Today we’d like to introduce you to Antwan Banks.
Hi Antwan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Greetings, I’m Antwan Banks the Founder & CEO of the HHN TV aka The Hip-Hop Network Television and My ATL Story goes like this.
I was born in a small town in South Carolina, only a few hours from Atlanta; after High School I went to college for a few years and eventually joined the Military for a few tours then found myself living in Las Vegas, divorced and trying to make a career in the music industry as a DJ and Record Label owner in the late 90’s. You, see; the real reason that I left the Military was because I’m an entrepreneur at heart and I really wanted to run my own corporation.
When the 2000’s hit, I found myself back down south living in South Carolina. I had been saving money from my entertainment business, just waiting for the right business opportunity to come along. In this new venture I became a Gentlemen’s Club owner, after all I had been club manager, Dj and bartender at a popular Gentlemen’s Club in Las Vegas for a year or so. So, I knew enough, that gave me the confidence to open one in South Carolina.
At this time, Atlanta Strip clubs were the closest thing to anything that I ever experienced in Las Vegas, so I begin taking trips to Atlanta in the early 2000’s to study the strip club scene and build relationships with the club talent, patrons and like-minded individuals. It really kept me in tune with the music industry; I even purchased most of my club music catalog from the The ATL Strip club Dj’s who sold new mix cd’s every other week which also included tracks from hot new southern artist.
In 2008 the collapsed housing market caused Wall Street to crash, which turned into closed factories and businesses along with some other mortgage-backed companies in our area. This sent my strip club revenue down the drain and there was no turning back, I had to stop the bleeding. After the hard decision to close my strip club in 2011, I was left with another huge decision for the future. “What Now?”
Like I said earlier, I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and circumstances caused me to also have a place and business in Charlotte, North Carolina with my girlfriend at the time while I had a crew running my club in South Carolina, this was between 2007 to 2011. I had a lot of time on my hands while in Charlotte, so to keep busy I started a modeling Agency called “Carolina Black Beauties”. The agency was very successful, our clients included: Jack Daniels, Baby Phat, Def Jam, Cadillac, Mercedes, Hip-Hop Summit, Charlotte Sting and more. We also created a magazine called BBE which featured Jay Z, Mya, MC Lyte, Rick Ross and more. I was also the official Carolina Regional Agent for Publisher Sean Cummings, new SHOW Magazine back then.
All of this was cool, but it was becoming hard to scale in Charlotte’s small market, and I knew that I also had to add another element to my business infrastructure that could be monetized. Currently, I have been a club owner/promoter for over 10 years. My friends would always tell me; “Man I would pay money to hear those strip club stories”. And that stuck with me. This led me to write my first book, it was about my life in the strip club industry based in Las Vegas, inspired by true events. I titled it “MADE: Sex, Drugs & Murder: The Recipe for Success”.
I relocated to Atlanta, Georgia early 2012, with only a few hundred pages of my manuscript for my 1st book. I’m there but I don’t know anyone really, so it’s crucial that I find a way to connect with the culture, the streets, the vibe that is Atlanta. My life for the past decade consisted of going to bed at 6 am after closing the club and getting up at 2 pm the next day to go by the bank and deposit last nights profits.
While sitting on the steps looking up the stars and smoking on a Cigar one warm night in Atlanta, Georgia. I had this crazy thought; “Atlanta strip clubs is where everybody in the industry intersects”. I had to get a job in the strip club scene to build the relationships I wanted. I went by every popular strip club in Atlanta the second week I got there.
After several, “No, we’re not hiring”, I walked into the last club on my list over on the Eastside. I was greeted by this 5’11”, caramel skin, beautiful woman sitting at the door as the cashier. Her name was Inga and let’s just say, she made sure I got the job. My schedule consisted of 3 to 4 days a week, and the other days I focused on my manuscript.
