Meet Coco Gilbert | Co-Founder of The Aunties Producer/Creative Director/Writer

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

Hi Coco, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
My balance has changed tremendously. Being a new mom I am definitely more in tune with my time management and making sure that Im able to balance being a mom and an entrepreneur. I believe this day and age people forget to manage time to be a normal human being. I enjoy a day of Mommy duties. Aside from it humbling me, you learn that you work so you can live a life beyond your career.

What should our readers know about your business?
The Aunties Productions. We are a female based production company. Teyana Taylor aka Spike Tey and myself actually started the production company because we were forced to shoot all of our own content. I personally started as Teyana’s dancer. I auditioned and everything. But over the years of trying to get videos done for her albums the label kept telling us no, they had no budget, no rollout etc. the list of excuses got longer. So one day Teyana said let’s shoot it ourselves, and I said ok let get it done. The whole essence of our company was built off the industry telling us “NO”. So we got tired of people limiting our created so we decided to rewrite our own story. It’s not easy starting in an industry that has so many restrictions and rules and politics, but the beauty of always proving people wrong kept us going. Once our first video we fought for “Gonna Love Me” dropped and we proved to everyone that two girls can get things done, thats when our narrative began to change. Now we are in a position to help creatives like ourselves. Our main contribution in the industry is to produce work that is authentic and shift the narrative of traditional filmmaking, and ways to get thing done.. Our whole company is built around creative solutions and seeing the potential in underdog talent because that’s where we came from.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Im such a home body, BUT If my best friend came to visit I would of course have to take them to The Aunties Compound first, our production house that sits on 5 acres! Then we’d go over Jeni’s ice cream! Yum! Then to Slutty Vegan for lunch. Take the kids to the Aquarium to walk all that off. Then drop them off and go have drink a bar vegan.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to dedicate my Shoutout to my business partner Spike Tey and our production company The Aunties

Instagram: @coco_gilbert and @theauntiesinc