So I was interviewed by Kizzy over at The Random Alignment of Life and when I tell you she totally nailed this interview...she did. It's a good one and you should read it!
It had been seven days since an unrelenting tornado, walked down a highway in St. Louis, MO destroying homes, families’ lives and businesses, when a ray of inspiration was smuggled into the city by way of train.
The city was trying to find its way out of an unprecedented storm that crippled even its mighty International Airport, when Darius T. Williams arrived quietly amidst the aftermath. He didn’t arrive on a missionary agenda, but to find retreat and relaxation away from his busy life.
When I first met Darius, it was in Chicago, IL at a mutual friend’s poetry performance. Unassuming, Darius took command of the stage, performing, “You Should Let Me Love You” quickly becoming a crowd favorite. My first impression was Luther Vandross, mixed with Barry White; his voice filled with such passion, raw sincerity, and humbled assertiveness. Romantic unicorns danced through my head as my best friend and I waited to meet Darius. Before we could finish praising him for his performance, he said, “I do cupcakes!”
I was confused. I tried to understand the relevance of cupcakes to such a powerful poetic performance. The weekend ended with me understanding what Darius meant by, “I do cupcakes!”
When he said he was coming to town, I could not help but ask him to be the first person I interviewed for “The Random Alignment of Life” blog. It was cosmic, it was destiny, and it was a random alignment of life that brought Darius to St. Louis on that weekend to be my first inspirational interview for the blog that was built to inspire, motivate, and encourage everyone!
Darius and I chatted before the interview began, him sharing with me his first interview experience and his tattoos that reinforce his dedication to his dream!
Kizzy: Sooo, thank you so much for agreeing to do the very first interview for, “The Random Alignment of Life” Blog!
Darius: You’re welcome, you’re welcome. {He smiled}
Kizzy: You were born and raised in Chicago?
Darius: Yes, Chicago, born and raised.
Kizzy: What side?
Darius: West side of Chicago!
Kizzy: Oh, ok, I know a little about Chicago. I lived there for a while. What kept you from not falling into the circumstance so many other young African American males on the Westside of Chicago fall into?
Darius: A combination of things, there was a strong religious upbringing of course; my grandmother was a very spiritual lady. I’ve always been a dreamer, too, a thinker, so I dreamt how I wanted my life to be. I knew where I was. I didn’t like my current situation, coming from an abusive home, so I dreamt. I knew I had the power to change my circumstance. Having the power meant I could change how my life ended up, so I dreamt on what that would be like.
Kizzy: You dreamt cupcakes? Why cupcakes?
Darius: I don’t think there was ever a defining moment where I said, “I want to cook or bake cupcakes.” When it’s always there, when you’re created to do something, be someone, it’s always there inside of you. You always know it and you just do it! I’m a foodie; I’ve been cooking since I was seven, so I just did it.
Kizzy: What was the first thing you cooked?
Darius: It was what I thought was chicken, but to come to find out it was turkey! Sooo, I’m the first person to ever fry turkey. I almost burned the house down, but it was fried turkey. {We both laughed} It’s only now, that I’m going back to define that dream of “cooking” and what it means.
Kizzy: So turkey to cupcakes, how did you start, The Cupcake Gallery?
Darius: On a whim and a prayer, working a perfect $ 85,000 job as the Corporate Payroll Manager, I got laid off.
Kizzy: $85,000? {I was thinking, $85,000 American Dollars! WOW!}
Darius: Yes, but I kept getting laid off. I thought I was a failure. I’d wonder, “What’s wrong with me, why do I keep getting laid off, I keep getting fired?” I really couldn’t understand it. Retro, I realize I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. Especially with payroll being, A, B, C type of structure and I’m a creative dude, so it wasn’t the right place for me from the beginning. I’ve always cooked, so I started cooking. I could feel it in the air, I knew something was brewing, I just wasn’t sure what. I just knew I had to write it all down. I started the Everyday Cookin’ {we said it in unisons}, blog! I did it, but I didn’t have any idea of what would happen. Eventually though, I started getting a crazy amount of hits to my blog every day, like a 1000 hits, people all over the world! I’d have posts with like 400 comments! Crazy, people tuned it for me, to see what I was cooking.
Kizzy: Wow, 400, so how did the buzz grown for the blog?
Darius: It’s one of those things, if it’s meant to be, you put it out in the universe and watch it manifest. You water it right and watch it grow! I didn’t have a formula. I knew I was sooo passionate about it, that I had to put it out in the universe, so I did. Anyway, one of the comments on the blog, was like, “Where’s the dessert?” I thought, I’m not a dessert dude, but what the hell, I’ll make some cupcakes. The first cupcakes I made were red velvet, Jan 26th. 2009. A few friends came over; they tried the cupcakes and were like, “These are the BEST damn cupcakes we’ve ever had!”
Kizzy: So, what ingredients did you use, what box?
Darius: Box? No box baby. If I’m going to do it, I’m going to be true to who I am. I’m a foodie, I cook, remember, so I knew like what ingredients were needed to make it rise, I adapted some recipes and my red velvet cupcake were born. Before I knew it, people were on Face Book like, “I want to place an order” and I was shocked, didn’t really know what to do, because I had been putting food up on the blog for a year, no orders, but they wanted cupcakes? I had no idea, how big the cupcake world even was, I didn’t even think people were serious. The first order I sold, it cost me 30 dollars to make them and I charged her 12, so I paid her to take the cupcakes. The word got out and for 60 days straight I didn’t do anything but make red velvet cupcakes.
