Words Matter Pod w/ Akil Pinnock

In the second and final part of "Art Reflecting the Times" w/ Sports, Portrait, and Documentary Photographer Anthony Geathers, Geathers, tells us why he shoots in black and white, the importance of best representing a person in his body of work, the difference between just being a photographer and being a photo-journalist, and what makes New York special. Geathers also speaks about his love of str...

In Part I, Sports, Portrait, and Documentary Photographer Anthony Geathers speaks about falling in love with photography in a seventh grade photo competition, the difference between photographers who are formally trained and the self-taught, how an artsy kid ended up fighting in Afghanistan, but how growing up in New York City prepared him for warfare, and how it's an artists duty to reflect the t...

On this weeks episode we have Education Reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit Ethan Bakuli. Bakuli speaks about figuring out what kind of journalist he wanted to be in college with the help of our former professor Nicholas McBride, how that tied into wanting to tell a more complete story of his hometown, Amherst, Mass; building community in unfamiliar environments, and the importance of local news. PLEAS...

On this weeks episode we have Hewton Fider. Creator of WHYzers, a decentralized learning environment created for learning, educating, and employing. Fider shared how WHYzers developed after being diagnosed with learning disabilities and wanting to de-stigmatize them, finding ways to navigate life with these diagnoses, immersive education, how WHYzers will be implemented in the traditional school e...

This week we have music industry professional and host of the successful Music Your Missing Podcast, Brendan Jeannetti. Although not a musician himself, Jeannetti remembers falling in love with music during the days of Limewire, working for different music street teams, learning how to podcast on the fly, and originally wanting to be famous from being on the mic, later learning that fame wasn't fo...

On this weeks episode we have Massachusetts raised, New York based photographer, Nehemiah Brent. Brent talks about stumbling onto photography as a hobby while studying at UMass Amherst as a Kinesiology student, moving to New York, photoshoot horror stories, his style of photography, and much more!!!   Subscribe to Words Matter Network online!!!      https://www.wordsmatternetwo...

This week we virtually sat down with San Diego based, and Cleveland raised artist, creative director, and designer Erwin Hines. Hines spoke about creating his clothing brand FUTURE IS COLOR ® after the murder of George Floyd and using art to cope with tragedies. He also reflected on his time as an architecture student, and how he's able to apply it's theories and principles to everything he does a...

In this weeks episode, we traveled to Allentown, Pennsylvania to interview Black Dre. A rapper whose learned to balance a life of growing up playing basketball, getting an education, and now a career as a mental health professional. We spoke about Allentown's Hip-Hop identity, breaking down his lyrics, pursuing a graduate degree while rapping, turning down records deals and much more. PLEASE LIKE,...

In part two of last week's episode, producer of Yusef Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn, director of Digging for Weldon Irvine, and co-owner of Legacy Vinyl Boutique in Brooklyn, NY, Victorious De Costa speaks about how losing five of his friends to suicide was a factor in creating Digging for Weldon Irvine, eliminating the stigma of seeking out mental health resources, artists not only needing inspira...

This week we have director of Digging for Weldon Irvine, producer of Yusef Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn, and co-owner of Legacy Vinyl Boutique in Brooklyn, NY Victorious De Costa. In part one of this extensive interview, Victorious speaks about telling the stories of those before us through their record collections, musicians like the late Weldon Irvine feeling inadequate and not having the mental...

Founder and Creative Director of ENVY OF NEW YORK, Scott Beale-King talks about how he applied what he learned from being a part of a streetwear brand in the past, to developing ENVY, what drives him, building within your own community, COVID-19 related shipping obstacles, and the name of the brand being inspired by outside lack of belief in his vision. PLEASE LIKE, COMMENT, & SUBSCRIBE!!! Subscri...

Brandon C. Bjerre wears many hats. Currently a footwear designer, his experiences growing up in Europe for the first 10 years of his life, visiting Maryland in the summer where he eventually spent the rest of his youth, and playing basketball collegiately and professionally all shaped his journey and the stories he tells through his design. In this episode I asked him about what true originality i...

Award winning Certified Life Coach, mental health advocate, public speaker, and author of Surthrival Mode, and most recently Heal Forward: Four steps to purposeful living, Pervis Taylor, III reflects on his life growing up in Lancaster, Texas and not fitting into the stereotypical tropes of what men were in his environment, being inspired by his pain and feelings of being lost as a black men to he...

