night before Thanksgiving. And I always get drunk the night before my birthday. I don't even get to my birthday because I'm dead. The night before Christmas, the night before Halloween. So I always find a way that I always get a little bit more party fun the night before the big event comes over there. So I'm always in my mind, I want to call it the night before the night and just run with it. All those big nights in the year that we're to have in the calendar, we're to do one day before that day. ⁓

Led Black (58:16)
hilarious

I like that

Octavio Blanco (58:16)
I love it,

I love it, I love it, yo.

Marco, that is like, you're a genius. got that, bringing that to life is wonderful. And it's amazing to hear you talk about, well, first of all, I think the authenticity of what you bring, I think is clear. Yes, it's elevated, but it's authentic to what our highest ambitions are, to what our ideals are. So that's good. It's elevated, but it's authentic. And the other thing that I think is so wonderful that you bring to,

Marco Shalma (58:26)
Appreciate you. Thank you.

Yeah,

Octavio Blanco (58:47)
really tough for communities with short resources is this idea of abundance, of collaboration, competition, but not like, don't be crazy, like there's another empanada person two blocks away, that's just another business deal with it. ⁓ how, that to me seems like kind of like the biggest challenge in our communities is to...

Marco Shalma (58:56)
Yeah.

we have.

Octavio Blanco (59:16)
look at things from the view of abundance and not looking at things like crabs in a bucket, right? Everybody talks about crabs in a bucket. We are accused of being crabs in a bucket in the Latinos because it's competitive. It's a zero sum game. If you get something, I'm not getting something. But that's not what you're bringing to the table. So where does that come from? How do turn people's minds that way?

Marco Shalma (59:46)
You know, it's a great question. know, I think like for me it was always, you know...

my disadvantages growing up, know, being categorized, you know, on the wrong side of the town, you know, and being always looked at because, you know, overlooked in different scenarios in high school, school, whatever that army, because where you come from, not because of merit or what you are, kind of get me into like the place where later on I came in on a defensive mode, you know, and I think like one point I learned it like, you know, I don't care anymore.

I am going to focus only on stuff that matters. So when you're talking about that situation, I agree with you. There is an element. you can't fight against it in a way because people are reacting to.

their experience, right? People are reacting to their experience, what they bring for more. But the idea is, it is important to show and to showcase that like, hey, listen, we don't have to think like that. We can just focus on growth. We can focus on accomplishment. We can focus on like, you know, we can challenge ourselves, you know, and this is what I'm showing throughout this process and like talking to you guys is, is challenging myself. And I'm only

in competition with me from yesterday. You know, and that's kind of like something like that, you know, and listen, I deal with so many personality, God damn it, you know, like we deal with a lot of personalities and I'm telling you something like one day I'm the hero and the other day I'm the villain, you know, it's just kind of that, you know, but the end of the day is like, you know, I can look at the other guy and say like, hey, listen, you know, they're doing better than me on that one, you know, and what am I doing? You know, I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have. Am I doing the best I can in the resources that

I

have you know because if I am doing the best I can with the resources I have then I'm doing a great freaking job You know I mean and that's it you know that's the thing and all I all you got to remember and everybody that I talked to like people that I mentor and whatnot is this Your your war is against yourself your battle is against you from yesterday You got to be better than that guy from you from yesterday, and that's how you do because it doesn't matter and I told you before you know it's like

You know what your unique sauce for you know what your advantages. Yes, we not like downtown, you know, because they got more money to do like branded tents and this and this. No, but we got the heart. So we're going to fall hard on the heart aspect of that, you know, and we we changed food festivals in New York City with the level of focus on the culture and the aesthetic. You know, that was our angle. and listen to this. When I started, you know, we do we could not get any sponsors.

to come to the Bronx and Harlem Now we get more sponsors than downtown. You know why? Because we showed what we bring in consistently.

Led Black (1:02:35)
Bye.

Marco Shalma (1:02:35)
So it's not

about that. It's about what's your focus should be on what you're strong at, and what you're committed to. We knew the authenticity. We knew to having a crowd, supporting the crowd in the best way possible, and bringing them out there to celebrate. We also knew that, listen, our demographic, when you talk about POCs, uptown is the

is the one that likes to enjoy themselves the most authentic. I go sometimes now to events like downtown or Brooklyn or whatever like that. I feel like I'm in a funeral or something like that. You don't get that vibe over don't get that stuck up vibe over here. For good or better. I get somebody come to me and say, hey man, you fucked up last time. Or I get something like, man, I love you, you guys are doing that. It's authentic. You learn from each one of them. So for me, it's like everybody, and we say,

Led Black (1:03:06)
It's fake.

