Black Stories/20: Kenneth Bradley

Naval Officer and multidisciplinary creator, Kenneth Bradley, joins Media Producer, Justin James Lopez, to discuss existing in chaos and learning to find balance. Let’s hear his story!

Kenneth Bradley is a creator and community leader, dedicated to creative space and providing a platform for black creators to execute vision. He founded “Black State University” - which is a company that houses a record label, media company, college of business and is laying the groundwork for “black autism support community.”


Gaining expertise in organizational management as a Naval Officer with 23 years of service, his ability to create networks of people to reach their potential while empowering others has proven critical in creating space and agency for black voices. His company manages nine musical artists, a podcast, an award-winning sitcom, and a college of business that teaches financial literacy through personal and business finance to minorities.   


  • Full Episode Transcript
  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • I think balance is just deciding on what pool of chaos you're deciding to swim in.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Amazon's Black Stories, where we highlight the stories of Black designers, researchers, and creative minds from all around the world. I'm your host, Justin James Lopez, and today, I'm joined by Kenneth Bradley, where we discuss being able to exist in chaos and leaving a legacy that you can be proud of. Let's hear his story.
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  • All right. So Ken, this is the first time that I'm interviewing someone that's not specifically working as a designer or a researcher, but it's really interesting the work that you're doing. But before we jump into that, I want to hear more about just like you in general. Talk to me about who you are.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Man, I'm a dad, I'm a husband. I have two teenage boys. I have a baby girl. Oh by the way, I delivered her in the car on the way to the hospital.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Okay. Okay we're going to have to talk about that at some point.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • At some point.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • But go ahead.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • So basically I'm a doctor, no big deal.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. Put that onto your belt.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Community activists and an entrepreneur. I have a record label, a media company, and I'm starting to really kind of try to impact the community with some community efforts. I just started a college of business to teach financial literacy to the black community.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • And this is all outside of your first job, right?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Yeah. Yeah. Outside of being in the Navy and I've been here for 22 years.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • One, thank you for your service, first off.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Thank you.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • And two, so 22 years the Navy, and then at what point did you decide I want to do more for the community and I'm going to actually action that in the ways that you have? Because the media company you have is called Black State University.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Yes.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah and that's where you have all of these things that you just mentioned?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Yes.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • At what point were where you moved to say this is something that I need to do?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • I've always had a heart for the community in some aspects. When I was stationed in Chicago, I was doing a lot of stuff with the hands up, don't shoot, anti-gang, anti-violence movements. I love helping out the homeless and et cetera. But to kind of codify that into one piece, it really happened when I was living in Seattle, shortly after Mike Brown, I was having dialogue with somebody with regards to who do we think that we would be during the civil rights movement? Like, would you be the person that's going to jump on the bus still during a bus boycott, or would you stand for something and what would that look like? And then I looked at today's climate in our current prison industrial complex and how we are today and I saw a rise in temperature of what was happening in the country. And I said, what is it that I'm going to do?
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  • So one of the initial things that I wanted to do was start a platform, because I noticed when I was having dialogue with people, they didn't understand how we reached the current black state. So I would have to educate people. The onus was on me to educate you, to bring you up to a point where we could actually have discussion, whether it was anti-gentrification panels, whatever, we were having these discussions. And so I was like I need to centralize this information in one place so I can educate people on the current Black State and then now we can have dialogue.