Darlene Okpo, owner of Adanne Bookshop in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY, tells her story as a young girl growing up in The Bronx and falling in love with a library, living in Staten Island but not being of Staten Island, the sense of familiarity she got from urban fiction novels, owning a black owned bookstore, and her  experiences as an English teacher in New York City public schools. PLEASE, LIKE, CO...

NFL veterans and Super Bowl champions, Jason and Devin McCourty are known for what they've accomplished on the football field, but they're also host of the successful podcast, Double Coverage with The McCourty Twins. We spoke about what it's like to be active players while being members of the media, controlling your own narratives as pro-athletes, athletes speaking out against injustices; prepari...

Today's episode features Damany Gordon, and his mother Theresa Cooper-Gordon. Founders of Genuine Culture, LLC. A Western Massachusetts based, multifaceted company that organizes and promotes live entertainment, film series, theme parties and seminars. Damany recalls a time when his parents, who were heavily involved in music and the community, would hold fundraisers with live music for community...

Richard, co-founder of The Aware Brand, sees himself as a creative, and with a 10 year background as a mental health professional, a healer as well. Alongside his best friend Drew, the pair created The Aware Brand with the intentions of spreading mental health awareness through streetwear. Richard speaks in detail about the beginnings of The Aware Brand as a company that just sold minimalistic hat...

Amanda C. Gayle Esq., owner of Gayle Law, PLLC, and author of What's In A Name? How To Choose A Trademark: Detailed tips, examples, and case law directly from a trademark attorney, chronicles her story starting off as a public defender, feeling limited as a civil rights attorney but later realizing that she could truly benefit her people as a business, trademark, and copyright attorney, the differ...

Jazz saxophonist, composer, vocalist, and educator; Mtali Banda reflects on how growing up in different cities allowed him to be receptive to sounds that you wouldn't expect him to, what makes a millennial want to be a Jazz musician, and not adhering to traditional jazz rules. He also elaborates on the importance of higher education exposing him to the ways that the black diaspora and history have...

Today we have Ayanna Depas. Spring Valley, NY native, and Grammy Award winning recording and mixing engineer for the likes of H.E.R., Dave East, Mary J. Blige, and A$AP Ferg, just to name a few. Ayanna reflects on how important it was from a very young age for her grandmother to instill in her that no one should ever tell her that she can't do something, engineering for the first time for a cousin...

New York Times Best Seller of Friday Black and Spring Valley, NY native, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah speaks about how important it is to let people know where you're from, supporting your community, jumping into the world or rapping, the differences between writing a book and creating music, writing about writing and rapping about writing and jumping out of an imaginary whiteness space. LIKE, COMMENT...

Assistant Editor at Ebony Magazine, Savannah M. Taylor expresses her love of being black, loving community but imagining more for yourself than that community, the relevance of print journalism, click-bait, and being acknowledged by Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West') at the Black Future Brunch. LIKE, COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE!!!   https://www.wordsmatternetwork.com/   YouTu...

Ohio raised, Bronx based rapper JayR' Dion speaks about having a borderless sound, leaning into motivational subject matter, mental hurdles, being true to yourself, and transitional periods.  LIKE, COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE!!! https://www.wordsmatternetwork.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBIOx5HG9rmDOwly5N0XISw/videos Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0YvGpb3... Social Media Twit...

In Part II of our interview with Drs. Demetria Shabazz & Amilcar Shabazz, they speak about being willing to teach white people the critical skills in which they can recognize inequality and utilizing it in their everyday lives, decolonizing curriculums, young people being makers of their own stories, and more.  RATE, LIKE, SUBSCRIBE!!! https://www.wordsmatternetwork.com/ Spotify https://open.s...

Drs. Demetria and Amilcar Shabazz on reparations, their parents sacrifices, doing the work with a smile on your face, and the importance of building community while unlearning white supremacy.  LIKE, COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE!!! https://www.wordsmatternetwork.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBIOx5HG9rmDOwly5N0XISw/videos Instagram Host: https://www.instagram.com/_akngozi/ Words Matter...