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WHAT GETS YOU MOVIN’: A Conversation Between Angelou & Chappelle

25 Jun

It’s been awhiiiiiile!  Let’s try this again, shall we?

A couple of weeks ago the world lost a prolific, inspirational, and dynamic female writer, Maya Angelou.  Also over the last couple of weeks, a great comedic writer has been back on the news due to an unprecedented 2 week sold-out run at Rockefeller Center, Dave Chappelle.  Here is a snippet of a conversation between what would seem to be 2 polar opposites, yet it’s such a beautiful, eye-opening conversation.  Check it out!

RIP phenomenal Maya Angelou.  Glad to see you back Dave Chappelle.

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WHAT GETS YOU MOVIN’: Inspirational Souls

9 Jan

Raedawn Johnson



My friend Raedawn Johnson was featured in Essence.com!  Raedawn is the founder of Orglamic Beauty and a celebrity makeup artist here in NYC, we’ve collaborated a couple of times, and I’m so happy that she’s getting some shine.  She’s such a great, energetic soul! Check out her great story, as well as a few tips to you aspiring makeup artists.

Here’s and excerpt:

” I was 21 years old, had just landed in New York City and was laser-focused on accomplishing one goal—becoming a well-known, well-respected TV and film actress. After five years of hearing casting directors tell me I didn’t “look ethnic enough” or my skills weren’t “good enough,” I decided I needed a plan B.” Go to Essence.com to read the rest of the Raedawn’s story.

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WHAT GETS YOU MOVIN’: Inspirational Souls

22 Oct

Pink

It’s been a while since someone has inspired me, and although I try not to draw too much inspiration from entertainment celebrities, I have to say Pink had me with her glow and energy.

For a little while now, I’ve wondered what’s up with me. I can be sort of Debbie Downer, I’m always tired, more pessimistic than usual, and a lot of my drive to do my best has gone away.  I sort of coughed this up to slight depression due to the stress of going to school full-time, working full-time, starting a new company, and a waning social life. 

But a strange epiphany hit me as I watched Pink in her behind the scenes video for Shape Magazine.  Between watching her do some workout moves, just being a ball of positive energy, and of course the her general happy glow of life and love treating her well, I realized….duh I don’t work out anymore! This year I’ve worked out a handful of times, and the last time i was consistent, and went routinely was 2007!   I used to be a gym rat, I enjoyed pushing myself, accomplishing goals I didn’t think I could reach, and I made it a game to never quit if I was in a class or with a trainer.  I’ve always known that exercise gives you more energy, and in turn makes you happier, but I also think it keeps your drive, passion, and ambition up.  If you go hard in exercise, most time you go hard in life….this is not a proven statement, but I do see a connection.

So thank you Pink! I’ve always liked her since hopping around and being crazy in There You Go,  back in 2000, and although I’ve always thought she had a rockin’ personality (#TeamVirgo) I have to say she had me smiling because you can tell she is happy; she really inspired me to get my butt in gym and get tight and mentally right!  My desire isn’t to loose weight, but kudos to pink on loosing 55 lbs of baby weight, and also pick up her new album The Truth About Love.

Check the behind the scenes video below, maybe she’ll inspire you like she did me, I know my gym rats definitely will be…looking forward to feel the burn! OW!

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WHAT GETS YOU MOVIN?: Ne-yo making moves

30 Mar


WOW! WOW! WOW! Let me start off my apologizing for my blogging hiatus, I was on my grind, and kind of renovating my mind, so please forgive me.

As I get the ball moving again with my blog, let me start off with the start of Feature Fridays, which will be a videos I was involved in, in some way.  They’ll mostly be from VladTV, where I’m a videographer and video editor, but there will be other projects highlighted as well.

Since I’ve been on my grind doing lots of things that I’m excited to share over the next couple of weeks, I’ll leave you with this video of Ne-yo talking about all the things he’s doing.  He literally makes me tired listening to his list; tired, but motivated.  I had the pleasure of meeting him, when Bonsu Thompson and I had to do this interview, Bonsu always does great interviews even if he only has 15 minutes!

And when ever I’m in need of real motivation, I watch the video I showed, in this post….it never gets old to me.

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WHAT GETS YOU MOVIN?: inspirational souls

25 Dec


Somewhere between my quick business trip to Barbados with Dj Dummy and returning to the cold of NYC, I got a bit of my mojo back!

As my return to NYC tweet last night stated, I’m back on my grind:

…oddly enough in the process of looking for some info and reading the January 2012 issue of Self magazine, I ran into this video featuring A-trak, Curtis Kulig, Carlos Quirarte.  The video is a piece on people grinding in NYC that went with HBO’s now cancelled show, How to Make it in America (I’m sad about the cancellation, but they needed better writers, and needed to stop showing the obvious and develop the not understood). 

As i digress, this is a great piece to get motivated if you lost a little bit of your mojo.

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WHAT GETS YOU MOVIN?: inspirational souls

16 Nov



The best thing I heard all day.

I love Keith Olbermann, this is the 2nd time he’s been posted under my inspirational souls (here’s the 1st).  Listen to Olbermann go seriously in on Mayor Bloomberg, and his efforts to eradicate Occupy Wall Street.  As someone who was stuck in my car for almost 2 hours in traffic on Saturday, I’m pissed at the “God Damn Batman Movie!”

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WHAT GETS YOU MOVIN?: inspirational souls

13 Nov



I just finished watching Red Bull Academy’s 2 hour lecture series with Erykah Badu! It’s hard for me to watch movies because I get antsy watching a screen for too long, but this was time very well spent, quite the engaging 2 hours!

The video came at the perfect time. I had literally finished writing my 1st journal entry in 16 months, and had written about finding inspiration, and getting reconnected with my soul again. And then BAM, right at the top screen, I see a Tweet Deck notification from Witches’ Brew saying “Erykah Badu – Up Close.”  My photographer’s mind figured it was a picture so I clicked, but it turned out to be an interview with Ms. Badu.

As a music lover both on the creative side as well as the business side, the interview was enlighting, vivid, warm and refreshing.  And made me wish i had reached my goal of being a producer by 30.  More importantly is that you can’t help but love Erykah!  I know she’ only 8 years older than me, but I want to be her when I grow up!  She’s so chill, level-headed, funny,  sexy without realizing it or trying know who she is and knows what she likes.  Some how what most the video resonated with me so much in regards to today’s journal post today is how’s she’s ever evolving, how it drives her.  I think somewhere in my trying to reach these many goals of mine, the movement towards them and the person controling the movement, got out of sync.  And that person, that soul, is quite a few steps behind my movments. But anyway…

She might not affect you in the same way, but there’s no doubt in my mind that her energy will consume you in some way.  So if you have some time, check, check, it out!

Anyway that’s something I’ll have to figure out, she may not affect you in the same way she did me. But there’s no doubt that her energy will consume you in some.

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