Toussaint — the one who raises souls. L’Ouverture — the one who finds the crack in the enemies defense and shows the way forward (“The Opening”). Nicknamed “The Black Napoleon,” his legacy encompasses a fearless fight for freedom. General Toussaint L’Ouverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution, a Black hero, not only responsible for spearheading a plot that forced the end of slavery within the French colony of Haiti, he also rocked the world stage for its inhumane, colonial practices. If it were not for Toussaint L’Ouverture, history’s first successful slave revolt may have never happened.
“I was born a slave, but nature gave me the soul of a free man.” ― Toussaint L’Ouverture
“Some people hate, I’m like middle finger to the ceiling.” ― Ben Horowitz
“Success leaves clues.” ― The Phat Startup
I’ve always highly respected and strongly admired those who had and have gifts and talents that resonate with me in different ways and on different levels. However, I’m not an easy person to impress, never really been impressionable and I don’t get caught up into celebrity or a person’s celebrity or the limelight or spotlight or what and how much monetary or material wealth a person has. And honestly, I never thought that Ben would impress me to the point that I would call or consider him my hero and especially in such a short amount of time, something I found surprising and remarkable, yet undeniable. That’s deep for many reasons. First, because I’ve known who my father was for practically all of my life but he was never really in or a part of my life as a child needs (a male child especially) and would desire a father to be. I love and respect him for biologically furthering my existence, but I do not consider him my hero, where I think that most male children would consider a father their hero and I would have loved to genuinely, mentally and emotionally consider my father mine. I say this because I recognize so many positive innate and character traits I got from him that has enabled me to survive, persevere, excel and win despite so many odds against me. However, my father never had that natural impactful impression on me and I never had an actual present positive male role model in my life at all. Secondly, because the majority of all of anyone I’ve considered my hero or heroes are from history’s past and African-American and done something great for African-Americans or Black people or humanity in history and they lived and died for a higher cause beyond their own lives. Further, positively speaking, I was slightly taken aback in surprise when I read an article where Nas had called Ben his hero. After connecting with Ben on Twitter I started researching more about Ben when I decided to write the song “Venture Capitalist (Like Ben Horowitz)” for him and came across this Nas interview where Nas made that statement and its always stuck with me. I found that interesting and it intrigued me because Nas is someone I respect and admire and whom I consider highly intelligent and spiritual, and I knew that if he had uttered it, that it was an actual fact and there was a deep reasoning for it. At that instant I had no idea that eventually in such a short amount of time that the realization of Nas’ sentiments would become my very own naturally and rightfully so. Ben Horowitz may be my unlikely hero from the perspective of a lot of people, and initially from my own, but rather in retrospect it was very likely so. Ben Horowitz is emphatically and unequivocally my hero, that’s how much he’s impressed, touched and affected me in such a short period of time. He’s assisted and rescued me in ways directly and indirectly that even he doesn’t know or realize.
During my most recent incarceration a few years ago when I had first come across who Ben Horowitz was, via an article on him in The Weekend magazine that was actually pulled from a NY Times article entitled, “Using Rap to Teach Pithy Lessons in Business”, I had learned that he loved and listened to Hip-Hop/Rap music and utilized it relative to business. Knowing nothing about Ben, I must say I was immediately skeptical by that and though I thought it was remarkable, I didn’t really readily believe that this white gentleman who’s a billionaire and a tech VC in Silicon Valley really loved Hip-Hop/Rap music. It just didn’t click and I thought it might be a publicity stunt of sorts. From that article I also learned that one of the artists he listened to, really liked and stated “he’s like the greatest rapper of all time” about, was Hip-Hop legend and icon Rakim. I found this very interesting as I have always been compared to and or said to resemble Rakim in many ways besides musically and lyrically. My immediate thought then was the flash of a fleeting idea to fly out to Silicon Valley to Ben’s office in Menlo Park upon my release and ask him to invest in my music company/record label. Most would say I was crazy or it was a crazy idea and/or it was a long shot and impossible. But I think anything is possible, though all things aren’t probable. And as the late great rapper Notorious B.I.G. would say, “It was all a dream…” When your incarcerated your mind has so much time to think and meditate on life, you just produce the most innovative ideas and envision the greatest possibilities of making the so-called “impossible” a reality. A lot of day dreaming is done inside prison that is part ambition, determination, hope and desperation. But someone like myself with such a strong and high level of ambition and determination all my life, I just think it, I say it, I do it and I make it happen and it does. That level of mind visualization creates what I call Mind Magnetization, where you no longer have to go to things or make things happen, but rather things just come to you and they just happen all in due time. The Universe consciously moves in your favor via Divine Will (no pun intended).
