- Dada’s entrepreneurial spirit started young, from selling candy to running a recording studio.
- Dada and Tillis’ shared vision, work ethic, and service-oriented mindset drove Entertainment Connect’s growth.
- They aim to bring joy through music, art, and theater not just locally, but globally.
Render ATL 2026 was held in Atlanta recently and BOSSIP had the opportunity to sit down with two of the most burgeoning Black live experience producers in the industry, Joshua T. Dada and De’ausha Tillis of Entertainment Connect. EC is a purpose-driven company with non-negotiable core values that exists at the intersection of years of experience and a fearless belief in the ability to get things done at a high level. 2026 marks the ninth year of producing a myriad of events, from concerts to corporate activations, but the foundation of the company started long before that, when Dada was a young first-generation Nigerian child in Houston, Texas, with a hustler’s spirit.
“I was a kid that sold candy. When I was in school. Got a little older, used to burn mixtapes. And then, my younger brother Caleb and I, we got to acertain age, we realized a lot of Black churches in the low-income neighborhood didn’t have custodial staff, so we charging $25 a weekend. So it was always there. Once I got to college, I was cutting hair. I started a recording studio, recording artists, and that’s how I would pay for my groceries. That’s how I would buy clothes, whatever the case may be.”
For Dada, being an expert in a field wasn’t a prerequisite to put forth his best effort to provide excellent service to his customers. Growing pains are natural, but you can’t teach giving a damn. As the saying goes, “how you do anything is how you do everything,” and Dada was intent on doing his very best in any venture he pursued.
Despite what he had learned in his early teenage years, it was at an HBCU, Prairie View A&M University, to be specific, where he truly tapped into his potential and began to feed his appetite for entrepreneurship and the arts. Those years led him to the most eye-opening experience of his young career, working for the Houston Symphony as the Community Programming Manager. As a lover of classical music and a businessman, it was the perfect place for a young Black enterprising individual who touted himself as a “business artist” to have a breakthrough.
“Working at the Houston Symphony is where I saw arts at a high level. We all think about your Jay-Zs, Beyoncés, and things like that, but then there’s also artists out here making 200K a year playing Mozart, Bach. You know what I’m saying? So that’s when I realized, like, okay, man, it’s not all about trying to get on and get a contract and a deal and a label.”
This time at the Houston Symphony led directly to the creation of Entertainment Connect, where major Houston artists like Bun B, Pimp C, Paul Wall, Z-Ro, and Tobe Nwigwe all called on Dada for his services in concert production. While he is proud to be a Nigerian and a Black man, he places heavy emphasis on the fact that the melanin in his skin should not lead to a bigotry of low expectations: “That doesn’t mean that you can expect less just because we’re a Black-owned business.”
Word of mouth accounted for a major portion of his business (90% by his calculations). EC began to grow, and it was time to figure out how to organize his ballooning portfolio and help with the workload. As people of faith, both Dada and his current Chief Operations Officer, De’ausha Tillis, believe that their connection is one of divine timing. As Tillis told Dada upon meeting, “God put me here.”
God was working through a mutual friend named KayCee Nwasike that day when she called Tillis to assist her with an event she had produced in Houston. Upon arrival, Tillis was introduced to Dada, and the conversation instantly turned collaborative.
“And so he was like, ‘Yeah. What do you do?’ And so I’m telling him what I do and he’s like, ‘Well, honestly, that’s what I’m looking for.’ And I said, “Okay. Well, let’s see.” I had just said, I actually have a video on my phone of me saying, “This is my last year working a 9:00 to 5:00. This is my last year waking up and doing something and investing in something that doesn’t make me feel fulfilled. I don’t know what God is going to do, but I’m telling y’all, this is my last year.”
That was in October of 2023; by July of the following year, Tillis and Dada were working together full time. Work ethic, an aligned vision, an intense desire to build experiences that exceed expectations, and a strong sense of service have helped Entertainment Connect solidify almost a decade of business. However, neither Dada nor Tillis is satisfied. They want to continue to bring happiness to people through music, art, and theater not just in Houston, not just in America, but all across the world.
