Growing up in Atlanta, service was interwoven into my community. I had the pleasure of growing up with plenty of mentors and educators who looked like me, including my father and aunt. It wasn’t until I left home that I realized the significance of this. It intrinsically influenced my belief that I could do anything I set my mind to. There was no such thing as a ceiling because I was constantly exposed to Black women who were successful in various fields. While in high school, I became passionate about writing. VOX ATL is a non-profit organization in Atlanta that offers training in journalistic skills and publishing for teenagers. The adults in the VOX office taught me the importance of giving back in whatever passion project you pursue. They were not only there to teach us skills, but they also regularly lent a listening ear and support throughout my college admission process. They exposed me to the majority of the scholarship opportunities I used to afford my undergraduate degree at New York University. I have a passion for making live music and the music business overall more equitable for Black artists. The music business continues to profit off of Black culture and artists. Black music executives only make up around 4% of top executive positions in music, despite top music charts being composed mostly of people of color. Still, my goal is to do more than just increase Black representation in the music industry. I want to be a safe space for changemakers in our community who continue to keep the essence of Black culture in music and fashion alive. This fall, I will be starting graduate studies in the NYU music business program to fulfill this goal. I want to study music business to help bridge the disconnect between Black artists from marginalized communities and what happens to them when they become a part of the music industry machine. I have a goal of advocating for the artist in the best way I can as someone who has experienced what it's like to see people who don't look like you profit from your art and your influence. Live music is a key component of the music business that has gradually priced out middle- and lower-class Black artists from getting to experience live music. It’s more than just a concert. In the grand scheme of things, reduced access to safe, organized activities for the average person can be detrimental to younger generations in the community who need outlets for expression and community with others their age. For me, seeing my favorite artists for affordable prices growing up is what furthered my passion for helping to curate and write about live music experiences while in college and beyond. I see pursuing my graduate degree as another opportunity to give back and help the next person coming up behind me know that their dreams are a possibility.

As a child, I wanted to be a curator (without really having the word for what that would look like just yet). Overall, I just knew that I loved immersing myself in music. This led to consistent training in dance and diving into music journalism while in high school and college. In Atlanta, where I grew up, music was the fabric of the community. I carried this admiration for music's ability to bring people together during my childhood into adulthood. During my undergraduate years at New York University, I spent my time outside of class finding community in the New York City hip-hop music scene. This experience taught me the beauty, resilience, and strength of my own culture as someone who grew up in Atlanta—a city where hip-hop and social activism worked in tandem as major pillars in the community. While I am not a professional dancer or music artist today, I am pursuing a graduate degree in music business to be a part of bringing the community aspect back to the live music experience. I am choosing to take this leap of faith despite the financial burden to be a safe space for the changemakers in our community who continue to keep the essence of Black culture in music, fashion, and art alive. I want to use my degree to focus specifically on improving artist relations and the music experience for listeners in hip-hop and R&B spaces. I want to study music business to help bridge the disconnect between Black artists from marginalized communities and what happens to them when they become a part of the music industry machine. Despite top music charts being composed of mostly people of color, Black executives only make up around 4% of top executive positions in music. Still, my goal is to do more than just increase Black female representation in the field. I want to be a safe space for the changemakers in our community who continue to keep the essence of Black culture in music, fashion, and art alive. One of the ultimate goals I have is to be an advocate for the artist in the best way I can as someone who has experienced what it's like to see people who don't look like you profit from your art and your influence. I see pursuing my graduate degree as another opportunity to give back and help the next person coming up behind me to know that their dreams are a possibility despite the trials and tribulations they may experience along the way.

Through the desire to create content that connects to the everyday person, I have had the pleasure of being a writer and editor for various publications including Health Magazine, City & State NY, and Exron Music. Having a diverse array of experiences in editorial has helped me to have a clearer understanding of what I want my work to look like going forward. Outside of being a writer, I have always been passionate about music and culture. The New York City hip-hop and street dance community continues to be a safe space for me. Through music and fashion, I have also found ways to express myself and create art that tells the stories of people in my community. As someone who initially had trouble opening up, it was a blessing to have friends in the house and street style dance community to lean in. It has made me want to do my part to use my talents outside of dance to open up more doors for them. Being an artist (especially in dance or music) is a career that doesn't always give back as much as it takes from creators in the industry. I recently took a chance and applied for the NYU Music Business master’s degree program to work in music publishing and fight for better representation and rights of Black and Brown artists. Despite top music charts being composed of mostly people of color, Black executives only make up around 4% of top executive positions in music. Still, my goal is to do more than just increase Black female representation in the field. I want to be a safe space for the changemakers in our community who continue to keep the essence of Black culture in music, fashion, and art alive. Hip-hop is one of the arguably most culturally relevant music genres of the last 50 years, yet artists continue to be underpaid due to a lack of transparency and mental healthcare in the music industry for artists. Prioritizing rest and professional mental health support is important for the long-term well-being of Black female artists who find themselves in predominantly non-black spaces for the first time as chart-topping artists. This is especially important when working in a business where double consciousness is a common occurrence for people of color. My love for hip-hop has developed into a deep appreciation and desire to protect its history and future. This goal is impossible without having Black and Brown women in the room. I want to ensure revenue made by artists within hip-hop culture and adjacent genres gives back to the community to support infrastructure in predominantly Black and Brown communities where hip-hop culture is often born.