However, after my release in late 2012 I got back into the mix of life and put the idea of attempting to get Ben to invest in my music company/record label in the back of my mind. I got back into the focus on my music career and started revisiting releasing an album of older material I had been working on for years but I never finalized and had the opportunity to release, mainly due to incarceration and other personal setbacks. Unfortunately, when I had got incarcerated my studio was robbed and I had lost everything besides this album only because a copy of all the files was sent overseas to Germany for mixing and mastering prior to my incarceration. My goal was to technically bring all the album’s material up to date and up to a professional major label standard, as well as make some post-production tweaks. This would prove to be a long and daunting task and ultimately depleted me financially as I had no choice but to outsource the project to a professional studio, something I had never really done before. And personally I was dissatisfied and tired of living a criminal lifestyle and selling drugs to maintain and finance my music career. So all this prompted me to decide to create a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to complete my official debut album “Ghetto Rhymin’.” I decided on trying to raise $7k for it, but honestly it wasn’t enough and I really didn’t believe it would be successful anyway, and I knew I didn’t have a network of family and friends who could/would pledge to assist me in raising it. Nevertheless I was determined to at least try.
Ultimately, 2014 would prove to be an extraordinary and phenomenal year for me, which started off with a February performance at a Rakim show in North Hollywood, CA. I had first connected with Rakim back in 2006 on both a business and personal level and hadn’t seen him in awhile, so it was great to reconnect and build with the God as always, not to mention being given the opportunity to grace the same stage as him and do my thing. Definitely another highlight of my music career.
Shortly thereafter, almost a year and a half after my release, one night as I sat in my living room working on the computer while off and on simultaneously watching TV, the VH1 docuseries “The Tanning of America: One Nation Under Hip-Hop,” based on the book “The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy” by Steve Stoute came on. I wasn’t really paying attention to the program as it commenced and proceeded but not long after I eventually happened to look up at the TV screen and on popped a white man talking about Hip-Hop and the caption beside him read his name; Ben Horowitz. I just thought to myself, “Wow, that’s that billionaire venture capitalist dude I read about in prison, he’s really getting immersed into Hip-Hop.” Little did I know, but I didn’t really think much further of it at that exact time.
The next morning I arose and went about my morning as usual and set about doing more work on my computer. I turned it on and when I clicked to open up my browser my homepage came up and a daily news feed appeared. As I looked through the news feed I “just happened” to see a story about Ben and clicked on it. It was about his new book that he had just had published, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building A Business When There Are No Easy Answers.” I took this as a sign of sorts and it prompted me to research more on Ben and that’s when I discovered his relationship with Nas. My immediate thought concerning his and Nas’ relationship when I saw pictures of them was, “Damn! Nas beat me to it.” and the next thought was, “At least its Nas, who better than him.” So I didn’t feel as bad. In that research I also came across his blog, “Ben’s Blog.” I then went to his blog and found his latest post entitled, “The Legend of The Blind Emcee.” And as it’s said, that’s where the plot thickens.
After reading it my spirit was so inspired and moved that I was totally at a loss for words. This post emphatically and undoubtedly answered the question that had formulated in my mind when I first learned of Ben and his affinity for Hip-Hop, etc. while incarcerated. Which was, “If he really did love Hip-Hop/Rap music on such a deep level, how and when did that come about?” This was poignantly answered in the “The Legend of The Blind Emcee” post and left no doubt in my mind as to Ben Horowitz’s genuine and authentic love for Hip-Hop/Rap music, period! It absolutely resonated with me so strongly after reading it, I was compelled to reach out to Ben to just salute and commend him on it. And so I did.
The medium of contact was social media via Twitter. I did a search for Ben Horowitz and found him. He wasn’t verified at the time so I wasn’t sure if it was really him, but I tweeted to him anyway and to my surprise he responded. I was immediatly skeptical, but I ran with it. It turned out to definitely be him, and as they say, the rest is history. Ben and his wife Felicia would eventually be the two largest pledger’s to my Kickstarter campaign and “Ghetto Rhymin’” would have never been released if not for them.
During those first tweets exchanged on Twitter I told Ben I had just been released from prison and how I learned of him while there and he genuinely said, “Welcome home.” I also told him I had just performed at a Rakim show a couple months ago and Ben would go on to express that Rakim was his favorite rapper of his time. As I came to learn of Ben’s friendship with Nas I felt the Universe was at work and that the stars were aligning to manifest the things I had envisioned so long ago while incarcerated in the feds.
