RESPECT. Interview: Vh1’s Black Ink Crew’s Dutchess & Ceaser Talk Reality TV and More

You may know them from being the bosses of two of the baddest tattoo shops around. You may know them from Vh1’s Black Ink Crew, or you may know them from just being Dutchess and Ceaser from around the way. Whatever your connection to the two lovebirds, there is more to them than what meets the eye.  I was able to catch up with bosses by phone, while they both spoke very REAL and candidly.  The tattoo artists and reality stars spoke very openly about everything from the shops, the death of reality shows, their empires, the future of what’s to come, and their love. Check out Part 1 of my chat with the King and Queen of Ink below on Mother’s Day, what’s next, 125th, reality TV and this season.

RESPECT.: What did you do for Mother’s Day weekend? I know you all have a busy schedule.  

Ceaser: Honestly man, I hate to say it. We were working on Mother’s Day.  Me and Dutchess spent some time with the family and what not, but we were working.

RESPECT.: Ya’ll gotta get it in.  I understand.

Ceaser: Yeah, Mother’s Day tattoos.  It’s a whole bunch of stuff.  Then we were giving away stuff in the shop so you know I’m in North Carolina with her right now and doing this whole giving a family, Mother’s Day giveaway type of thing that we did.

RESPECT.: Well that is cool.  I saw you guys put that on Instagram.  

Ceaser:  We was gonna announce the winner today, honestly we just been so busy.  We was supposed to do it on Mother’s Day, but we get so caught up on everything.

RESPECT.: I can understand.  Well I know ya’ll working in each others’ shops back and forth.  How often do you get back up there or how often do you get in each others’ spots?

Ceaser:  I be here almost as much  in Black Ink as I’m in Pretty in Ink, cause you know her shop is fairly new.  My shop has been running for a little while so I got a little bit more leeway to just leave it and knowing it’s gonna function.  I have a pretty good staff, sometimes they disorderly, but they’re pretty good when it comes down to getting the business done.  I come down here a lot.

RESPECT.: So her shop is pretty much going well at this point?

Ceaser: Yeah, her shop is running excellent.  Both our shops are doing real good.

RESPECT.: I heard you were busy working for Mother’s Day.

Dutchess: Yeah, I had to rush down, have dinner with my mom, and then get back to the money.

RESPECT.: Well I know that is right and I am sure your mom understands.

Dutchess: She definitely does.  She had a good Mother’s Day so she is good.

RESPECT.: Take me back to the beginning of Black Ink before the reality show.

Ceaser: You wanna know the beginning?  Let me summarize it.  Black Ink been around for a minute now. We been very popular in the urban ink community.  The whole urban community really started and we been like the forerunners to the whole situation.  You never really even heard of urban tattooing until they really seen Black Ink so a lot of people really put urban tattooing to us. That’s us, not like that whole other genre of tattooing, which is predominantly white and we’re honestly knocking it out the box with a whole next generation of tattoo artists that’s really getting it.  That’s how Black Ink started with that vision and now that’s how it is.

RESPECT.: On 125th. Why that time and why the move?

Ceaser: I was gonna move, but I decided to keep that spot open because when I was gonna close it the whole neighborhood kinda got depressed and what not and it was kinda like a damper cause honestly I be feeling like this, if I am gonna close it and it’s for a better situation. I feel like it could run on its own so it’s no reason for me to really close it.  I was just closing because we made it to 125th street!  Why have 2 shops, but why not have two shops?  It’s hard for black men to get property in Harlem.  If you got two pieces of property you gotta hold on to it.

RESPECT.: You spoke about a lot of different people coming off of that street, a lot of success and you wanted to build your empire based upon that same success.  So what was that entire process like for you?

Ceaser: I grew up walking up and down 125th Street and I remember 20 years ago how it used to be and I feel like this, the old Harlem is starting to die down slowly, but surely because of the new Harlem.  I feel like with the whole 125h Street I don’t see no black man that own any store fronts on 125th Street, but you would turn back 10 years from now before Bill Clinton or anybody else decided to put their office on 125th Street there was a whole bunch of black owned businesses and what bothers me is this is our neighborhood, that people are generating money from and not even living in our neighborhood.  I’d rather it be us taking a piece back of what belongs to us. That’s what my whole vision was for the 125th shop, was to take something back that really belongs to us that they wont let us on,  they wouldn’t let us in, they wouldn’t let us have anything, but now it was a force to deal with us!

RESPECT.: What would you say your is empire individually versus together? What would you like that to be?

Ceaser: My whole thing is to come together and be having franchises and other businesses that we can prosper from.  Right now I am doing the production thing.  Dutchess is also modeling and acting.  Also, fields that we feel like we can be very, very successful in.  We really want to take it beyond just tattooing. We feel like tattooing was just a stepping stone, and to get our fortune is gonna take more than just tattooing.

RESPECT.: I actually saw that you just put that out on Instagram today about the acting and the modeling company that you were speaking about,  the production that you are doing now, so that is really what’s up that you’re branching out and definitely doing that.  That is a good look!

Ceaser: Yeah, cause we been in the TV thing for like almost four or five years now.  It’s time for us to branch out and do other things like owning our own shows, acting, other shows, like really doing something.  You don’t want to sit there and get stuck in that whole reality show star genre that we are just stuck in and can’t do nothing, but reality show.  Honestly, reality shows are getting tiring at this point.

RESPECT.: Definitely, reality shows seem like now that is the thing.  Everybody’s got the next reality show.

Ceaser: Nobody wants to understand that era is dying slowly, but surely. The last of a dying breed.

RESPECT.: You’ve spoken on you guys maybe having your own shows too?

Ceaser: No, I’m talking about scripted.  I don’t know about reality.  I’m gonna tell you the truth, me and Dutchess are very private people and it bothers us sometimes how people just be prying into our personal life.  We could be sitting down eating dinner and people want to ask about our lives and stuff like that.  Sometimes that is kinda invasive, but they don’t see it like that cause we on TV.

RESPECT.: It’s good to private; you got to have something to yourself.  You can’t have it all out there, because then you have nothing left for yourself so you have to have sometime of privacy.

Ceaser: Yeah

RESPECT.: Describe this season of Black Ink in your own words. 

Ceaser: This season I feel is probably the most ratchet season I’ve seen in all Black Ink history.

RESPECT.: [Laughs]  I’m with you on that.

Ceaser: Yeah, and it’s kinda getting tiresome being apart of this. Basically, my own brand is becoming so ratchet.  I wish for some reason they would show the other side of us instead of this ratchet shit all the time.

RESPECT.: How involved are you all in the process as far as what you determine what goes on and what doesn’t?  How do they determine that?

Ceaser: I don’t have no say so in that.  I see it as soon as you see it.

RESPECT.: Oh wow.  That’s amazing.

Ceaser: You gotta re-live stuff twice and it’s kinda annoying specially when you been doing it so long.  It should be some type of say so. Something like, “I want this on TV, I want this on TV.”  I feel at this point it’s none of that.

Check out Part 2 on Monday for more with the King Ceaser on this season of Black Ink Crew and the cast and as well as the Queen herself Dutchess talking about the future, education, and the reality of reality shows.

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