This week I am keeping it all about PEP! I have been pondering about creative ways to try to squeeze all we have done over the last 5 years in this ONE issue, and I just could not do it. I did not realize how much we had accomplished until I started looking back, and then I had my "OMG" moment. I have a lot of people to thank but will not attempt to name everyone in the interest of space. Needless to say, I cannot forget
Jamila Stanley who introduced me to
Marco Forbes, who introduced me to his world of managing a night club in DC, and gently nudged me so that I could get in the swing of things. Much love to the friends who believed in me and had my back when I told them that I was on to something that the DC area needed --
Jah Prince, Ty, Judene, Keisha, Roxan, Delta, and Dena; the sponsors who worked with me and gave up their money when I went to them with my passionate plans of
"connecting cultures, one riddim at a time;" Darren Green, Zita Hawkins and the crew from Zanzibar who made me have the Sky Club as my home every 3rd Thursday for about 3 years; all the poets, musicians, and authors who loved the vibes and helped me to change the face of networking parties; the DJs such as
Jah Prince, Mystic Vibes, Mr. Muzik, and DJ Spyda who played sweet, addictive music at each event; the media people like
Dr. Kofi Kissi Dompere, Paul Mack, Papa Wabe and Tony Carr who allowed me and my crew to at times take over their studios and jam up their phone lines; and the avid supporters like
Takiyah Worthy and Pamela Oguagua who never missed an event!
As I spent most of this week going through actual albums and online photos, I had a permanent smile on my face and shed many tears of joy reminiscing on the good
Caribbean RIDDIMZ days. I was trying to find ONE perfect photo to sort of tell the story of RIDDIMZ and stumbled upon the one I used above. That was a special Black History event we had back in 2007 when
Adiss Ivory came all the way from the Ivory Coast to perform and I had two Howard University student assistants (
Shiralka and Mariel) working with me. That event was super special because everyone did their best to represent by wearing "black" and the energy in the Sky Club was off the chain! If you have time or the interest, click
HERE to see photos from some of the many events we had. Even though I have long since lost the interest to do monthly networking parties, I remain sentimental about that period which was the beginning of
PEP. I am also reminded of some personal issues I was going through at the time when I started
RIDDIMZ and am glad I did not give up or give in when all the odds were against me. See, what you may not know about me is that I prefer to go in with all my heart, and risk having it broken than to leave my passions unfulfilled.
So, as I move ahead with an unbroken heart and bigger plans for the next five years, I hope that you will continue to support
me and say a little prayer for
PEP as we continue to do our best to connect and communicate in creative ways. We know that patience, passion and persistence will take us from good to great and we have tons of all those three very important things.
Happy Anniversary to us!