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  • And the original frame of thought was to have these book clubs and start these smaller colleges, if you will, with this free source information and that's where I got the university thought. But then I thought about what's going to make this sexy? What's going to bring people in? The arts, because as black people, as any people, or somebody with rich culture, we're not a monolith. So I started with the record label, now I have a media company. We did a sitcom, did three episodes of a cooking show, and now we're doing our community efforts. And so when people go to the website, they'll see this hodgepodge of things that we're doing because that's what happens at the university.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • I like that. Is it like the Black State University or it's a Black State University?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • It's a Black State University, but the Black State University shirts are coming.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Okay. I joke, but the reason why I brought that up is because your comment around really educating the masses on the Black State at this point in time, which is interesting that you added that university feel of all right, we're going to kind of play on this idea of how there's a college of X, college of this, college of that, all under this one larger umbrella and that's kind of what you're doing, so it's in its nascent stages. How long have you been working on this company?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Two years.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • So it's actually pretty new and you've been able to kind of grow and bring in... Because currently, and I was checking that out because that's how we got connected for this episode was your work with Black State University and you have a number of artists that are working there, you already have a book club, you have a number of people that are really like chipped into it and really just kind of empowering the community in that way. Was that the original vision or did it naturally just kind of grow in that way?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • That was the original vision and I wanted to start out at these different pillars. Like what can we do well first? What is our blocking and tackling? And that was the music. It came natural for a lot of us. I was surrounded by a lot of artists. And so that got the movement going and it got a lot of people a lot of attention, and then worked with some people to get these sitcom, Little David, out there, which just recently won the New York International Film Festival web series of the year.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Nice.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • We started going, that got more notoriety, more momentum and said, "Okay, now we have this momentum. Now we have community's attention. Let's go ahead and start impacting." Because we could talk about what's going to fix the community and whenever you carve out that slice of pie and say, "This is what I want to do and this is what I want to do well," that's what the college of business was, eventually STEM academy, eventually preparatory academy, actually in brick and mortar, like that's where the vision's going. So having a couple of headquarter sites.
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  • So we're utilizing different aspects of virtual learning and et cetera now to mitigate either geographical issues, but as with any university, you can enroll there and become who you are. That's what Black State University is. It is a platform to launch innovators, creatives, designers, trainers. We actually have tough love fitness. That's about to come up. About to start our own fitness show. We have tough love for mind, body and soul. I want to promote meditation, working out, eating right, all of that, centralized into one location, one stop shop. You can get a lot of things done here.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • That's absolutely amazing. If you can do it, you're just kind of adding it to like there's a college of that too, right?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • There's a college... yeah.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Might as well.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Hey, if they got basket weaving you know, the spectrum is wide. You could be a doctor in medicine or you can go somewhere else with it. And the real big thing is providing an exec team and a team of professional people that could provide a level of excellence and a very high standard to your output. So when people come on, while we hear the vision, we believe this aligns with what we're doing at Black State. Now let's go ahead and put a brain trust together to make sure we're putting out quality product for you. And I'm not trying to take nobody's money. That's the crazy thing. I'm not trying to get rich off people.
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  • I think where I get satisfaction of it is the furthering of the brand. So if you further the brand and you pop, hopefully you'll have it in your heart to come back and bless and pour into what we're doing. But I'm not out to get our artists money. All of our artists are independent artists that are under the Black State label. And so we just have our own agreements and it really is like a family here. So, that's where we are.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. Well, you know the old saying, if you help enough people get what they want, then you can have everything that you want.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Bada bing.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • That's a really interesting approach there.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Yeah.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • So you are wearing it. You know, I hear this a lot of like, "I'm a man of many hats," or "a woman of many hats" and you actually have a lot of hats here that you're wearing there. And you mentioned earlier you're, again, 22 years in the Navy, you spent a good amount of time there. Did any of your experience in the 22 years that you've been in the military, did any of that bleed into your work here or is it just completely separate?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • It definitely bleeds into it. After 22 years, obviously I sit in some seat of leadership. So right now I'm the executive officer at my command. It's like number two on the chain. We got a 836 people staff. So organizational structure, promoting culture, a culture of autonomy, mastery and purpose, just this very "can do" attitude of empowering people and allowing them to do what's in their wheelhouse to complete. So I'm very precise when it comes to getting things done. And in the military, we do have a standard of excellence. Like you're just not about to come with nothing just that's subpar. So because of that, that standard of excellence does fold into the business arena even though I don't treat people like they're in the military.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. You're not yelling at them and making them do push ups.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • No, no. Although for some reason I feel like you would enjoy that. Push ups, yeah, yeah.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Like what do you mean I have to improve myself? So the question that I had is you know, with the whole concept of Black State University, because this is really fascinating to me and I'm sure it will be to the listeners and I'm really excited to watch the future of this because in two years you've been able to grow and looks like you've been able to continue to expand as well, and I'm interested to see how it continues to do so in different spaces with STEM, as you mentioned, and also into the arts as well. What would you describe as the Black state right now, like the state of Blackness right now in America? Because that was like one of the original designs, right?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Yes. The current Black state as we rest in a prison industrial complex, trying to find some aspect of unity within the country, but maintains some sense of independence. I think as far as Black State is concerned, because we're not a monolith and there's so many different trains of thought of what it takes for us to be successful, I think the key is, and this may sound very dark, but this is just where I am, I feel like I'm in a sea of almost hopelessness trying to do something, trying to provide some air to a community people that is just underwater. I feel like in the history of civilization, the people of power have never relinquished their power just because of moral standings. Like the relinquishing of power comes from blood shed or overtaking. And we're not even doing anything remotely close to that. We just defend ourselves or say stop doing these things to us, but we haven't tried to overthrow anything.
