20 years ago this Saturday, I went to my last day of work as a social worker in Harlem, which happened to be the last (and only) time I had salaried employment.
The next day, I went into wardrobe for “Inside Man” and spent the summer shooting the movie with Spike, Clive, Chiwetel, PJ, Denzel, Kim, Bernie, and the whole squad in lower Manhattan and in Brooklyn.
Since my final time walking out of the office on W. 127th street on the afternoon of May 31st, 2005, I have somehow been a full-time artist. Two full decades.
I say this often, but two core qualities have remained central to me across those 20 years:
1. Even on the hardest of days, when I’m flooded with rejections and doors slammed in my face, I have never taken a breath or moment of this life for granted. I truly do each and every single gig like it is the first, the only, the last one I will ever do (as I often say, “Because there’s no guarantee it won’t be.”).
Which is another way of me saying: GRATITUDE overwhelms every blink and breath of these past twenty years.
2. PERSISTENCE, which has required boundless adaptability and endurance beyond anything I could fathom in 2005, has allowed me to continue across such a wild span of time rooted in my work as a writer and performer.
This has meant: epic failures, seasons of seemingly endless rejections, bombing badly in front of thousands of people alone with nothing but a mic as my support, nights where I’ve been sick/homesick/exhausted.
Always, though, I’ve continued. Don’t let the below list overshadow the aforementioned, that often misleading glitter of a bio that can undercut the scars and sweat and tears that breathe possibility into an impossible life like mine.
Sometimes though, I want to take a moment, and look back (briefly), offer thanks for the opportunities I’ve been given. In the spirit of that, here are some of the highlights over this miraculous two-decade run:
– I wrote & starred in a solo play co-conceived with Tamilla Woodard that sold out three theater festivals in NYC and did a month-long run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland (where a reviewer gave it 5/5 stars & called it “the hidden jewel of the Fringe”)
– Penguin Random House published my memoir “Man Up: Reimagining Modern Manhood”
– I voiced a character in the video game “Red Dead Redemption”
– I appeared on season 6 of the HBO original series “Def Poetry Jam” and season 3 of TV One’s “Verses and Flow”
– I starred in the PBS concert film “The Next Movement”
– I performed to a sold out Barclays Center (nearly 20,000!) in Brooklyn for WE Day UN
– I collaborated with John Legend to mentor high school senior leaders to counteract bullying and champion inclusive masculinities (and we rocked a couple shows and events together)
– I delivered two TEDx talks (on masculinity and fatherhood)
– I wrote and recorded two studio albums with my best friend and my buddy, Joe
– I’ve had several poems go viral
– I co-headlined a show at the World Expo in Dubai (also with my best friend)
– I was a winner at Amateur Night at the Apollo
– I rocked MTV Studios for a gig with Talib Kweli
– I performed with Savion Glover on Broadway (to celebrate the Nuyorican Poets Café’s 35th anniversary)
– I’ve been a featured author at more than a dozen literary festivals abroad
– I’ve been featured by NPR, The New York Times, PBS NewsHour’s “Brief But Spectacular,” NBC News, and beyond
– I’ve written & performed commissioned work for GMC, Thermo Fisher Scientific, MARTA Artbound, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the MACY’s Passport Show, the Obama White House, & many others…
– I’ve built lifelong friendships with those I most adore and admire: artists and teachers and readers and librarians and professors and students and activists and people all over the world.
I do not take a day, an hour, or a moment of this for granted.
Thank you for each of the small ways you have made these past twenty years possible. Yes, you.
Onward.