Kizzy: So you were never professionally trained?
Darius: No, never professionally trained, I made the cupcakes, I put them out there, and people started ordering them, at some point I got flyers together, got me a website, then realized I should start making more than just red velvet. I’m not a fool, a many of things I may be, but not a fool I am not! I had complete strangers coming to my home for cupcakes, I thought that was cool. Then at some point it became too much, I was working a full time job, commuting a total of five hours a day, I turned my stove off. Time went by then my barber convinced me to turn it back on. So I’m baking again and June 15th I got laid off again. I started to think about what I was going to do with myself, my life. I took some time to think about it all, figure my life out. I then thought, why not cupcakes, so I put the status out there on face book, “Hey I’m looking to open a cupcake shop, who wants to invest?”
Kizzy: So that’s how you got your start up, from Face Book? Wow social media. Do you think your transparency through social media, helped you with financing?
Darius: Absolutely, look back in the day with yahoo messenger; you could be anyone you wanted to be. Face Book changed that; you can’t hide who you are anymore. Your true character is reflected in social media today. In order to be successful in social media, you can’t hide. I allowed my character to show, even when I had some maturing to do, some growing to do, I put it out there in the raw. People became vested, I guess. Wait right now, in this moment, you make it seem like everything was amazingly easy, like a fairytale. I don’t see it that way. Yes, I had people from Face Book invest 13,000 into the startup, but my balance sheets said I needed 45,000. As I was going through it, the mountains seem so much harder, higher to climb!
Kizzy: What kept you climbing?
Darius: It was the vision, in my head. At some point, the tenure of the scenario changes from “I have to succeed for myself” to “I have to succeed for others”. Now what’s happened is people are tuned in, and you become a breath of hope, a breath of inspiration. Too much is given, much is required, so at some point I had to except the challenge. My Face Book posts had to become less and less sillier, I had to make conscious decisions, because my life is my life, but really it isn’t my own any more. So that’s how it all happened, note the dates, they’re really important. January 26th, I made my first cupcake, June 15th I got laid off, August had an investors meeting, again, what do I know about an investors meeting, I’ve been broke my whole life! I went to the meeting, got some money coming in and November 7th I opened the door. Now that’s going through it all, Chicago politics, Chicago City Hall to get a business license, take classes all that. November 7th, doors open!
Kizzy: That’s a lot, amazing. Do you have a support group? Tell me about them?
Darius: It’s hard, it’s hard. I sooo get Kanye now, I so get him. He said “The higher you go, the less you have around you!” Nobody sees it the way you see it, that vision. A vision is based on a dream and at some point, you have to say, I can do it! You create the vision, and then start putting steps behind it. The problem is you’re the only one who sees the vision, the dream. Everyone else around you is going to say, it’s impossible, you can’t do that, what about this, what about that. That’s my support, the dream! I do have some friends who’ve been there; no one will be there 100% of the way. You’ll have people who’ll be there 70%, 80% but no one will be able to be there 100%. So, if you’re doing this depending on a support system, then don’t do it. You have to rely on yourself, you have to be self-motivated. Listen, yesterday at work I was almost at the point of losing it, losing it. I thought if that doorbell rang one more time I was going to scream! I was so overwhelmed, but who can I talk to about that. Someone said to me, just cut the orders off at a certain time, turn the oven off! Like, you can’t do that…McDonalds, you can’t go to McDonalds and they tell you, oh we don’t have any more Big Macs, we stop making them at 3pm today. No one gets it, how hard this can be, but I have to say, the benefits, the benefits of doing what you love, chasing your dream, that’s what makes it all worth it!
Kizzy: Ok, you have Everyday Cookin, Local Holla, The Cupcake Gallery and Uptown Pie Company, what’s next for Darius?
Darius: So much more…
Kizzy: Oh, don’t let me forget you were on Cooking with Sunny Anderson recently?
Darius: That was so cool! The executive producer who produces these amazing shows like, Rachel Ray and others asked me to stick around and tape a show with just me and Sunny! Oh my gosh, I was like wait, me, me? This amazing producer, who’s been producing all these shows for years, knows my name! That’s why I’ll fight through the tears! Moments like that you can’t pay for. Who knew, who knew, I’d have the opportunity. I’m also going back to the Food Network studios; we’ll see what happens with that. I’m also starting, Everyday Fresh online. It’s like an online grocery club! Since I’m in the food industry, I get food considerable cheaper than everyone else, so it’s a place you can order food, not get ripped off and have the food brought right to your door. Local Holla, is the response to Groupon missing the mark on certain social economical markets. There are some other things in the works. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Kizzy: Tell me who’s your inspiration?
Darius: Different people for different things, right now, cooking wise, it used to be the greats like Paula Dean. Right now I’d have to say my friend Sunny Anderson. I connect with her immediately, her style, her story. Sunny also fought and defied odds to be on the Food Network Channel. My friend, wow, who would have thought I would be able to even call her my friend, ten years ago. Then there’s Kanye, Jay-Z, people who come from really interesting back grounds and are the great of the greats. The things Kanye can pull out of the air are amazing. The punch lines Lil Wayne comes up with are amazing. Creative stand point those people, then from a business, people like Zig Zagler, John Maxwell, Less Brown, people like that.
Kizzy: With all that going on, all the amazing things you’re doing, why do you do poetry? Why take the time out to write poems and perform them on stage?
Darius: There’s a piece of me that enjoys the challenge. Again, I’m a creative person, so I like it. I love the challenge of telling a story, getting the audience to understand it, that’s what I enjoy about poetry, being creative.
