I spent the majority of my early upbringing in Memphis, Tennessee and suburban Kansas City, Missouri, then the latter of my adolescent years in the Mississippi Delta; these locations comprised two distinctly southern states and one Midwestern. I lived in different regions of the country where history and narratives of Black life became ingrained in local music and soul music, thus becoming an integral part of my persona. As a college student at Lane College, I became a college mentor with Area Relief Ministries (The Hub Club) in Jackson, Tennessee. As a college mentor, I worked with disadvantaged youth from underperforming schools in East Jackson. During our yearly Black History Program, I incorporated how sound and music became a way for Blacks to remain connected to their African heritage while simultaneously informing protests contesting the bleak conditions our peoples faced throughout history.
As a Masters student in African American Studies at UCLA, I continued my academic trajectory of understanding the interconnections between racial identity and musical expression by working and mentoring within academic programs such as MMUF, UCLAs Undergraduate Research Center, Advanced Academic Program (AAP), and Vice Provost Initiative for Pre-College (VIPS) Scholars Program, a ten-week program early preparation academic-intensive program for high school students. My roles within each program included not only mentoring, but also meeting with students on a weekly basis and conducting workshops on applying for competitive fellowships and Masters and PhD programs. Through VIPS Scholars, I had the enriching opportunity to teach rising juniors and seniors from Los Angeles and Pasadena Unified School Districts. I designed an introductory course with the objective of encouraging and inspiring students to actively participate in shaping their local communities through democratic action at all levels. Teaching high school students challenged me to think about pedagogy in new and productive ways.