Revolt—the music channel founded by Sean “Diddy” Combs six months ago—presented its first “upfront” last night at Marquee, a Meatpacking District nightclub in New York City. On the red carpet, Revolt CEO Keith Clinkscales explained the goal of the upfront (what Combs would rename later in the evening as the Revolt “omnifront”) to EBONY.com: “What we’re trying to do is make sure we introduce the network for an ad-buying audience, and this is a way for us to go ahead and talk to a lot of people at once. We get to let them know about our programming and what Revolt is.”
The various Revolt executive and entertainment teams took to the stage introducing forthcoming initiatives like a soon-to-come Making the Brand docu-series. Sean Combs took the stage early, joking about abolishing the generational category “millennials” while simultaneously courting their viewership. Angela Yee, Charlamagne tha God and DJ Envy of Power 105’s morning show The Breakfast Club bantered onstage about their Revolt show of the same name.
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Other presenters included Revolt vice-chairman (and former Uptown Records founder) Andre Harrell; president Andy Schuon; executive vice president of programming Val Boreland; and Revolt on-air talents DJ Damage, Sibley and Amrit Singh. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons was also seen in attendance.
“I think that Sean has a finger on the pulse,” Simmons told EBONY.com. “And we don’t have any networks run by people who are as close to the streets as he is, who have as much real information and, also, consciousness. I think he understands how to create programming that is inspiring and uplifting at the same time. He knows what he’s gotta do to grab the audience.”
The night closed out with a live performance from actor/MC Childish Gambino (p.k.a. Donald Glover) doing favored tracks from last year’s acclaimed Because the Internet. “We come to be disruptive to this industry,” Combs said in parting. “We’ve come to make noise and we’ve come to be the new number one name in music, and this is one step closer to us achieving that goal. We’ve been in existence for five months and it’s beyond my wildest dreams. I hope it inspires people all over the world and I’m very excited and humbled by it.”
—Miles Marshall Lewis (additional red carpet reporting by Eeshé White)
