Meet Kimba Rogers | The Connector

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kimba Rogers and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kimba, we’d love to start by asking you about lessons learned. Is there a lesson you can share with us?
Connections matter.

Listening to people and truly hearing them is important and you can’t put a price on the Human connection. Even while society as a whole, keeps digging further and further into a screen, we are also simultaneously constantly searching for real Human Connection. I also know that humor and kindness has saved me more times than I can count. As hard as the world may seem….laughter and kindness is what will save us.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Like most people, I have done so many different things. I left home at a very early age of 14 years old and the people I met over the years saved me.

I was properly poor most of my life but I fell into booking bands because I was dating a Fine Artists and helping produce his Gallery shows. All of his friends were musicians so they asked me if I could do the same for them, hence Wacko Enterprises was born with an old friend Elena that I have since lost contact with but we ended up booking nights at The Roxy, On The Rox, Club Lingerie, The Whiskey etc.

It was a crazy, fun, life changing time that led me to more clubs and connections that are still alive and well today.

I worked and lived at the American Hotel in DTLA and was a bartender at Al’s Bar. I worked at a Boutique Ad Agency called Ground Zero and one of the Founding Partners of that company is still one of my best friends. My friends and I started the Gallery Row Arts District in DTLA from just hanging out and deciding we wanted to do something to fix DTLA. That led to years of work that we are all very proud of and helped to bring an Arts focus to LA that was sorely missing.

My whole life has been connecting people from DJs that have just arrived in LA find a gig and an apartment to hooking people up with a good cancer doctor to connecting Creative Directors with their next gig.

I guess what I want to convey is that connections and people matter. And if you make the Right connections.. you could possibly save the world or at least a chunk of it.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
LA is such special place but I like the simple things here. I live in Long Beach so a walk on the Beach or bike ride for sure but this city is a Gem and there’s a Mountain of Great food in Long Beach but one of my all time favorite go-to’s for Long Beach is La Parolaccia Osteria this neighborhood Italian spot that has Fabulous food but it’s the staff that makes that place home.

I would take them on 4th street Retro Row to hang out. I would take them to Highland Park to check out some of the speakeasy spots and just walk around and people watch.

I am a bit of a local snob so I rarely go to the West Side but Mid-City, Jefferson Park has some great food, galleries and cute little spots to check out.

For morning coffee we can walk down to Jug Band Coffee, a small neighborhood coffee spot that has a 226 year-old sourdough starter so their Bagels are Ridiculously good. Thrift store shopping at the Assistance League Thrift & Vintage.

The Belmont Pool at the beach is awesome since we rarely actually swim in the Long Beach Water 😋

For nighttime, I would take them to some Afterhours House Music clubs because that’s my favorite!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are almost too many to name but I’ll start with Cheyanne Sauter the ED of our non-profit arts organization called AHA Projects https://aha-projects.org. She and I have worked together on various projects and she is my family but she is also a Brilliant LA Arts supporter and deserves as much recognition as possible for doing everything she can to help artists.

One of my oldest friends is Dennis Cruz. He is a Poet that taught me about Poetry and so much about Life in general. I don’t think my brain or heart would be wired the way it is without his influence and constant friendship.

Another great friend is Erica Woods. She is an HR Director in the tech world and is coming from the perspective of showing empathy and humanity in the HR space. This vibe is sorely needed in all aspects of business but coming from Tech HR to me, is invaluable as our world gets more intertwined with AI.

Website: https://kimbarogers.com

Instagram: keepinitkimba or kimba rogers

Other: Just starting a YouTube page so I’ll update my website once I have more content on there. I’m just now realizing that I do need more social media presence HA!!

Image Credits
I took all of these images and everything is either public art or something in nature.