BETs Ultimate Hustler @ twitter.com/yngfresh2death

Millions of Hip Hop fans throughout the nation tuned into Black Entertainment Television (BET) to watch Brian Rikuda be crowned as the first winner of the television’s network ultra popular Apprentice styled reality show, BET’s Ultimate Hustler in December 2005. As the top rated and most highly acclaimed show in the network's history, BET’s Ultimate Hustler, pitted 16 entertainment "moguls in the making" against each other to compete for a position with Hip Hop mogul Damon Dash. As a founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, Damon Dash is credited with running one of the longest running and successful Hip Hop labels in history. In recent years, Dash has solidified his position in film with his own Dash Films (The Woodsman, Shadowboxer, and Paid in Full). Additionally, Armadale Vodka, Damon Dash Savile Row and the Rachel Roy Collection are just a handful of the companies that comprise Dash multi-million dollar empire. From walking the red carpet at exclusive award shows to being a guest on the most popular urban radio shows, photo shoots and interviews for countless urban magazines, websites, and making club appearances throughout the United States, Rikuda has become a household name to Hip Hop consumers around the country and is regarded as the latest Hip Hop success story. Most recently in late 2008, Rikuda secured a national distribution deal for his record label, Conduit Entertainment, and is currently working on a variety of other projects.

Rikuda is a Stanford University graduate with a BA in Economics and Political Science and minor in African and African-American Studies. After several years in Silicon Valley, Brian and a fellow Stanford alumnus founded the Hip Hop record label, Conduit Entertainment, Inc. in 2002. Leveraging his experiences as a marketing consultant at Charles Schwab, and his tenure at one of the most acclaimed technology startups from the dot com Silicon Valley hey day, Rikuda took a Silicon Valley approach to entrepreneurship by applying the Valley’s model to his deep understanding of the Hip Hop market. Researching the market, developing the product, strategically planning market entry, and securing investments, Rikuda took the best practices of the Valley and implemented them to target the exponentially growing Hip Hop market. With an advisory board comprised of Who’s Who in Silicon Valley, Rikuda and his partner achieved what had never been done before: Silicon Valley entrepreneurship meets Hip Hop.

In six years, Conduit Entertainment, Inc. has become one of the nation’s fastest growing independent urban music companies. The company has already independently released 7 CDs and have paired Conduit’s own artists with internationally known rappers Juvenile, Devin the Dude, David Banner, Bonecrusher, and Bun B. Conduit’s artists, have appeared on Black Entertainment Television (BET), and performed in shows in New York, Colorado, California, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. ....