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  • And so, because we know that there's systemic issues, because we know that the constitution was written with a caste system in mind, with an enslaved people leading to channel slavery, to convict leasing, to Jim Crow, to the current prison industrial complex, we are in this constant space of striving or attempting to achieve as a people. Now, are there a huge amount of educated people? Yeah. Are the people thriving? Yes. But there's still legislation out there. There's still different things out there, voter suppression, that are just hindering us collectively. And I think with Black State University, part of the aim is people who are not paying attention to this, that the house is on fire, if you will, that I may be able to draw them through the arts. That I may be able to draw them in different ways to get their attention and then educate them.
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  • So, that's kind of the aim of it and that's where I feel the current Black state is. I mean, they've done little to nothing to reverse redlining in most cities, the way districts are zoned out for... And that's part of the thing. Like when we talk about wanting to educate for financial literacy and start STEM programs and preparatory programs for these high school kids, just how neighborhoods are zoned out and how those taxes feed into the school system and then they get lesser. It's just like compounding problem on top of compounding problems. Like what do we do to fix what?
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  • Here's the way to fix it. Literally start over. Literally start over. And I don't think that we'll ever have a mindset to do that. Like, "Oh, let's erase the constitution and write it from the beginning. Let's get all the old people that are career politicians out and get some new blood in and say what works for this generation and generations to come." It's going to take fresh thinking. It's going to take a new making. Because society looks exponentially different than what it did when the framers made the country. And people are still trying to hold onto some aspect of that. So as a person that fights for the constitution, as a person who my oath is to uphold the constitution, I feel like there needs to be heavy revision of the constitution that I am defending.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Wow. Yeah, that's real heavy. No, but I appreciate the candor there. With Black State University, your aim is to really help with that education process to really open people's eyes and I think that's really noble in a very real way, because you think about a lot of the issues, in my opinion, a lot of the issues that we run into as people, especially when you think of like generationally, I think comes from the idea of the unknown. The idea of not knowing, if you will. And however it was started by a vastness of knowledge. You have a people, a group, or whatever that has an abundance of information and they utilize that information to take advantage in its own way.
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  • And I'm not taking a moral stance on it, that's just a reality, but then it's proliferated. The problem is then proliferated through ignorance, through people that are not knowing, which is really interesting that you're trying to take the opposite approach of like, "Well maybe if you knew better, you'd do better." Right?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Hopefully, yes. Because there will be that there will be that group of people that become aware and they just don't care.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. That apathy. It's really interesting. I had a guest on recently, Timothy Bardlavens, who actually mentioned that, he said one of the worst categories of people are the apathetic people. He said the people that are actually in opposition of progress are actually infinitely better than apathetic people. And it was just like really interesting that was his... And I agree with that, but that candor was really thought-provoking, that idea of like, "Hey man, I'd rather you just pick a side than pretend like nothing matters because that doesn't really help anyone."
