Everything and everyone has a story. But not all of them are true. I still remember my first undergraduate journalism class when I heard the famous phrase "he who controls the media, controls the mind." Ever since, I have stayed acutely aware not only of the narratives directed at me, but also of those I tell myself about who I am. I started my career at the epicenter of the greatest storytelling genre of all time; Hip Hop. First as an assistant at Def Jam Records, then into management at Universal Music Group and Atlantic Records. A scrawny kid from Long Island with deep roots in Queens, where I was born, I realized I was standing on the side of the industry that kept telling the story wrong. The lyrics called for community infrastructure, better schools, and economic justice. We were selling the opposite, packaged in staged photoshoots and videos.
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A young person who never sees himself represented with dignity learns to price himself accordingly. That is the machinery of a culture quietly deciding who counts, and I have watched it up close. That instinct never left me, and it surfaced again in the spring of 2020, watching an industry perform enlightenment with its eyes closed. What started as a simple text to a few friends, "do you see what's happening? We need to do something. These black squares are stupid!" turned into the Black Owned Media Equity and Sustainability Institute (BOMESI). The first person to raise their hand was Rhonesha Byng, founder of Her Agenda, and now cofounder of BOMESI Foundation serving as its Chief Mission Officer.By the summer of 2020, we were done watching a market be mistaken for a favor. Diverse publishers were stronger as one voice than as hundreds fighting alone for scraps. One of our first projects was a verified directory of Black-owned publishers: 50 names then, nearly 400 now, including Blavity, The Root, and Her Agenda.
