The Fellows Project advocates for structural change in the creative economy by developing young men into creative professionals who own their work, their wealth, and their future.
For 250+ years, Black men in America have been granted proximity to wealth creation while being systematically denied ownership, leadership, and the infrastructure to sustain the fight. They built the culture. They drove the demand. They stood in the room while fortunes were made. And they were blocked from holding what they helped create. The industries where Black men dominate as talent (sports, music, film, fashion, theater) represent over $2 trillion in annual global economic activity. Yet as of this writing, there are no Black majority owners across all four major professional sports leagues. No Black CEO has ever led a Big Five film studio. The publishing industry is 78% white. The pattern holds whether you examine the boardroom or the stage.
And the toll is not just economic. The psychological frameworks are documented: John Henryism, the Weathering Effect, Racial Battle Fatigue, Code-Switching. The relentless drive that makes Black men excellent is the same mechanism that destroys their bodies when the system extracts labor without sharing power. Black youth suicide has increased 144%. Only 14% of Black men with mood disorders receive professional care.
Every Black man who has ever been told he is talented enough to perform but not ready enough to lead has lived it.
The Fellows Project exists to build what has been missing for 250 years: an institution where young men can create without shame, train without ridicule, learn how ownership works, and have the psychological infrastructure to sustain the fight. We do not prepare young men to enter industries designed to extract their labor. We build infrastructure so they own what they create.
We create. We entertain. We inspire. We prosper.
I grew up in a single-mother home watching someone carry more than she should have had to carry. I also watched what happens when somebody shows up for you before the world decides you are “worth it.” I had several.
My choir director, Raymond Myles, taught us harmony. Not just in music. In discipline. In storytelling. In what “perfect practice” really costs. My friend and group member’s mother and stepfather gave time, money, rides, presence. They gave belief before there was proof. Without that, none of the moments people love to name ever happen. Not Showtime at the Apollo. Not Quincy Jones. Not the stages, the rooms, the brands. None of it.
My singing group was selected for a pilot created by Quincy Jones and Brandon Tartikoff. Over 4,000 applicants. Chosen. And even then, I did not fully understand what it meant to be picked by the man responsible for the most successful album in recorded history. During a performance, Debbie Allen approached me about a touring opportunity. I did not follow up. I did not understand the gravity. I did not have someone to process it with. I did not have a mentor to say, “This is how you move from talent to trajectory.”
Proximity wasn’t the problem.
That gap between gift and guidance is where my story starts. But my story is not unique.
I have watched talent peak and disappear because nobody taught the business behind the art. I have watched Black men welcomed onto stages and blocked from boardrooms. I have watched the mental toll of proximity without power, the unspoken weight of performing in rooms where your gifts are celebrated but your leadership is denied. I carried that weight myself before I had language for it.
The Fellows Project is the institution I am building because that gap has persisted for 250 years and no one has built the infrastructure to close it. We are an arts and advocacy institution. We advocate for structural change in the creative economy by developing young men into creative professionals who own their work, their wealth, and their future.
We exist to ensure that when a young man gets his “Debbie Allen moment,” he knows exactly what to do with it.
President & Executive Artistic Director
Board Chair
Board Member
Board Member
President & EAD