Here I befriended my business partner DJ Skeeta, along with DJ Chap & DJ Funky of Coalition DJ’s. I can remember my first night on the job. So, before I got hired, I didn’t tell them that I was a previous club owner because they probably wouldn’t have hired me. I accepted a security job, that way I could be right in the action, I was excited for the journey to begin.
The first customer that walked through the door on my first night, entered with one other gentleman who stood off to his right as security. He didn’t want to pay the entry fee because he said that he filmed music videos here and spent money with the club, so he’s not paying the entry fee. I asked him if he knew me, and he replied, no. I asked him. How was I going to explain, letting you in free to my boss, on my 1st day? He understood and paid the entry fee. It wasn’t until he walked in the club and sat down that I find out who he was; when Rick said, “what’s up Tity Boi” aka 2 Chainz.
That same week Future and Free Bandz crew, David Banner & Shawty Red came through the club. It was slow during the day at the club so I spent that time writing more books, I had to create enough content to sell so that I could live off my writing. After a year or so at the club, I stopped working there and started paying my bills from my book earnings.
By the time 2018 came around, I was on my 19th book, which is a series called, Hip-Hop History the Incorporation of Hip-Hop. The books chronicle Hip-Hop from 1970 until 2010 and the paths taken to make it a corporation. The series took me 2 to 3 years to complete because of extensive research but working on it took me down memory lane and awakened me to a sad truth and that was; the culture had lost control of Hip-Hop.
I had finally finished this series and needed a break, so I decided to move to Colombia, in South America for about a year. I placed my belongings in storage, notified my agent that I was moving for a year and left the United States in October of 2018.
Several months had passed while I was enjoying the weather, food and all that Colombia had to offer. By this time all 19 of my books were on the market earning revenue and I also created a global Publishing Company so that I could distribute books for other authors as well, called PrintHouseBooks.com
In May of 2019, my cousin had traveled to Colombia for a few weeks. We were sitting in one of our favorite seafood restaurants when I received a call from my Agent in Hollywood. He had been shopping my catalog of books to the movie studios and received some interest from Warner Brothers and JCE aka “Jesse Collins Entertainment” which is the production company that produced “The BET Awards, American Soul, The Bobby Brown and New Edition TV series”. We scheduled a few pitch meetings with the studios later that month, so I could have time to make travel arrangements from Colombia.
As the date approached for me to fly out to Hollywood, I often paced back and forth in the front living room of my Colombian penthouse gazing over the balcony at the bright stars amidst the warm night. But it was this time, that I cherished most; it was in these moments that I visualized my next steps, I had to manifest my vision before I walked in it.
It was the 21st of May 2019, and I can remember walking into the JCE offices with my agent and being introduced to everyone. The BET Award trophies, TV Show & Movie posters of their Productions decorated the walls and Hallways as we entered the conference room. We met with Andrew Horne; I think he was SVP at the time. We discussed my books, and he gave me a piece of advice. He said to me; “When you start producing your books into film; It will be more profitable if you released them as a TV show or limited series. You will make more money from your product that way”.
Ironically there was a writers’ strike going on at this time and everyone was leery because Netflix was really shaking things up in Hollywood. So, I asked Andy about Netflix and how or if it was affecting business. He explained how Netflix was hiring executives from other Movie studios, and how the studios were cancelling their contracts with Netflix and that Netflix was throwing a ton of money at material but wasn’t really producing hits. After this meeting, I had a totally different outlook on Hollywood. To be honest, I really wasn’t too confident about Hollywood’s infrastructure at this time.
On the next day we head over to Warner Brothers to meet with Khalid Jordan, who also happens to be Michael B. Jordan’s younger brother. We discussed my catalog of books and which ones we thought would make a good series. The huge panoramic window overlooking Hollywood, with the WB tank in the background and fresh manicured Palm trees swinging mid-air, didn’t distract me from seeing what was stacked from floor to ceiling on the other three walls of his office.
