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