As a writer, my goal has always been to produce work that makes people feel seen and heard. A career in journalism has given me the tools to combine a knack for service with literary engagement. It has been a great honor to do this with editorial projects focusing on the needs and personal stories of black women whether it's healthcare, music, fashion, or lifestyle content. Through the desire to create content that connects to the everyday person, I have had the pleasure of working for various publications including Health Magazine, City & State NY, and Exron Music. Having a diverse array of experiences in editorial has helped me to have a clearer understanding of what I want my work to look like going forward. Outside of being a writer, I have always been passionate about music and culture. The New York City hip-hop and street dance community continues to be a safe space for me. Through music and fashion, I have also found ways to express myself and create art that tells the stories of people in my community. After a few years of honing in on my interests and desires in the corporate space, I applied for the NYU Music Business master’s degree program. My goal is to work in music publishing and fight for better representation and rights of Black and Brown artists. Despite top music charts being composed of mostly people of color, Black executives only make up around 4% of top executive positions in music. Still, my goal is to do more than just increase Black female representation in the field. I want to be a safe space for the changemakers in our community who continue to keep the essence of Black culture in music, fashion, and art alive. Hip-hop is one of the arguably most culturally relevant music genres of the last 50 years, yet artists continue to be underpaid due to a lack of transparency and mental healthcare in the music industry for artists. Prioritizing rest and professional mental health support is important for the long-term well-being of Black female artists who find themselves in predominantly non-black spaces for the first time as chart-topping artists. This is especially important when working in a business where double consciousness is a common occurrence for people of color. My love for hip-hop has developed into a deep appreciation and desire to protect its history and future. This goal is impossible without having Black and Brown women in the room. I want to ensure revenue made by artists within hip-hop culture and adjacent genres gives back to the community to support infrastructure in predominantly Black and Brown communities where hip-hop culture is often born.

As a writer, my goal has always been to produce work that makes people feel seen and heard. A career in journalism has given me the tools to combine a knack for service with literary engagement. It has been a great honor to do this with editorial projects focusing on the needs and personal stories of black women whether its healthcare, music, fashion, or lifestyle content. Through the desire to create content that connects to the everyday person, I have had the pleasure of working for various publications including Health Magazine, City & State NY, and Exron Music. Having a diverse array of experiences in editorial has helped me to have a clearer understanding of what I want my work to look like going forward. Outside of being a writer, I have always been passionate about music and culture. The New York City hip-hop and street dance community continues to be a safe space for me. Through music and fashion, I have also found ways to express myself and create art that tells the stories of people in my community. After a few years of honing in on my interests and desires in the corporate space, I applied for the NYU Music Business master’s degree program. My goal is to work in music publishing and fight for better representation and rights of Black and Brown artists. Despite top music charts being composed of mostly people of color, Black executives only make up around 4% of top executive positions in music. Still, my goal is to do more than just increase Black female representation in the field. I want to be a safe space for the changemakers in our community who continue to keep the essence of Black culture in music, fashion, and art alive. Hip-hop is one of the arguably most culturally relevant music genres of the last 50 years, yet artists continue to be underpaid due to a lack of transparency and mental healthcare in the music industry for artists. Prioritizing rest and professional mental health support is important for the long-term well-being of Black female artists who find themselves in predominantly non-black spaces for the first time as chart-topping artists. This is especially important when working in a business where double consciousness is a common occurrence for people of color. My love for hip-hop has developed into a deep appreciation and desire to protect its history and future. This goal is impossible without having Black and Brown women in the room. I want to ensure revenue made by artists within hip-hop culture and adjacent genres gives back to the community to support infrastructure in predominantly Black and Brown communities where hip-hop culture is often born.