Octavio Blanco (1:03:06)
You

Marco Shalma (1:03:25)
Focus on you. Focus on what you can do. That's the best you can do is focus on what you can do, what you can do better and how you can do better from now on. Because when I started, we didn't have any resources, man. Like nothing. And now we can brand, we buy like this, like flags and all these accessories to make it nice and pretty. We didn't have that money in the beginning. It doesn't make us better now. It's just now we can afford that. But before we made up for that by attitude, by favor.

by getting different music, by hosting. Man, I was like, I've been walking around in those events, like, know, like what you call kissing babies and, you know, like taking pictures and kissing babies with everybody, you know? Like, see me in the event, I'm not standing outside, I'm up and down. I'm up and down, smiling to the vendors, talking to people, checking on them, you know? That's what we do.

Led Black (1:04:06)
Yeah.

Bye.

Octavio Blanco (1:04:19)
Yeah.

Led Black (1:04:20)
So Marco, September 13th and 14th, right, Latin Food Fest, when can we buy tickets? Are they on sale now? What's going on?

Marco Shalma (1:04:23)
Oof. Ayy.

Tickets are on sale on latinfoodfest.com. The latinfoodfest.com we have anything from like $15 to like VIP tickets, know, which is like all included, like at $75. I would recommend anybody who is watching this check the Instagram. We come up with flash sales. Like last week we had $5 sale tickets, know, all tickets like that. We also, I I'm gonna bless you with another thing that we're about to hit with like

One of our sponsors paid for 500 tickets, so we're about to hit with some free tickets, you know? yeah, of the sponsors. Latin Foodfest USA.

Led Black (1:05:05)
What? What's the Instagram? What Instagram are we looking at?

La Foufeste, USA, perfect.

Marco Shalma (1:05:13)
You

know, I have to get to USA because Miami, Philly, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Chicago.

Led Black (1:05:18)
Yeah, it's national, it's national.

And then maybe global, we might bring it to DR, right? You never know.

Octavio Blanco (1:05:22)
Yeah.

Marco Shalma (1:05:24)
We

had an opportunity last year to kind of take something to Puerto Rico, you know, and this lady is fantastic. She came from Puerto Rico over here. She flew over because she saw us and she was like talking to me, you know, and she was like DMing. And I said to her, listen, if you're around, come over here. I'll show you some stuff. She came over, she flew over, serious, like a heart attack and worked with me for like a month. And we showed her everything, but we showed her like the paperwork. she said like, well, come and do this over there. I said, listen, I'm a

support you, you know, I'm gonna give you advice, but here you go, you go do your own thing. Do your own thing, you know, like I don't need more. I'm happy, I'm content, you you do your own thing, you know, and she's doing her own thing over there and she like calls me and like thank you and what do you think, what should I do this and this, you know, but DR sounds good, you know.

Led Black (1:05:58)
He's the blueprint, he's the blueprint. That's awesome.

Octavio Blanco (1:06:13)
And Marco Marco Marco and I've been looking at your IG Where you're giving advice to people and their stands and their and their little stores. What's that? IG? What's what's what's that special? IG?

Led Black (1:06:13)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Marco, so definitely...

Marco Shalma (1:06:28)
That's my Marco Shalma Instagram, you know, that like, for, I get it.

Ask all the time, know from vendors from patreon from sponsor all these questions, you know about any small businesses You know, and I told you like I work with a group of young folks, know through a not-for-profit that we advise them You know, especially like a group of like young, know, it's a it's a not-for-profit that supports like folk You know teens of color from uptown and and the only thing that I really like about it is about financial responsibility You know, it teaches them how to use money and how to make money how to invest money how to like what to

think about money. And you know, I come into that perspective over there and I want to help with that. You know, because that's what's important to me as well. Like, you know, like because that's financial, that's financial, that's generational wealth. That's like a start. So this IG at one point I kind of broke in about a couple months ago. You know, one of my assistants, she kind of helped me. said, let's do that. Because every time I talk and I come out with those nuggets and somebody asks me something and they're here and I come out and I say, yo,

you should, I'm like, fine. So the first two months I made video and I, that shit is cringe, man. I look at myself and I want to die. you know, and then now I'm just comfortable with that. And people ask me questions and stuff like that. said, okay, I'll make a video. So we make a video and it's just small little nuggets. Like, know, do this, do that. And then we give it away. We give it away a few, like, you know, we, I created this spreadsheet with basically like how to do a budget, how to do food costs how to do like,

Led Black (1:07:53)
Yeah.

