renaissance
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“ALL LIVES DON’T MATTER”
I am an intersectional activist and organizer in the struggles for Black Liberation and Prison Abolition, and this includes climate, immigration, and gender justice as well. I am also a scholar and a vulnerable lyricist and spoken-word artist who focuses on both political and personal experiences to share stories. Additionally, I hold Bachelor’s degrees in History and Philosophy from the University of Washington, and I am a life-long student and learner.
I first began writing poetry and rapping while locked-up in 1998, as a way to process and survive incarceration. It quickly grew into a key element of who I am as a person and how I connect with the world around me. My earliest performances were with a rap crew formed as part of the Arts Corps program in Seattle in 2001. At that time, I was getting sober, living in homeless shelters, and trying to escape gang life by spending my days in youth drop in centers.
It was at this time that I saw the movie “SLAM” with Saul Williams and Sonja Sohn and it changed my relationship with both the written and the spoken word, and my life forever. Up to that point I had hidden my vulnerable and emotional writing, but that movie showed me the power of those two qualities and introduced me to a form of expression that has been the bedrock of my style since.
I have won slams, poetry contests, hip-hop battles, video contests and more over the years. With my oldest friend Mark Hoy, whom I have adopted as my brother, I helped start and host the Cornerstone Open Mic & Artist Showcase from 2006 to 2011. During that same time we also facilitated an annual summer concert at Lavizzo Park called the Good Vibe featuring many of the artist who frequented our open mic and Ladies First, which was hosted at HIDMO. In 2021, I started a project named Eighty One Keys with my brother L.I.A.M.
In the time since then I have been up and down the West Coast working on climate issues, to Standing Rock resisting the Keystone XL Pipeline, into Canada supporting the UNIST’OT’EN camp, to the Philippines working with rice farmers, supporting folx along the Mexican boarder, doing solidarity work with Navajo and Hopi families near the Peabody Mine up in Black Mesa and with the Apache elder Winsler out at Oak Flat resisting the copper mine. The bulk of my efforts unto the 2020 uprising and COVID-19 Pandemic was spent organizing with Justice That Works and Mass Liberation, and helping to build Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro.
Since 2020, I have been an organizer with 350 Seattle working in coalitions around fracked gas and prison abolition, most notably with the Seattle Solidarity Budget and the Healthy Through Heat and Smoke campaign of 2022. Additionally, I have worked extensively on movement and protest safety, in both theory and practice, on the ground and in the class.
The irony is that not only did my writing help me to sort my way out of my addiction, but also my way into social justice work and eventually into activism. There are a couple slogans in Hip-Hop Culture that always rang true for me, the first being, “each one teach one” and the second, “don’t talk about it, be about it.” I was listening to and emulating revolutionary messages, but for the longest time I wasn’t walking the talk. So, when I got the opportunity to work with younger people as a mentor for The Service Board, aka TSB, and to give back what had so freely been given to me, I did.
My activist / organizer origin was in the 2014 wave of the Black Lives Matter movement in Seattle following the murder Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Up to that moment, I was studying and preparing for a career in politics via a law degree. However, when a protest ignited on the night of the non-indictment the police showed up to meet us in riot gear to quell the “uprising.” That night turned into a shit-show of repression that led me to redirect my energy to grassroots organizing instead of politics formally.
Until recently, I thought not only should I, but that I could keep these two vastly important components of my life and character distinct. I now believe that was the wrong approach, as both have always fed into and fueled each other. I am all these things and so much more. I am the Renaissance.
Change is coming.
Change isn’t easy, but it is also unstoppable, and it never comes without friction. The following are six major categories of evolution I have found necessary to function in the movement ecosphere. I have and will continue to share these things with our community.
Tell Your Own Story
The mainstream media has its own objectives and they never seems to align with ours. Learning how to quickly share the answers to four questions will make a world of difference: Who are we? Where are we? Why are we here? What do we want? Set these four questions into context with the creators of the problem, opposition to success, and a vision of the future and you will have the ingredients of some powerful messaging.
Nurturing Relationships
The key element of organizing is relationships whether that be with other activists, organizers, opposition, coalition members, or with yourself. Nothing happens in a vacuum and no one has ever done anything by themselves. Maintaining healthy and equitable relationships is essential.
History & Liberation
Knowing where we come from and how we got here is essential to mapping a path through it. There is no need to recreate the wheel each time a new wave of activists and organizers enter the struggle, if it still works. Political and philosophic analyses are quintessential to building and sustaining a movement.
Know Your Rights
if we are going to push the envelope and push for change, we must be clear that those who do not want things to change will challenge us with every tool they have at their disposal. Often times this will be the law and they will also lie and abuse it. Knowing where the boundaries are will help to prepare you for when you choose to escalate things and shift the agenda. The law can be made to work both ways, admittedly not always, but we do have specific protections. Expressing our rights can often be an effective defense or a strong weapon.
Strategic and Tactical Applications
Civil Disobedience and Direct Action require planning to execute them effectively, efficiently, and equitably. Most never notice the apparatus forming the frame around an event, though. However, there is much to both a single event and fitting that event into the context of a campaign, which fits into the movement objectives.
Security Culture
Dive into masterclasses designed to reshape mindset challenges, embrace change, and boost both personal and group safety.
Doing a thing and walking away from it is key to both sustainability and victory.
Renaissance 