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Yes. It's very interesting how much my inbox is loaded with people that aren't black or aren't PoC.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah, yeah.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • That thank me. Thank you for doing what you're doing. I learn something all the time from your posts, from the content that you guys put out. You helped me start a dialogue in my home, or people saying, "Hey, I was faced with this very difficult situation. I'm white and I don't want to get this wrong. How should I be thinking? What should I do from here?" That right there, if I got one or two people doing that, that's trying to become a better person because of content or something that we're doing, God bless America.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Thank you.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • No, I love that. I love that. So another hat that you wear is a doctor. You mentioned this earlier. So talk to me about this. You said you just had a child, right? You just had a baby girl. You just had a baby girl.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • I just had a baby girl, yes.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • And you delivered her?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • I did.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • So did you push the doctor out of the way and say, "I got this," or how did this work out?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • No. What happened, and shout out to Doogie Howser and all the training that I got coming up watching him. I was preparing dinner. We actually had family over to the house. My wife sat down and she leaned back and just started breathing heavily. Mind you, due date isn't until February 2nd, so this is like two and a half weeks early.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Okay.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • So I'm like, let me get the baby bag, let me get the car, we're going to roll. Mind you, it is nighttime. It is raining cats and dogs. You had about 10 feet of visibility ahead of you. I'm driving down the street. Wife puts her feet on the dashboard, lifts her body in the air. And I'm like, "No! No! No!" So I was like, "Okay, okay. Just keep it in there. The hospital's literally 12 minutes away. Can you wait?"
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • That's an interesting statement to make. Can you wait?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Can you... Like, I think I made a stupid comment of close your legs, which is stupid. And as I'm driving and as she's screaming and I'm literally in tears having an almost panic attack, like no, no, no! I all of a sudden hear, "Waaah!"
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Oh my goodness.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • That is the cutest and also the scariest sound to hear at that moment in time.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. Yeah.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • So I'm thinking baby's here. My second thought was what happens over the next couple minutes? Could me and my wife end baby's life. So I pull over to this bank, it's raining. I started breathing heavily. I'm like, ah, so I hit the interior light and I literally yell, "Ken, get your f-ing stuff together." I yell it out loud.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • To yourself.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • To myself.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. Okay.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • To talk to myself.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • And then I calmed down and I got out and I opened the car door. I turned her around and she's just looking at me, just like... And I give her to her mom and she says, "I need something to wrap her in." So I took off my hoodie that I had on that said girl dad, appropriately, and we wrapped the baby in the hoodie and I high-tailed it to the ER like you would see a dad in a movie. I was all of those things.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. Yeah.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • And I jumped out, ran frantically. She cut her own umbilical cord. Got it up there. Baby's happy, healthy, mom's healthy, and you can add doctor to my resume, so I'm basically a genius.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. No, no, no. I mean, obviously clearly, right?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • I feel like a peasant.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • As you should, as you should. Justin, you're a solid dude. You was a solid bro ever since I met you. You know, there's so many things you got the upper hand on, but...
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • I don't have a doctor on my...
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Did you deliver a baby though?
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • I guess I got to go back to medical school. So, here we go. Challenge accepted. No, no, no. This is interesting because you have, what, this is your third child?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Yeah. I have two teenage boys.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • And a lot of the work that you're doing is going to really... You're improving the lives of a lot of people and you're going to continue to do that, but I imagine, not even just directly with the work that you're doing, but indirectly with the work that you're doing, you have children that are in your house that are watching you and the impact that you're having in the world. And how much of that goes into the work that you do?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • A lot, which is why I make music responsibly. I don't cuss in my music. I want all the content that I make, I want my children to be able to look at and go, "That's my dad," and they'll be able to listen to it. So here's a funny thing, and maybe it's because I exist in perpetual existential crisis, because I feel like I'm always... So on my hand, I have tattooed 0:00 as a timestamp, because that's going to be for me one time in this life.
