Shop brings hip-hop experience to Valley.ROBERT Meraz sells Los Angeles' hip-hop subculture subculture /sub·cul·ture/ (sub´kul-chur) a culture of bacteria derived from another culture. sub·cul·ture n. to consumers in the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. from his shop called The Basement in Sherman Oaks. To be more specific, Meraz sells CDs, records, clothes and occasionally hosts in-store performances. While admitting that selling CDs and vinyl records is not very profitable these days due to illegal downloading, he says his business has been able to stay ofloat because of its apparel sales. He pays $1,998 per month in rent for an 850-square-foot space off Ventura Boulevard Ventura Boulevard is one of the primary east-west thouroughfares in the San Fernando Valley; as it was originally a part of the El Camino Real (the trail between Spanish missions), Ventura Boulevard is the oldest route in the San Fernando Valley. It was also U.S. . "I was a teacher and a bartender before I quit both jobs. I was convinced that I would be offered a job at Interscope Records or that l would start a hip-hop magazine. Neither of those things happened. "At one point, a friend wanted me to partner with him and open a smoke shop on Venice Beach. I thought about it, and thought "I am a DJ, I can sell tapes.' Then, I started thinking that I can sell my friend's mix tapes, and tapes of hip-hop artists like Living Legends The Living Legends crew is a group of eight West Coast hip hop artists. Although their roots lie in Los Angeles and Oakland, the Legends also have fans worldwide. Background . And so, I decided to open a record shop. My partner and I started to look at locations in the Valley and we opened The Basement in May 2000. "We decided that we were going to be missionaries and take time telling people about what hip-hop culture is all about. The Basement earned its good reputation because we welcomed kids who walked in, sat them down and told them stories about the seminal seminal /sem·i·nal/ (sem´i-n'l) pertaining to semen or to a seed. sem·i·nal adj. Of, relating to, containing, or conveying semen or seed. hiphop groups. We changed locations once, as we got kicked out from the first location because there was too much graffiti graffiti Form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group. Technically the term applies to designs scratched through a layer of paint or plaster, but its meaning has been extended to other markings. . So, we opened the record store on a side street. "While business at the store isn't going too well music-wise, vertical integration is helping us stay afloat. The markup (text) markup - In computerised document preparation, a method of adding information to the text indicating the logical components of a document, or instructions for layout of the text on the page or other information which can be interpreted by some automatic system. on vinyl is ridiculously low, so the way we're able to hang in is to host two big hip-hop shows per year, which bring in money, and have a distribution company that sells CDs to 100 mom-and-pop music stores. "Overall, the biggest thing we have is the sexiness and allure of a record shop. But, thank God there is a lot of clothes the markup on them helps us out a lot." |
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