There had to be thousands of manuscripts stacked on his bookshelves and I asked him if he had read them all. He said no and explained that they pay people to read them but that didn’t guarantee anything, a script could be sitting for years before getting some attention. Khalid clarified that agents play a big part in the process because of their relationships. After all I was sitting in his office because of my agent’s relationship with him. So, if you submit a manuscript with no representation, good luck. In maybe a few weeks after our meeting Khalid had left Warner Horizon and moved on to; I think Disney+ after the AT&T merger.
On day three we had planned to go by Media Mogul; Byron Allen’s studio, but later that night I couldn’t sleep. I had that bright light moment, that idea that just sticks to your skull, no matter how hard you try to ignore it. After hearing and seeing what was going on in Hollywood, there was a crisis brewing that the public really didn’t know about. Any good entrepreneur knows that a crisis creates opportunity and this one happened when the movie studios decided to end their license agreements with Netflix, which sparked an all-out war in Hollywood, in 2019.
My adrenalin was rushing because I’m here in Hollywood doing what I manifested but there’s a bigger opportunity here and I was contemplating my next move and if I could pull it off? After these past few meetings, I knew that the film industry was heading towards streaming and movies would be cheaper to produce because everyone has a camera and there’s hundreds of affordable digital cameras for film makers now. There was no way the current or old Hollywood model could sustain and remain profitable. Streaming is the future. The difference in cost between a digital ad and a linear ad is astronomical, like 150k per ad for linear TV versions to 10k per ad for digital version on streaming platforms.
What I was picturing was huge, I mean really huge and I was going to have to make some sacrifices to pull it off and I was going to need some partners that could see my vision. My head is still fresh on Hip-Hop because of the last three years of research and memories for my last books on Hip-Hop. My agent was aware of this and sent me a ticket to a pop-up Hip-Hop Photo Gallery called “King of New Yok” at Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles.
The Pop up did have some great Hip-Hop photos of Biggie, some other Hip-Hop moments and great photos of some Hip-Hop Icons but the kicker was. They didn’t know who all the Icons were. The photos were there but there was not much commentary or a synopsis explaining who was in the photos. I found myself telling the patrons who everyone was in the displayed photos. Some Hip-Hop fans even left in disappointment because of the lack luster display with no background to explain who was in the photos.
Then it hit me, I will create a streaming app called the Hip-Hop Network and our call letters will be HHN TV. We will be the one voice for the culture, a place where you can watch Hip-Hop content, create content, monetize content and watch your favorite TV shows and movies too. Getting your books made into a TV show is cool but owning the streaming platform where people can subscribe to watch movies and tv shows, was way cooler to me. I could turn my own books into movies later and stream them on my own platform. If Hollywood was willing to pay for my stories, then they must be worth something, right.
I had made up my mind; I was done with pitch meetings. I went for a walk down Sunset Blvd to visualize this next move and where to find an IT guy that could help me bring my vision to life.
Several months had passed and I had been working with a website developer since I returned to Colombia back in May. The site was about finished, and I was preparing to go back to Atlanta in December for the Holiday, and I was going to show my new idea to some friends or potential partners, shall I say. December arrived and I met up with Frank “DJ Skeeta” Chappell III back in ATL. After a few days of conversations and a hands-on site demonstration, he was all in and I made him my Co-Founder. The next person we went to was DJ Funky of Coalition Dj’s, after we spoke with him for two or three visits and showed him some content on the HHN TV platform, he agreed to be our 1st brand ambassador.
In January of 2020. We begin filming original content for the platform for our free subscription model. But everything came to a halt in March of 2020 when we got hit with covid. The site was ready and we had a few test subscribers on the team to give us feedback. I took a few days to think about how we could pivot ourselves from this huge problem. That’s when the idea of licensing movies and TV shows came to me as an option.
I contacted some people I knew in the industry to see if they knew of any licensing companies. This is the one time that I can honestly say that relationships are more valuable than money. Well, back in 2016 when I was going on my book tours, I ran into some guys at a movie festival in Las Vegas and guess what they did in the movie business? I remember them because they purchased a few autographed copies of my books and we had lunch a few times during this 5-day convention.