As a writer, my goal has always been to produce work that makes people feel seen and heard. A career in journalism has given me the tools to combine a knack for service with literary engagement. It has been a great honor to do this with editorial projects focusing on the needs and personal stories of underserved communities thus far in my career. Through the desire to create content that connects to the everyday person, I have had the pleasure of working for various publications including Health Magazine, City & State NY, and Exron Music. Having a diverse array of experiences in editorial has helped me to have a clearer understanding of what I want my work to look like going forward. Outside of being a writer, I have always been passionate about music and culture. The New York City hip-hop and street dance community continues to be a safe space for me. Through music and fashion, I have also found ways to express myself and create art that tells the stories of people in my community. After a few years of honing in on my interests and desires in the corporate space, I applied for the NYU Music Business master’s degree program. My goal is to work in music publishing and fight for better representation and rights of Black and Brown artists. Despite top music charts being composed of mostly people of color, Black executives only make up around 4% of top executive positions in music. Still, my goal is to do more than just increase Black representation in the field. I want to be a safe space for the changemakers in our community who continue to keep the essence of Black culture in music, fashion, and art alive. Hip-hop is one of the arguably most culturally relevant music genres of the last 50 years, yet artists continue to be underpaid due to a lack of transparency and mental healthcare in the music industry for artists. Prioritizing rest and professional mental health support is important for the long-term well-being of Black artists who find themselves in predominantly non-black spaces for the first time as chart-topping artists. This is especially important when working in a business where double consciousness is a common occurrence for people of color. My love for hip-hop has developed into a deep appreciation and desire to protect its history and future. This goal is impossible without having Black and Brown people in the room. I want to ensure revenue made by artists within hip-hop culture and adjacent genres gives back to the community to support infrastructure in predominantly Black and Brown communities where hip-hop culture is often born.

As a Black girl growing up in Atlanta, my understanding of the world was largely shaped by Black music and activism. With my childhood stomping grounds being the blueprint for the civil rights movement in the South, including strong Black women into my writing is not a decision I make whenever I write. It is inherent. Whether it is as an intern or content creator, as a Black writer it can be difficult to grapple with the stories you know what to tell and what you think people expect from you. In journalism, newsrooms tend to be overwhelmingly white and male. When stories are pitched about race, oftentimes there may not be a person of color in the newsroom to write it from the perspective of a person of color in America. Coming from a place where I always heard our stories being sung or articulated from those who looked like us, this proved to be a challenge for me as a college student. Many of the internships I worked were in predominantly white newsrooms. Although these newsrooms covered racial injustice, I made a commitment to myself to create journalism that did not only feed on Black tragedy but also made space for Black joy. This meant advocating for quotes from Black women that I felt showed them as more than one-dimensional. I wanted stories with my byline attached to them to make people feel like they were having a conversation with whoever I was covering. Because newsrooms have not historically been diverse, by writing in a voice that I would want to read and that the sources I listen to feel comfortable speaking to I hope to make Black stories written by Black journalists the norm in newsrooms even when social justice is not the hot topic.

Atlanta has molded me into the journalist I am today. With its rich black history and continued representation of black excellence, my hometown has given me the confidence to believe that my possibilities are endless and has shaped the stories I look for today as a journalist. With only a ten-minute train ride from my home to the heart of downtown Atlanta, I was able to immerse myself in the history of the civil rights movement and more. The incredible documentation of those pivotal moments in history became especially intriguing to me. Photographs that captured the moments in action of Americans risking their lives for a better future put the present into perspective for me as a young person. In the Center for Civil and Human Rights, across the street from the historic Centennial Olympic, photos spanned from the 1950s and 1960s, to current struggles for civil and human rights around the world. As I walked through the circular building, you could feel how different photographs struck an emotional chord with each visitor, even without having the photos in the form of words. I see my whole city through this lens. Every corner and every street has a piece of history. From my first job in high school to the country’s #1 historically black college, it all connects to the reason I have fallen in love with storytelling. As history continues to be made everyday, I want to be able to create accurate depictions of the individual stories and the overall impact for future generations to feel and learn from. As the city continues to grow, I feel myself changing as well. The neighborhood I grew up in is gradually becoming more affluent, something that I would never imagine happening as a kid. As the city progresses, it often feels like the city is at stake of losing its rich history of change and equality for all. However, as we look to the future, it is important to remember the moments that brought us here. I love the art around my city. They are subliminal reminders of the parts of our history that cannot go forgotten. Across southwest Atlanta, you can stand in front of portraits of Outkast, John Lewis, and other cultural icons that have shaped our city and what it means to be from Atlanta. Art has always been at the root of my relationship with Atlanta. The music, whether it is hip-hop and R&B from the early 2000’s or the gospel tunes ringing out of historic southern baptists churches on Sunday mornings, they are what I imagine when I think of what Atlanta sounds like. It is music that uplifts and calls for the gathering of a group of people to celebrate each other and the good parts of life. My city is unique because despite the strides we have made in this country, it has not hardened the hearts of ATLiens. This continues to be a city I can come back to and feel supported by my community. I love living here because like many who come here, it has provided me the opportunity to unapologetically be myself and believe in my abilities as a young Black female journalist in America.