I’m a black man from Oakland, Ca.
And I’m confident I wouldn’t have made it here without the love, prayers, and advice of my grandmothers.
As a child, I was sternly warned against getting in the habit of "tellin’ stories,” so I grew to be more comfortable thinking twice about the things I say than not. As an adult, filmmaker, and creative, I’ve learned to live by lessons like- “writing is rewriting” and “a good edit goes unnoticed,” and they’ve helped me form the habits I have today. This has led me to realize that there’s a call within the warning of “don’t be tellin’ stories”- to compose, construct, and carefully write the stories we tell. For when we share our stories carefully, they become the boons that bind us instead of the daggers that divide us. Writing ads that promote that habit while meeting the client's needs is a welcomed challenge that I’ve been geared towards since the days when I was told that I “Betta not be tellin’ no stories."