Making it to the Middle A Journey of Purpose

when we dream

it’s always big and we see ourselves

under the brightest of lights

reality is success is highly relative

so many artists never reach the top of

their profession but live very

successful lives

as middle class musicians sadly

we don’t hear about those stories only

the ones about the world famous ones

but the triumphs in my career help

magnify the need

to redefine what making it really means

for me it wasn’t about being all over

the radio all over the tv screen

it was about the moment i was able to

resign for my job for 13 years

to become a full-time musician i had

made it

the moment i was able to support myself

my kids and provide opportunities to

others

i had made it since then i’ve become a

musical culture ambassador to 11

different countries around the world

a songwriter to major networks artistic

partner to the baltimore symphony

orchestra

a record label owner a founder of my own

non-profit and a grammy voting member

yes everything i mentioned are

accomplishments but each one of these

endeavors can be measured

by its impact whether i’m starting a

project from scratch

or i’m starting an initiative i’m

passionate about or on building a

partnership

the goal is always the same how can i

provide a better opportunity for

tomorrow’s musicians

and our future leaders so

here is my unexpected rise to unknown

role model

to the world now my path to purpose

definitely wasn’t an easy one and there

were certain criteria i had to be

willing to accept

in order to reach my potential i had to

be willing to adjust

i had to gain perspective but also be

willing to accept the perspective of

others

i had to sacrifice i had to learn to

persevere

all wrapped in one i had to learn to

trust the process

and most of all i had to have a goal to

attain

now i can definitely say i learned how

to adjust on the fly very early in life

my dad served 27 years in the army so i

spent the first 15 years of my life

moving every two to three years i moved

around so much i was actually born in

germany

and in all i lived in germany twice in

seven different states

but i learned this the only constant in

life

is change and all this change led me to

different defining moments in my life

my first defining moment came when we

were stationed in germany the second

time and i had a class play to be in

and was able to invite our parents my

dad was working so my mother came

and i remember after the play was over

with how excited my mother was

because from her perspective she saw me

unlock a gift for acting

from my perspective i was just trying to

get an a and just get the

assignment over with but my mother would

use this moment to encourage me to do

entertainment or something in music

pretty much the rest of my life now my

sex my second defining moment i actually

realized it

and this is when we moved to georgia and

by this time i was a big hip-hop fan

i was starving myself weekly saving up

my money to buy a new tape every tuesday

i was getting up at 7 00 a.m in the

morning to watch your own tv raps and

tape it

hip hop was a part of me but when we

were living in georgia i got cool with a

couple of friends

and they always were rapping always be

boxing during recess at any moment they

could

and as much as i loved hip-hop i would

never rhyme rap or anything

and it got to a point where they pretty

much said listen if you’re gonna hang

out with us still

you gotta start rhyming now i’m sure

they weren’t serious but when you’re a

kid

and you’re moving around a lot you do

anything to keep friends

but this was the push i needed because i

remember going home and

feeling that pressure of i’ve never done

this before but then as i started

writing how natural it felt

in this adrenaline rush that i got

because i had discovered a gift that had

been locked prior to this situation

so i kept music close to me ever since

but even still thanks to my dad sports

definitely outweighed music

and acting early in my life my dad was

famous for taking us to the batting cage

football field basketball court pretty

much anything active

and what this did was it built work

ethic it built discipline

it taught me how to reach for a common

goal and how to work with other races

and cultures

aka teammates so as i continued on

i said look sports music and acting

how can all three of these things come

together well let me tell you how they

can come together

there would be two upcoming events in my

life that would definitely make things

click for me

the first time was when we moved to

virginia i was in high school and i

spent three years playing football at a

couple colleges looking at me

but that same dilemma came up again we

were being stationed to another state

this time new york again

and this is the first time i learned

what sacrifice meant see understand

sacrifice isn’t something you’re born

with and it’s not a gift

it’s something has to be learned it has

to be acquired and i had the best

teachers which were my parents

they both split apart my whole senior

year my dad lived in new york i stayed

in virginia with my mother

and this is just so they gave me a

better opportunity to play college

sports

now prior to this my grades weren’t that

good i was struggling even getting to

college

and i probably gave my parents too much

trouble as it is

but i needed their sacrifice to push me

towards success

because if i didn’t realize what

sacrifice meant i don’t think i would

eventually

got this upcoming scholarship that came

my way so i remember when my dad showed

up at my job and he goes

morgan state university is offering you

a full athletic scholarship

i was like whoo i could finally breathe

their sacrifice wasn’t in vain you know

everything that they put on the table

for me i was able to reward them

with this scholarship so i ended up

playing one year football at morgan

state university then i transferred to

salisbury university

to continue my studies now understand

i’d lean towards football and i had a

one-track mind

and i thought that was my purpose in

life nothing else

so i kept pushing aside my mother’s

encouragement to try different things

and because of that music and acting

started to go

dormant what changed all this for me was

as i was at salisbury my junior year i

tore my meniscus

and this was the first time that i

really hit a crossroads in my life and i

said to myself

you know what is my true reason for

being here on earth what is my purpose

what is my legacy going to look like

outside of just playing a sport

and so i started thinking to myself all

the suggestion i did all my life

and i’m about to leave the one thing

that’s consistent which is sports

and namely football but i thought this

to myself

why not try something that’s new but

also familiar

so i’d lean back and i said hey i

haven’t acted in over 10 years but it’s

not foreign to me

so i tried out for an improv play and my

mother rung in my ear louder than she

ever did

and i was so fortunate that i tried out

for this play

the end result was i had to cram for a

bunch of credits because i ended up

changing my major senior year

but also when i was out of school penn

state university offered me an

opportunity

to enter the graduate acting program and

i said this to myself

because after this time i gained

experience and learned life lessons

i said if i get into this school then

