danked.com started in Modesto, California as a place for music, hip-hop and whatever else we were into at the time.

Back then it was Rich and Ben — the Sphire Brothers — making music, messing with computers, recording, turntables, building websites and trying things because we thought they were cool.

The site had music, a message board and a community around hip-hop in Modesto. We weren't starting a company and we definitely didn't have a thirty-year business plan.

We just needed a domain name.

danked was six letters, we liked it, and it meant something to us.

So we grabbed it.

WHAT DOES “DANKED” MEAN?

Not weed.

It's our word.

Danked is being full to the brim with ideas.

It's that heavy-headed feeling when you're so inspired that you need to turn on some gear and make something.

Drums. Beats. Skratching. Recording. Art. Shirts. Stickers. Models. Websites. Weird objects. Whatever.

Your brain is loaded and the tools are sitting there waiting.

That's danked.

The funny part is that we picked the word long before we knew what this place would eventually become.

It still fits.

THE SPHIRE BROTHERS

For Rich and Ben, music and technology were always tangled together.

Computers were instruments. The studio was a laboratory. New gear meant new possibilities. Making a record could involve music, artwork, websites, video, electronics, software and whatever else we figured out along the way.

Over the years the names, rooms, computers and equipment changed, but the idea really didn't:

learn stuff, make stuff, share stuff.

Ben passed away in 2023.

He was Rich's brother, creative partner and the other half of the Sphire Brothers. His ideas, music, humor and way of looking at technology are permanently built into the history of danked.com.

This site isn't an attempt to replace that chapter. It's one of the things that grew out of it.

THE SPHIRES — NOW

Today, The Sphires means Rich and Jenn.

Jenn had already been part of the life around the music, studio and family for decades, but over time she became an increasingly important part of the making itself — printing, production, ideas, problem solving and helping turn strange experiments into real things.

Together we're building the current version of danked.com and We Out Here: part art studio, part print shop, part workshop, part record label, part laboratory.

The tools are different. The projects are different. The family has changed.

But the underlying idea is still remarkably close to where this started:

learn stuff, make stuff, share stuff.

We're still danked.