WHADDAT DOT COM HAVE THE CITY LOCK DOWN
My best friend in 9th grade, Rebecca Packer approached me at the Asylum nightclub in New Kingston one Friday night in late '00. She was excited to pitch me a great idea she had to launch Jamaica's first entertainment E-Zine. She knew for sure that I was the right creative to join her and another friend from high school, Ayanna Kirton on this venture and I knew it too.
Right away, my head spun with ideas. The possibilties were literally endless online. In retrospect, it's shocking that in the year 2000, even with all the Y2K hype, I had never even considered the world wide web as something to brand. The only thing I had used the internet for up to that point was High5 and Napster! I designed a few banners for GoJamaica.com but they weren't even GIFs! I didn't even know what a PNG was. Right away, I took a crash course in HTML and taught myself Adobe Dreamweaver. Over the following months, the 3 of us learned everthing we could about the world wide web (thank you, Winchester!). We chose the name WHADDAT because Whatagwan was taken. Infinitely better. We mapped out the site. I designed the logo and created individual characters based off of & as an ode to Toronto's Honey Jam mascot (big up Ebonnie anyweh yuh deh). Rebecca aka Fyah Wire would be the Director of Affairs, Ayanna aka Tru Honey would be Editor-in-Chief and me? Head cook & bokkle washa aka Mic Chik lol. Officially, I was Creative Director & Webmaster of WHADDAT?com but Rebecca & Ayanna trusted me to go wild and do whatever with the site as long as they were kept in the loop and on the front lines.
SICK WITH IT, CREW DROP♫
WHADDAT?com v.01 went live on April 1, 2001 and by the end of that week, the site was getting thousands of unique daily visits.
In the weeks leading up to that historic day, we pushed the site with all our might. We split up to work as many events as we could and were literally shouting WHADDAT!? from the mountain tops. We peppered the 14 parishes of Jamaica with thousands of black calling cards with just the logo and launch date. We begged DJs to big it up on the mic at events and on radio. At the same time, we booked enough big name recording artists, DJs, producers and entrepreneurs to interview and fill our pages for months. People loved us! The super cute, all-female triumvirate leading the charge was gimmicky but also the winning differentiator. Who runs the world? Exactly.
I had some links in Toronto plus a rapidly expanding presence in the streets of Jamaica to reach the masses. Ayanna had the UWI and UTech students locked and knew couple top ♫ man in New York (big up W?OGs Andrew Mac & Charli Browne!!) but Rebecca? Rebecca had the big link! The link of all links that Spring, 2001: None other than her long time man, her future husband, Mr. Lover Lover, Mr. Boombastic, the Man of the Moment... (in Shaggy's voice, y'all) SHAGGY! His latest album, Hot Shot would be certified 6x Multi-Platinum by the RIAA just 2 months after our April 1 launch. On the day WHADDAT went live, the album's lead single, It Wasn't Me was charting at #1 in no less than a dozen countries including the UK, Canada, Australia, France and was #1 on 3 Billboard charts: Hot 100, Hot Rap Songs and Pop Airplay. Great for him and fantastic for us, because yyyyep! Shaggy was the featured artist on the front page of the very first WHADDAT?com and of course, the site was an instant success. Within days, daily unique visits were in the thousands. SHAGGY did that. Thank you, sir.
The pre-launch marketing, guerilla style of course, our unwavering dedication and solid working relationship is what laid the foundation for the site's continued success over the years.
As you'll see in the gallery at the end, I've got all the pics. Thousands of 'em.
MISSION: Eat, sleep & breathe WHADDAT
There was a handful of Jamaican entertainment sites in 2001, mostly based abroad, focused on Dancehall culture and out of cities with big Jamaican populations like London, Miami, Montreal & Toronto. Jamaica's own online participation was lacking except for some basic news and local business sites, the exceptionally brilliant afflictedyard.com (we miss you Peter! I swear we were flattered by your whatdafuck.com ;) and a few local "party sites". These guys took a bunch of uptown party pics and hosted fun message boards. Big up Dre and Kiwami, yuh dun know; Partyinc and Cyberjam were WHADDAT's bros in the biz! Sounds nice but the competition was fierce. Until we showed up they were doing it for fun. For us, it was business. We were in it to win it and ended up switching up the whole game. A WE set di trend!
We did everything a little different. WHADDAT?com didn't just post pictures of parties and celebrities. We went to different types of events with different types of people all over Jamaica and to key locations overseas to connect, as in join together as many people as we could. WHADDAT was a brand that was hard to miss especially when I showed up with my loud mouth, unusual style and aah..unique character. I was often the only photographer allowed not just ON stage but also invited to sit right on top of a monitor box, W?cam in hand! It was the best angle, after all :) VIP Media dem seh. Party people, club goers, event security, promoters and artists alike LOVED WHADDAT because WE LOVED THEM. Every night after I uploaded a set of pics, arranged the page and added any review we did, I thoughtfully and purposefully alt-tagged each and every picture. Nicknames I gave people in pics are still their names 20 years later (big up ChineyPhat!!). Our audience connected with WHADDAT?com on a personal level. It was really special. I love nothing more than putting a smile on people's faces :) Those early years of WHADDAT?com developed the framework and brand marketing strategies for all future projects I was a part of. The career path I was on wasn't just my calling but my duty! ❤