So, I texted one of the guys and we set up a zoom call later that day to discuss what we needed. Things had made a turn for the better, we left that call with a new partner. Because we have the platform with the viewers and they have the movies and TV shows, we agreed to a set royalty fee for all content streamed on the HHN TV platform and we are talking about premium blockbuster content. We began streaming the license content in June of 2020 and haven’t stopped since, we are adding new content weekly.
This new licensing partnership really gave us momentum through covid and even now, we can compete with the other streaming platforms like Netflix & Prime because we have some of the same content and we even have content that they don’t have. Our catalog of content is what we depend on to keep our subscribers happy, so we will continue to add new content weekly.
During the summer of 2023 we were building an application version of HHN TV to stream on the App market. We did a progressive web app that kept getting hacked and costing us tons of money, so much so that we were about to go broke. But then a funny thing happened, we began receiving emails from OTT companies who had been watching our growth. A few of the companies work with some of the popular apps that’s out there already. They even tried to use that to get us onboard. After a few meetings we decided to partner with a team of several developers, who would be responsible for operating, building and managing our app while we handle the programing and production side of the business. HHN TV became available on ROKU, APPLE TV, ANDROID TV, SAMSUNG, LG, GAME CONSOLES, GOOGLE PLAY STORE & APP STORE in August of 2023. This added a paid subscription model and another layer of confidence to our infrastructure which gave us more leverage in the industry.
Now that we had programming moving smoothly, we focused on recruiting new talent from the Hip-Hop community, we developed our HHN TV creative space for Film Developers, Recording Artist and creatives. HHNTV.com allows the culture and future partners to streamline, analyze and monetize their content on the HHN TV platform.
For the past two years, we had been meeting with ad agencies to partner with but we didn’t trust most of them. It was very important that we trusted our ad agency partners due to the volume of revenue that was at stake and the impression to cpm pay model. In October of this year 2025, we finally partnered with a reputable Ad agency which completed the last phase before our global roll out. Thanks to everyone’s support over the years during this building process, because of you we’re going to market with thousands of subscribers and support from the culture.
To show our appreciation, we have designated some shares of our company to sell to the public for those of you that would like to invest. Investors will receive a yearly profit share dividend check based on their ownership percentage. We have set our first profit share pay out date to January 2029 and will be paid yearly moving forward. All investors must have an active investment and have been an investor for 1 year before receiving a dividend check. To Invest please visit WeFunder.com/HHN.tv
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Anytime you start a new business, you plan for it to go one way but it always ends up being something different in the end. That’s when you use your entrepreneurial gut to take control and make the best of the situation, so I look forward to those rough times too because they often lead to something better. When covid hit in 2020, it completely derailed production, We had to produce a certain amount of content based on contract obligations. Lucky for us, licensing content was an option.
The first time that we filmed a Reality TV Show, we had the worse equipment and some part time videographers, amazingly that series sold pretty good but the quality was the worst. We didn’t know it at the time because we didn’t really know anyone to ask. This was all new.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
HHN TV is a global streaming platform, featuring Free TV Shows, Premium Movies and Hip-Hop content.
I am the Founder & CEO of HHN TV, I run the day to day operations at the Network.
I specialize in business networking and relationships, I get the deals done.
HHN TV is built on the Hip-Hop culture, it’s that energy that powers the movement.
I’m proud of our brand because it represents the Hip-Hop culture and how united and diverse we are at the same time.
HHN TV is here to provide a platform for you to watch your favorite content for free or at our reasonable monthly price of $6.99. If you’re film producer or recording artist, you can monetize your content on HHN TV as well be visiting our creative space at HHNTV.com
We stream the same movies and TV Shows as our competitors and we also have a lot that they don’t have. Download HHN TV on your phone or TV.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Wow! I really see AI making a huge difference in this industry. It’s going to be hard to tell the difference, we use some AI editing tools now that’s remarkable so it’s only going to improve. We just have to adjust now and not later.
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