this is obviously my next

path in life if i don’t then i’ll build

my music career and i’ll get a job

this was the thing i wasn’t willing to

bank on just one thing ever again in my

life

and i had to learn to distrust the

process there are certain things you

can’t change and you just have to

you know pretty much accept in your life

so acting didn’t reveal itself any

further so i did just that

i got a good job and i started building

my music career the next half of my life

would be full of perseverance

a year and a half out of college i

became a single father

i adopted my oldest son ezekiel from a

prior relationship

and eight years later i had my blood

child kingston now there’s absolutely no

difference between my kids i treat them

exactly the same

i’m dad i’m their teacher and their best

friend all wrapped in one

both my kids are born in baltimore city

i’ve been in baltimore city since 1998

so after all this moving around

baltimore city is home for me

now to support my family i worked for a

government contractor for seven years

down at the pentagon

then i worked another six years in a

maryland office this was a very tough

time in my life

because one i was commuting from

baltimore city to washington d.c but i

was also working 12-hour shifts

while i was raising both of my sons and

also during this time i was constantly

writing

recording and even traveling for shows

but there are two things that i applied

in my music career from prior skills

one i took the work ethic and the drive

that i acquired from sports and football

and i applied it to my music

i took the skills i learned from acting

and i applied it to my stage shows

so the lesson here is that give a

thousand percent not a hundred a

thousand percent to everything you do

because you never know when something’s

going to come full circle and help you

in the future

so other events started coming into play

and as all these factors came into my

puzzle of life

it started revealing to me what my true

purpose was

and this happened when i opened up my

label new revolution entertainment

i put the focus on making music that’s

entertaining but also educational to the

masses

and i dub my style conscious commercial

hip-hop

because you can bob your head to my

music but it intellectually stimulates

your mind

i make blue collar music for everyday

hard-working people

so what happened was when i started

hearing supporters telling me that my

music was motivating them and it was

giving them a different perspective on

life

and it was pushing them towards purpose

that was powerful feedback for me

that was enough feedback to tell me that

this is my purpose

not only am i here to make music but to

help others

and so i took that and i pretty much ran

with it and i started moving things

forward you know pretty much from there

the big question i had to ask myself was

this

how do you make a living off of impact

in lives and is that something truly

that’s monetary

well again i’d lean back on prior skills

and all those years working for the

government i knew there were grant

programs that could help me

facilitate my concerts my workshops and

classes not just here in the u.s but

abroad

and off also researching i learned that

basically music licensing is a way to

create long-term income from independent

artists

so one of the first things i did even

before putting my first song out

is i started pitching my music to

networks and major licensing companies

and to this day i built great

relationships with netflix

espn wwe and more i also started pumping

out two to three proposals weekly to

different u.s

embassies around the world where i felt

my music and my message will

impact their underserved youth and

inspire musicians in other countries

and what happened was i started to build

these great partnerships

i no longer became just a musician

because i saw that my music

was here to engage the community and

it’s also here to help the youth become

productive

members of society so my partnerships

with armed forces entertainment it

helped me take me to countries like

bahrain kuwait and uae to perform for

our great troops

my partnership with the u.s department

of state has sent me to places like

angola

ukraine azerbaijan and many more and the

great thing about these trips is i’m not

just doing concerts i’m living out my

purpose

i’m going to disability centers i’m

going to orphanages i’m going to small

villages

i’m even going to towns where there were

a lot of gang activity

basically i went to a lot of different

places that most american artists

wouldn’t dare to go to

because that is my purpose living out my

purpose my other reason for going is to

show the best of the american arts

community while also

creating cross-cultural values

so again living out my purpose just a

different face

spending six years on the road it

definitely quenched my thirst for

helping others

but when i got an opportunity to work

with the baltimore symphony orchestra

it was an honor for a few reasons

unfortunately classical music isn’t very

diverse

and so i really looked at it like this

in the city i live in in baltimore

over 60 percent of our population is

african-american

though we have this form of music

classical that’s not really touching

that population

so i really look at myself as someone

that can help bridge that gap as

a familiar face to help minority

communities feel more comfortable coming

into classical atmospheres

but i would have to say definitely the

cherry on top was opening up my

non-profit

rise with a purpose i chose robert rise

with a purpose cause that’s how i live

my life and that’s how i envision the

world

and i was gonna wait and hold off and

not open up my non-profit for a couple

of years

but there were two things that really

stuck to me

one we don’t have any music education in

our public school system in baltimore

city

so i’m currently raising money to put a

permanent music school in our city

the other thing i’m working on is we

have a big homeless issue so i want to

create what’s called a community lunch

line where the homeless can try

different cultures of food

mingle with everyday people but also

bring different employees there to help

them get back on their feet

i know what music has done for me it’s

provided me a way of living

it takes care of my kids and it provides

me an opportunity to help the youth

so i’m all about this point in my career

being about helping others

now what i want you to understand is

overall as you see i didn’t know my

purpose for the longest and my path was

all over the place until i found it

but i applied a few principles that you

heard me talk about earlier of

being willing to adjust being willing to

accept others perspective

recognizing my defining moments learning

the sacrifice and learning to persevere

trusting the process and eventually

having a goal to attain

all these things help the puzzle pieces

of my life slowly come together

to where i hope and i feel that i

redefine

what making it really means it’s not

about reaching celebrity status

again it’s about doing your passion in

life

in the moment you can take care of

yourself and your family

you have made it so what i would like to

do is i would like

i would like to invite any and everybody

who’s been watching today

take the journey of life discover your

gifts

and seek out your purpose thanks so much

for listening