We had the good fortune of connecting with Joey “60 East” Atilano and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joey “60 East”, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
After nearly a decade of being a touring artist and having a daughter, I wanted to build something that would allow me to do a few things. One is something that would allow me to stay home more and be able to spend more time with my newborn. Two I wanted something that would allow me to continue as an Artist and contribute to not only the local music community, but Hip Hop as a whole. Three is I wanted to start something that would allow me to give back to my community by hiring my friends and family or people that needed work in general locally, booking local artist, giving exposure to local businesses and shed a light on my city in general. After weighing out my options throwing a Festival/starting an event promotions company sounded like the plan.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I am most proud of getting to our 5 year anniversary as a Festival. I had always heard most festivals fail after the first year, and or fade out by year 2/3. Being able to get to the half a decade mark let me know we had built something special. I had never set out to be a concert promoter, but my career as an artist led me to where I am at today and I couldn’t be more grateful. It was definitely not an easy road, nor has it been easy along the way, its just not an easy business to be in, but it has been fun and rewarding in many other ways. Those other ways, which are rarely monetary, seem to be the pay off for the challenges we’ve had to overcome. I’ve learned that there is a lesson in every loss, so its not really a loss at the end of the day, it was just the cost for learning that lesson. I want the world to know that most of the people that I’ve talked to or heard talk about reaching “success” said that the road to getting there was funner than actually getting there, and that’s why its important to find the happiness in the pursuit of what it is you are after.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
When visiting Ontario for the Festival I tell people to visit/do the following things.

Eat:
King Taco (some of the best tacos born out of East LA)
R&R (small Chicken and Waffled breakfast place only open till about 3pm)
Donahoos (Fried Chicken and Fries in a brown box)

Visit:
Ontario Mills (one of the biggest malls in the region)
Mt. Baldy (local mountains)

Do:
Top Golf (Golf shooting range)
K1 Speed (Go Cart Racing)
IFly (Indoor Skydiving)
Big Als (Bowling / Drinks)

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to give a shoutout to my friend Tim and the whole First Dirt crew. Tim was the President of First Dirt, which is an independent hip hop label which I first began releasing music with. He really showed me the ropes of being an Artist and mentored me along the way early on in my journey. All the members of First Dirt did at some point. Being able to work with them gave me a lot of support which led to me having more confidence in everything I was doing early on.

Website: www.thopfest.net

Instagram: @thopfest

Twitter: @thopfest

Image Credits
Enkrypt Los Angeles

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