Amps- Where are you originally from?
D.D.- Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Amps- So you’re a country girl?
D.D.- Yea, I have a little bit of country in me, but I don’t like camping, fishing, or none of that stuff.
Amps- What motivated you to get into the type of business that you’re in?
D.D.- It was a total accident and what I mean by that is, my husband and a good friend of ours, Ray Jameson, were doing what was called Pearl Production and they were going to different clubs and taking the new records and new music from the base record to the DJ at different clubs to see how the crowd response would be to that song. That’s how they use to do it back in the day before we had internet, so you had to do foot work, so they decided to put together a fashion show and I helped them put together a step team competition. So, in the meantime, the person who coordinated the fashion show didn’t show up so my husband said, “My wife can do it” and I said to him, “Oh, so you’re just going to 
volunteer me” and he looked at me and said, “I know you can do this.” From that point on, I started doing the fashion shows and from the fashion shows, it just grew bigger and bigger.
Amps- So, how did you get into your other projects that you’re doing, because you have a lot going on? Model, actor, and artist, so how did you get off into all of that?
D.D.- How I started into that was once I started putting together the fashion shows, I kept getting phones calls back from the models that were participating in the shows to ask what’s the next step, well like I said before I had basically taken over for my husband. My husband decided to go ahead and coach basketball, that’s his passion, he’s a basketball coach and Ray was in the military; he had a lot of different things going on and at the time it was a business opportunity for Black women in Colorado so I could take all the business classes for free. Once I started taking those business classes I thought about the management side and the management side is a little more hands on then just doing the shows so I get to know the people one on one. Getting to know their personalities, their everyday life and not just the person who is on stage, I like that part of the industry. I do love the shows, back stage and all the other things that come with it, but I really like to be one on one and hands on communications with the artists.
Amps- Being a wife and mother of three how did you juggle all of that? Because being a mom is a full time job by itself.
D.D.- A lot of prayer, a lot of God guiding me and asking God for the direction and show me what step to take next. At first before I was smart enough to do that I was a little frustrated to tell you the truth, but I always had to put my family first and I tell everybody that I manage, that my family comes first, so if we are in the middle of a meeting and my daughter needs me, I’m leaving, so regardless what going on, my family comes first.
Amps- How did you come up with the name Black Pearl Entertainment?
D.D.- That name was given to the company by Ray as I keep mentioning. Ray Jameson came up with it and my husband agreed to it. At first we called it, Pearl Jam and there’s a rock group called Pearl Jam so we couldn’t use that name. When Ray moved to Detroit he said, “I’m going to give you the Pearl Black +
Entertainment and I’m going to start something else in Detroit.” Ray passed away and I kept the name in honor of Ray Jameson.
Amps- How has it been going for you from when you first started up to now?
D.D.- It has been moving really, really fast for me right now. You know how they say be careful what you pray for, not be careful what you ask for, because God just might do it and you have to be ready to move when God says move, you have to be ready to receive what he gives you when you ask. That’s why I said I do what he says on a day to day basis, because he’s the one who’s blessed me this far and to be able to add the actors, singers, artists and I even have DJ’s; I have the complete package when it comes to entertainment so if you need anything in the city, I have everything. I’m a one stop shop.
Amps- What was your childhood like growing up?
D.D.- I’m going to say it was weird because it wasn’t Leave It To Beaver, it wasn’t The Brady Bunch. My father’s name was Charles and that’s the name his mother gave him, but he would give himself a bunch of other names. So whenever we went somewhere I would have to ask him what name do I ask for, who are you here? My mother always kept the balance. My daddy was crazy and wild and my mother kept the balance. One day, she got tired of the crazy and wild and told him he had to go. So once he moved out and he was gone and it was still different, because then I took on the role as the mother and my mother took on the role as the father, and I helped my mom take care of my little brother .
Amps- What advice would you give to anyone who wants to get in this industry that have doubts about pursuing their goals because they come from a rough background and they’re not sure if they can do it or not?
D.D.- The first advice I would have is first make sure that’s what God wants you to do because sometimes we do things that are not in our purpose that God put us on this Earth for, but we keep pushing and pushing and we wonder why it’s not working because he called us to do something different. Secondly, once you figure out what your purpose is don’t stop, don’t say, “Okay, today that didn’t work so I’m not going to do it anymore.” Maybe the way you did it the first time didn’t work, try something different don’t do the same old thing over and over again and expect it to change because it won’t. You can’t write your plan down and don’t do your plan. What sense does it make to write it on a piece of paper and then you don’t put it in motion?
Amps- How can your followers keep up with what you are doing?
D.D.- Email: blackpearlent8@gmail.com & blackpearlentinc@gmail.com
(720) 422-0135
On Facebook: Black Pearl Entertainment, Inc. and on Twitter: @bpedenver