Marco Shalma (1:08:03)
certain analysis that people can use. Because I used to do that in my business, a brick and mortar in my restaurant back in the day. And I realized that people don't know how to do that. So like there's a lot of tools that we that I have, just give them, let people work, let people learn because just because you got an IG.

you know, and call yourself CEO in the bio, it don't mean you got a business. You know what mean? Like you need to know some of our folks over here need to understand, we talk, you need to understand the metrics of it. You understand your point of investment. You need to understand your food costs. You need to understand your regular, your cogs. You need to understand a lot of terms, you know, and it's not just like those terms because of like, know, like whatever you need to know, because I see so many, like the

Led Black (1:08:25)
Right.

Marco Shalma (1:08:48)
Statistics is against you. know like 90 % of small businesses close within the first three years. Statistics is against you. The best way to do it is like learn those things and this has always been my passion. You supporting small businesses because you know what? I had a lot of help when I started from different sources and I think like this is my turn to give back so that's what it is. know giving back a little bit in an unfiltered way. You I ain't gonna change who I am. know baseball cap, chains,

tattoos, swearing a lot, you know? But you know what? People look beyond that now and people understand the value and the merit behind that and people listen. And people also like to listen to somebody who's successful that look like them, you know?

Octavio Blanco (1:09:20)
Ha ha ha ha.

Led Black (1:09:21)
But

Right, that's doing it, right? And you're dropping wisdom. There's things you can really learn like actionable intelligence, man. So that's really dope.

Marco Shalma (1:09:40)
It's a blueprint. It's like real life experience. It's like this is how we made it, you know?

Octavio Blanco (1:09:44)
There's a

lot of talkers out there that never done anything, but you're actually a doer.

Marco Shalma (1:09:49)
You know, it's again, it's a lot of trial and error. I wish I would take some credit to myself, but I'm telling you, I'm dumb as nails, I've made every mistake, because I'm stubborn. I've done every mistake in the book. And by the grace of God, I didn't fall on my face like a million times. Just because I'm a stubborn, I'm a donkey, right? But.

Led Black (1:10:01)
Yeah.

Marco Shalma (1:10:13)
People don't have to be like that. That's the thing. If I go back 10, 15 years, man, I would change a lot of things. But then again, I wouldn't have the uptown night market for instance, because people don't do that. You know the uptown night market? Led, three years I was chasing. The guy was the director for the WHDC before Ziad. ⁓

Led Black (1:10:37)
Mm-hmm.

Marco Shalma (1:10:37)
I harassed him on the phone for three years and he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Ziad came and I came, you know, and I was like, fuck it, let me try again. And I'm like, you know, I told you follow up and follow through. I'm gonna email again. I wanna email again. I'm gonna call. I'm gonna email. Eventually like Ziad came into the job, that thing, you know, and it clicked three years later, you know, no, no, no, no, no, three years. No, no, no, no, no, one yes. Let's go do it in three months. We opened that thing, you know.

Led Black (1:10:58)
Wow.

Amazing, amazing.

Marco Shalma (1:11:07)
It's, but it's that. Be persistent, push forward, believe in what you do. And when the opportunity come, just jump on it, you know?

Led Black (1:11:17)
Love that. There's no better way to end it. That's perfect. That's perfect, brother. So thank you so much. I'm going to be at the Latin Food Fest. Octavio, you're going. We popping up and pulling up. Any last words to the audience, brother?

Octavio Blanco (1:11:17)
inspirational.

We're we're going, we're pulling up.

Marco Shalma (1:11:30)
man, I just want to say I appreciate it. You guys, thank you for inviting me. Always fun to have a conversation. You guys keep doing what you're doing. Keep sending that love to Uptown because...

Led Black (1:11:34)
Thank you, thank you.

Marco Shalma (1:11:41)
It's uptown is the next face of New York City. This is is where it's at. mean, you know it. I know it. This is everything changed. Downtown. Downtown is Disneyland. Authenticity in New York City is only uptown. It's above 110th Street and you can see that thing to yourself, you know, and this is what this is what we love about this, you know, and keep doing what you're doing, man, and I appreciate it. And make sure you bring everybody.

Led Black (1:11:46)
Thanks.

Likewise, brother, thank you so