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  • So I live life with that mind, as time is my commodity and I don't play with it. That being said, I always ask myself what legacy am I leaving behind for my kids and how can immortalize myself? So after I'm gone, my kids can go back and listen to my music. They can read my books, they can watch my movies. They can look at my work. There are things that are built and say, "This was done in dad's spirit. I can tap into it. When I miss him, I can listen to him. I can help with this foundation. I can do all of these different things because this is in his spirit." And that makes me comfortable here on earth and actually makes me a lot less fearful of death, going into the unknown.
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  • That is kind of my mindset and that weighs heavily upon who I am today and why I have to sacrifice time and effort in order to leave something for them.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • No, that's beautiful because you think about it, we're in the first generation and someone's going to comment and say, no technically the timeline works this way, but I think we're in the first generation where we can actually look at the world that way. Because honestly, a lot of the content that I create as well and not just for like this series or some of the work that I do for Amazon, but just like personal content that I make on my social media, a lot of it, it helps people, sure. You know, because I do a lot of like the emotional intelligence research and I give a lot of those messages of like, "Yo, this is how you can deal with emotional overloads and stuff like that."
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  • But a lot of it, while it helps a lot of people, it really is just the way I look at it and in a similar vein in what you're saying, it's a conversation between me and my son and future children if I have more children. It's a conversation because... And I thought that the tattoo thing really hit me hard because that idea of one day I'm not going to be here, and while that's a little bit morbid, the reality is its just the truth. I mean, I exist now and one day I won't, however, there's probably still going to be an infinite amount of conversations that I could have had but did not have with my children or with other people in the world. And they can go and, again, we're in the first generation where people can tap in digitally to our content, to the content that we've created, whether it's creative, whether it's serious, whether it's humor, sarcasm, and you can learn from all these things.
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  • But I imagine one day I'm not going to be here. My son, my grandchildren, my future children, they will have a question and say, "Man, I wish I could just ask my father, my grandfather, whoever, my friend, this question." And they're going to be able to go to my page, scroll through some videos and they're going to be like, "Wait a minute, he talked about this at one point in his life," and then go, "This is what he would've said to me if he was here."
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Yes.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • And hopefully that brings them a little bit of solace, but that's what my content is because a lot of people go, "Hey, you would probably get a lot more likes if you did something like X." And I'm like, "Well, you're looking at the wrong thing. I'm not looking at doing this work for likes. This is a conversation between me and the people that I won't be here for one day."
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Yes. And that's true. Because even what you're doing with the podcast, even Miss Chelsea Chris
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Right. I was on TikTok and her feed popped up and I was just compelled to go to see what she posted just three, four days ago, stuff about mental health, stuff about this, stuff about that. Me not knowing this woman, I just decided to spend time on her feed to see what she was putting out there and then it clicked, "Oh, this is what I'm going to be doing for my kids or what my kids are going to be able to do," and it just really resonated with me. So yeah, man, I definitely hear what you're saying there.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. No, it's powerful though because you're creating something and you're doing it really while balancing all... I know you said balance doesn't really exist, it's really just kind of... What was it that you said?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • I think balance is just deciding on what pool of chaos you're deciding to swim in. Because I think if you actually always focus on trying to balance, that's when you'll drive yourself crazy.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Oh, I'm spending too much time here and not enough time there and not enough time there. Just, no, I am going to spend time here and not feel bad about it and then when I come up and meet those objectives, I'm going to come up and spend time here and I'm going to be intentional. I think when you find balance, you're always worried about the other side of the scale. That doesn't allow you to fully be where you are. Just be where you are, execute what you got to execute, put that on another eye on the stove, move another pot, continue cooking, or continue swimming in that pool of chaos, or wherever you're deciding to be. And as much as I have going on, you'd be actually surprised how much time I sit on my recliner watching television, because it's intentional. I need my me time. And so I don't feel bad.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • There's a lot of stuff to do. I've planned this and I'm going to sit down right here and just enjoy myself.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. You know what? I'm going to have an honesty moment. I had a super toxic thought that I had in my life for so long that I very recently realized it was toxic as hell. And that was when I was young I had this best friend who he would always say, and I'm talking about like from when we were like very young to all the way through high school, he would always make the statement of, "Are we making moves or are we standing still?" And it's very simple, I was like either you're doing one or the other, but he said it intentionally in this sense of like, "If you're not actually moving forward, then you're basically just wasting life."