Even while still incarcerated on my first federal bid, I always knew that I would meet Rakim one day, and later knew that I would meet Nas one day as well, I just never knew when, where, how and/or through whom. It’s noteworthy to relay that as a Hip-Hop emcee and rapper that I’ve always been compared to Rakim and/or Nas and that my voice, music and lyrical content has always been said to sound like or resemble Rakim and/or Nas from others. Older individuals would say Rakim and younger individuals would say Nas. Even I recognize that my speaking and rapping voice consists of both a soft spoken smoothness of Nas and a strong rough and smooth baritone of Rakim. Overall, this has never been an intentional purpose, as in emulation, but rather a natural development as in just being what it was and is.
Also, I have always recognized that I and Rakim possessed great similarities on a personal level, not just creatively, artistically and musically and this was actually confirmed after I eventually met him. Further, I and Rakim both strongly subscribe to the same spiritual system, lessons and science (knowledge, wisdom and understanding), etc. Something I was absorbed into while incarcerated. Overall, in regards to Rakim, he has been my single most inspiration in the art of emceeing and rapping, period. Nas, though a great inspiration as well, not so much. This was due to me being incarcerated for the majority of Nas’ early career, so his early works weren’t able to readily reach, impress and affect me as it did those out in the free world globally. That and the fact that, though I was confined for a long time, I was an aspiring emcee and rapper myself and I really didn’t check for anyone else (that’s the Hip-Hop golden age tenet of “I’m the best.” mentality any aspiring emcee and rapper should possess, and I did).
However, after I was released from my first federal bid I purchased Nas’ “I Am” album and after one listen, I knew a lyrical genius and poet and spiritual prophet had risen out of Queensbridge. I would eventually purchase “Illmatic” last year to use as a prop in a storyline for a scene I wanted to shoot for the video for, “Venture Capitalist (Like Ben Horowitz)”, but I was never able to shoot the scene. And honestly I still have yet to listen to “Illmatic” in its entirety.
During the time the story of my and Ben’s meeting was first buzzing throughout social media, mainly on Twitter, I learned that Ben was scheduled for a speaking engagement out in NYC at an event produced by The Phat Startup. Then I was actually officially invited out to the event by The Phat Startup co-founder James Lopez via Twitter. I asked Ben about the event and he encouraged me to come out and meet him there. He also invited me out to have dinner with him afterward. That dinner also included Ben’s wife Felicia Horowitz, Hip-Hop cultural icon Fab 5 Freddy and Grammy nominated R&B superstar Ryan Leslie. Ben really wanted to connect me with Ryan to assist me in my independent music career as Ryan was having extraordinary success via a new mobile platform he had developed.
I arrived at The Phat Startup event and as I passed through the building to the main speaking room I was eventually recognized and engaged by a friend of Ben’s from his NYC college days. He comes up to me and says, “Your Divine right?” I confirm I am and he introduces himself and relays, “Ben can’t wait to meet you.” Apparently Ben was so impressed with and proud about the song “Venture Capitalist (Like Ben Horowitz)” I had made for him that he had shared it with all his close circle of personal friends and colleagues (which Ben had later told me kept asking him how I knew so much about him without us ever meeting). This sentiment was confirmed as Ben finally arrived to speak and as he walked to the front of the room toward the stage we made eye contact, immediately acknowledge each other with a quick head nod as he walks right up to me in the front row and shakes my hand then proceeds to step on the stage.
As the event commenced Ben would eventually reveal his favorite leadership book when asked a question on what books he recommended on developing better management and leadership skills. Ben suggested the book The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C. L. R. James. The Black Jacobins summed up is a history of the 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution led by former slave Toussaint L’Ouverture (nicknamed “The Black Napoleon”). The Haitian Revolution is the only slave revolt that led to the founding of a state and is generally considered the most, if not the only on record, successful slave revolt to have ever occurred in the Americas.
To hear Ben mention that book and so passionately and enthusiastically relay its premise was mind blowing to say the least, I was highly impressed and moved. At that point of knowing what I knew personally about Ben (which wasn’t much), never could I have fathomed that he would even know who Toussaint L’Ouverture was, never mind recommending a book about the leader for someone who’s desiring to develop better management and leadership skills in business or as an entrepreneur. The feeling in that exact moment was exactly the same feeling that I had experienced when I first came across Ben’s Blog and read his post, “The Legend of The Blind Emcee” and it instantly deepened my admiration and respect for Ben that much more.
Stay tuned for the next weeks’ post — Ben Horowitz: My Unlikely Hero (Part 3: The Long View).
