Career Day Taught Me: Hip Hop Is Really Mainstream
Today I visited a suburban school in Northern, Virginia to talk about my career as an author / filmmaker. I showed the students the six books that I’ve written and I even showed them the movie poster to my first film, Can She Be Saved? As an extra bonus (in case they didn’t like my books)–I brought a old copy of my magazine, Mad Rhythms. They listened to me talk about my books and my film, but they were most excited when I told them that I had interviewed Jay-Z, been to Diddy’s house in the Hamptons and they were even more excited when I told them that I had gone to Lil’ Wayne’s 16th Birthday party. Huh? These young people were in 1st through 5th grade! They were so excited when I mentioned the name “Lil Wayne.”
I guess in my mind, I love music so much, I think that its a language that is spoken only to me, but the reality is that music is a universal language that is spoken to all people. When I mentioned to the young people that I had interviewed Jay-Z, there were all sorts of “wow”s and sighs in the room. I knew Jay-Z was really, really hot with Hard Knock Life, but is he still that hot? Apparently. That was something that surprised me today.
I had a great time inspiring and talking to young people about my career as a writer, author, filmmaker. I love it so much that it never feels like work.




I recently came across an author, entrepreneur, speaker, and business coach who is as serious about creating passion as I am. She is serious about helping people find the things in life that continue to elude them.
A few months ago I visited New Jersey and keynoted a teen life conference for Planned Parenthood. It was an event that reached out to high school students and encouraged them to be “The Change That You Want To See In The World.” In addition to speaking at the event, I autographed copies of Exclusive and donated them to the event. I felt good about giving the young people some they could relate to–a hip hop novel based on real life events. Their letters to me have been touching and so I’m gonna share 5 more emails today from Shawn, Zasha, Donald, Kadidiattou and Ashley…
I will be in the house at the 4th Annual National Girl Bullying Conference presenting a session that will feature my film, Can She Be Saved? and my book Retaliation. As most of you know, working with young women has been a passion of mine for many years, so I’m overjoyed that this opportunity has presented itself. Thank you to the young ladies who continue to inspire me and trust me with their stories. It has been my honor to share your voices with the world.
Its true that authors, singers, filmmakers, and artists would be nothing without the people who are touched by their work. No matter how successful you become, you never tire of hearing that somebody was inspired by what you do. On Christmas Eve I received an email from Jen in Texas who not only emailed me about Retaliation, but she went to my YouTube channel and commented on a bunch of my videos.
For the past eight months, I’ve been doing a lot of introspection of my life. I’ve completed journaling exercises to understand what I’ve done good and what I’ve done that isn’t so good. One of the issues that I’ve noticed consistently is that I always give more than half.





