From Nipsey Hussle to the Emmys

You're reading this somewhere new. For the first time, this newsletter isn't going out via somebody else's platform, it's on our own site, alongside our films and our membership, on a thing we built and actually own. That might sound like a small technical change, but it's the end point of something that's been the backdrop of my career, so I wanted to use this first Zandland dispatch to explain what the hell I'm talking about...

I've always just wanted to make stuff

I think that's the dream of any creative person, honestly. To just make stuff, without having to get the go ahead from someone else first. It's slightly idealistic, obviously, but I also think it's pretty critical for self-expression that at least some of the time you get to make things you want unencumbered. Otherwise you end up making the version that gets approved rather than the thing you actually wanted to make, and after enough years of that you sort of forget there was ever a difference.

Which leads me to a pretty unusual story, and probably the person who's had a very outsized, unexpected influence on Zandland than anyone else in the documentary world.

Nipsey Hussle

In 2019 I was making my final documentary for the BBC, and it was about the life and death of Nipsey Hussle, the LA rapper who'd been shot and killed that March outside the clothing store he owned in Crenshaw, the neighbourhood he grew up in and never left.

I'm not from LA and I'm not Black, so there was a lot of Nipsey's story I couldn't fully understand and wasn't going to pretend to. But there was one part of it I'd been drawn to for years before I ever started working on the film, and it was the way he'd cut out the middle man. When the industry wasn't giving him the opportunities he felt he deserved, he didn't sit around waiting for it to change its mind, he went straight to his audience instead. He famously charged $100 a copy for a mixtape at a time when everyone else was giving music away, on the basis that a thousand people who genuinely cared were worth more than a million who'd forget you by the weekend. Then he set up his own record label so he'd own what he made, and his own Marathon clothing line so he'd own that too. He was always pushing for something bigger than himself, and he built it in a way that meant the value stayed with him and the people around him rather than leaking off to someone else.

I spent five weeks on the ground in Crenshaw talking to the people who'd known him and been part of his world, and the people who learned a lot from him. And I'll be honest, I came home inspired. Not by the fame or the tragedy, but by the sheer bloody-mindedness of a guy who decided the gatekeepers weren't the point and built his own doors.

Just do it

I've always been drawn to people who just do it (what a great phrase someone should use it in a marketing campaign), who find a way regardless of whether anyone gave them permission. I wanted to be one of those people, and at the most basic level that's why Zandland exists. It's why we self-fund our documentaries and put them straight onto our own YouTube rather than waiting for a commission that might never come. And it's why, right now, for the first time, you're reading this on our own platform, with our membership on that same platform, so that we own the relationship with you and can be in charge of our own destiny. It's also why we now have cool merch like this, which you can buy here: zand.land/shop

Just to be clear here, none of this is a rejection of the people we work with. Some of the best things we've ever made only exist because a partner backed them, whether that's ITV with Breaking Ranks or ABC and Hulu with NatureBoy, and we'll always want to work with incredible partners on big ambitious projects. Owning our own platform doesn't change any of that. If anything it makes us a better partner, because we turn up with an audience rather than asking for one.

But owning it and doing it is what I, and now the Zandland team, have always cared about. Nothing about it is easy, it's slower and riskier than the alternative, but the end point is so much more exciting.

And the thing is, it's working. When we launched our own documentaries on YouTube less than a year ago with the simple idea that we could make human content that helped people understand the world, our first month did 128,000 views, which felt like a lot at the time. So far this month we're at over 6 million, with a couple of days still to go. That's 47 times the monthly audience in under a year, on YouTube alone, without a broadcaster or a marketing budget or anyone telling us what to make. We're also now consistently working and being inundated with requests from brands and sponsors across our films who are eager to get in front of our audience. And when they align our values, these work brilliantly. The reason I'm saying any of this is because it's the proof that the Nipsey theory holds up. If you go straight to people with something you actually care about, and you keep going, they will eventually turn up.

So if you want to be part of that, the membership is at zand.land/join. Members get exclusive content, this newsletter, all our films in one place and 15% off merch, but honestly the main thing you get is knowing that the films you like exist partly because of you. It's now the single best way to support what we do.

Some very good news

This week we found out Breaking Ranks has been nominated for an International Emmy in the Current Affairs category, with the winners announced in New York in November. For context, that's the same film that's been nominated for a BAFTA, an RTS award and a Grierson, and that won Best Documentary at the Edinburgh TV Festival last month. I've said before that awards aren't really the point of that film, and they're not, but I'd be lying if I said an Emmy nomination didn't feel pretty special. Huge congratulations to everyone who made it, and thank you again to the people who spoke.

And what's next

Our next film is out next week. We were actually meant to release one in a few days' time, but we've had to pause it because of an ongoing court case, which is one of the less glamorous realities of doing this properly.

More on next week's film very soon, and on a personal note, I'm actually set to have a second child next week so my life is going to get a whole lot more nuts. In the meantime, welcome to Dispatches. It's nice to welcome you to the real Zandland.

Ben Z