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  • And I thought it was motivating for most of my life. I was like, yeah you know what, yeah. And I would always tell myself that in moments where I felt like maybe I should take a break, whether it was from training or from work or from anything that I was doing really. It was like, "I have to be doing something. I have to be moving forward. I have to constantly do this." But what I was neglecting myself was the opportunity to actually process any of the things that I was doing.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Boom.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Which is where I realized, I was like, "Actually, that wasn't the best statement," and I probably should have realized that he was just like saying things because he was like this hardcore mentality, but as I got older, I started to realize like, "No, you need to have those shallow moments where you can just sit down and decompress and really process the things that you're doing, and that's how you iterate and get better."
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  • So that leads me to my next question, what is the iteration and getting better part of your process, say in the next five years? Where do you see Black State University?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Hmm. I see Black State University heavily funded by someone who recognizes and sees the brand. I say that because I don't measure my greatness by the finance aspect of it. I base it on the impact. I say that to say, like when I make an album, okay I'm not going platinum, but there are people that charge my words to their memory and they hit me up about my lyrics. That means a lot. So in the way of impact, when I see Black State University and what we've been able to accomplish in two years and the people that I've been connected to that, as soon as I line up some more ducks and get my business even tighter than what it is now, as far as marketing, branding, all those different types of things, a lot of money put behind the brand to where we are very influential in this art industry and in these community efforts. Not only do I see the Black State Preparatory Academy, I see black autism awareness, like we running 5Ks, we got small groups in communities educating because I see an absence of that.
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  • The college of business, the finance aspect of it, that booming, several movies produced. I do not think it's strange to think of myself on somebody's stage winning an Oscar or a Grammy, especially with the movie that I want to write. So yeah, this is captured here. This is people listening and watching me manifest because this is going to happen. So just like I manifested working with major producers when I just started a couple years ago, 88 Keys from Good Music, the one that made the song, No Church in the Wild for Jay Z and Kanye, he produced on my last album.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Oh, wow.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Reached out to me to do it. There's other people that I'm like really close and connected to. So in five years, if we maintain, or I would say increase our momentum, I really see us as a household name. I really see some of our artists winning hardware and us stomping with the big boys in industry, whatever that industry is that we see fit that we want to stomp in. So that's where I see us.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. No, no, no. How does one get in touch with Black State University as far as consuming the educational materials that you guys are providing and continuing to provide, or just staying in contact with or aware of the work that you're doing?
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • We have a website, BlackStateUniversity.com. Very short, simple and sweet. We also have an Instagram, Black State University on IG. I mean, on there, very easy to navigate. If you want to go to the college of business, you go there to find out about the financial products that we're putting out and the cohorts that we have going on and sign up for those classes. Because even with those classes, we provide counseling. We have nationally renowned accountants. We have real estate brokers. We got people that are willing to spend time to help you better yourself. With our media content, that's all in there. And if you want to find out what about our artists, we have all of our electronic press kits there. You can look up their music as well. So BlackStateUniversity.com.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Yeah. Well, thank you. This was a really enjoyable conversation and I learned a lot about all of the things that you're doing and all of the hats that wearing. So thank you for joining me on the show and I really truly look forward to seeing Black State University continue to grow in the future.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • Amen. Thank you very much for the time, opportunity, and the invite and look forward to having you on the upcoming podcast, Afro Radio hosted by your boy, Valmore gold.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Oh absolutely.
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  • Kenneth Bradley:
  • That's coming up this year. So you'll be returning the love bro. I appreciate it.
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  • Justin James Lopez:
  • Absolutely.