Malik
Portrait with Mary Ellen Matthews
Description: A large billboard announces a sold out tour for “Malik.” It features a dark-skinned young man, wearing a baseball hat and leopard print jacket. “The Dream Chaser Tour” is scheduled to take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles California.
Portrait with Zachary Maxwell Stertz
“I want to create music because I want to inspire others that music is not just about shooting people, selling drugs, and having altercations with women. Music is life. It tells a story.
[rapping]: How's it gonna be violence or peace Freedom to speak We dying in the streets Start living stop shootin Cause the guns are polluting our movement
I want to rap about what I see and what goes on in my life and the struggle that I've been through. I see black people getting abused by cops. I want to write about that. I write about the president, how he got elected. Which wasn’t fair at all. I want to write about what I see, not what I want.
I got involved in Art Start through my previous program which was called “Save Our Streets”, where I created a music video based off of violence. It caught people’s attention. That music video just inspired me to want to keep going with music and never stopping. I want people to know that you can do anything you put your mind to.
I would like to live in Los Angeles, California. I would like...not a mansion or anything like that, but something small. I want to take people that can help me get to where I have to be with me.
I want people to view me not jus as a rapper, but view me as a person first. I want to be a role model in the future and give back to the community. If I get famous I want to create a new church, give school supplies to the kids, have more events, show love to the community. I want to inspire others because others inspire me.”
New York, 2017