We didn’t just want to make a film.

We wanted to have a conversation.

Black N’ Blue was my first professional short, and it had to be more than just ‘a film' that I was doing. It had to be something that contributed back to the spaces that made me. I was grateful to find Exec. Producer Jim Thalman and Director Julius B. Kelly to join me and help tell this story.

As an actor, I wanted to create my own roles, something that was designed to look in line with what I typically book for roles (cops, marines, tough guys, etc.) But as an artist, and a human being, I felt that what we were witnessing in the first decade since the 60’s we were watching a section of the American public being wrongfully targeted and unfairly policed. People were being executed in the streets and having to leave their loved ones and family members take it to social media because the American media wasn’t enough. And even when the stories were picked up they had dreadful, unjustified results but somehow were “in accordance with the law.”

So I wrote and produced this film as a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and partnered with the Zeta Nu Alumni Foundation to make this film as conversation starter, something to provoke discussion without claiming to know the answer. This film channels the rage and frustration we’re going through in America as personal freedoms are sacrificed to fear and senseless violence.