This month, our Liner Notes member spotlight shines on Marcus Blount, Founder & Creative Director of One Collective Goods Co.
Heavy Spinners: For those who don’t know, how did One Collective Goods Co. get started?
Marcus Blount: My mom managed a retail clothing store [when I was] growing up so as a kid I would go help her with new stock shipments on the weekends. I was maybe 10 years old and she would give me 5 or 10 bucks to help all day. Then I would go buy basketball cards or whatever I was into at the time, ya know, looking for a Shaq rookie card or whatever. As I got into middle and high school I was a total latch-key kid since my mom worked all the time and every day after school I would go skating with my homies downtown. We would hang out at the Greenhouse, which was the local skate shop in my hometown of Blacksburg, VA. It’s still there today and still owned by the Johnson Brothers, Dan and Lee. These dudes would let me hang there all the time until they closed and I would just talk shop and skateboarding and hip hop with them all night. I loved that they had a store with their own clothing and skateboards and it was just so rad to me. I would lay around my room at night listening to music and dreaming about having my own clothing line or store one day. The Greenhouse carried all the dope 90s skate brands, but I had this THINK brand T-shirt that I loved and wore like every other day. That shirt, I think, was really the jump off for me; I knew I had to make some dope stuff that the homies would want to wear all the time.
HS: You’re a huge fan of hip hop, particularly 90s hip hop, and the genre has clearly influenced One Collective merch. Who’s your favorite hip hop artist/group?
MB: 90’s hip-hop is huge for me and my brand, definitely. Nasir Jones, aka Nas, is the illest to ever spit in my opinion. But I love so many artists like Big L, Biggie, AZ, Action Bronson. I love Capone N Noreaga, Tribe, the Roots, Outkast, Smif-N-Wessun, Heltah Skeltah, Doppelgangaz, YOX . . . I could go on and on.
HS: How did you get into vinyl collecting?
MB: I started playing drums when I was in middle school. I snuck a set into the house at the time and that lasted maybe a few months before the drums or I had to go, so I found a compromise with DJing. [I got] a super basic belt-drive starter scratch DJ kit for my birthday from some catalog and I was off. I started collecting vinyl on lay-a-way, believe it or not, at a store called The Record Exchange in Blacksburg, VA. It’s not there anymore, unfortunately, but that is where my collection started. I would drop whatever money I had on the day the album came out and put it on lay-a-way. Then I would save lunch money, have yard sales, or hustle downtown to make extra money to get that record off lay-a-way by the end of week for whatever little hangout I was spinning at.
HS: What’s at the top of your vinyl wishlist?
MB: Man, there’s a few records I don’t have that I would love to find: the first Action Bronson album, Dr. Lecter, goes for three or four hundred bucks and I don’t have that yet and also a cool remix album out of Spain, DJ Wun Two & Biggie Smalls, The Fat EP, and I’m always looking for obscure hip hop singles on those bootleg white label 12” records.
HS: Tell us a little about the pop-ups you’ve got coming up.
MB: One Collective has been really taking off the past two years and I wanted to do a small tour with all the dope DJs and artists that support the brand to showcase how talented they all are. We have the recently crowned US DMC Champion, DJ Throdown, at our first tour stop at Songbyrd in DC for Adams Morgan Day on Sunday, September 9, alongside DJ As-One, Remedy, Jeyone, Minusnine, and a few others. Should be hella live since all these guys are past regional DMC champs or have been DJing and scratching for mad years! Next, we are gonna be at the new Record & Rarities store in Tysons Corner Center on September 29, with a similar lineup and a dope pop-up with new goods and adult refreshments. [We’ll be] ending the tour in downtown Frederick, MD, on October 6, with another dope hip hop DJ showcase alongside rappers Cidida and Dawson. It should be a good fall lineup. We will be dropping new fall goods at each event and they are all super limited edition.
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** If you can’t make it to one of the upcoming pop-ups, check out https://www.onecollectiveclothing.com/ or follow Marcus and the Company on social media.
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