Today while I was getting ready for my day I was walking around my apartment and stared at the photos my wife hung up on our living room wall. There you could see our immediate family on both sides. Her parents and mine as well as our siblings. I took a look at my biological father’s photo and started to notice the resemblance between him and my son. It was there it sort of hit me that I’m the exception to the rule when it comes to accomplishing some success in this music business. Let me explain….
Leon Atchison was born in Detroit, MI and joined the Navy right after high school. Once discharged he attended Michigan State University. There he would meet a young woman whom he would marry and have 2 children with. Soon after he started a political career that would eventually lead him to Washington D.C. working closely with John Conyers. A story for another time….
His accomplishments and blessings would later be passed on to his children, one of course, whom is my father. I give this context because with the information and life experiences that my father was exposed to he would later pass onto me. Seeing the world from a different perspective outside of a low income or even low middle income class eyes is what allowed me to take a different route from a lot of my high school classmates. During the summer while most of my friends were playing video games, getting part time jobs at the galleria, or preparing to make the team next season I was introduced to different cultures and way of thinking. My father would make it a point to drive me and my siblings to different cities such as Atlanta, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, and even Toronto. Of course, this meant I would start to think about the world differently.
Going back to school every fall semester was as struggle every single time because I would notice that my friends and I wouldn’t have much to talk about other than sports. While they were debating if Steve Francis should win MVP, which I thought he was a legit contender for one year, I wanted to talk about Black Wall Street, Nathan McCall’s books, or something I had just discovered in another city. To be exposed to culture and learn about people in different places is a privilege that I took lightly. Soon, me and my friends no longer had anything to talk about. I was definitely looked at as an outcast when I showed up to campus one time wearing a Duke Energy tee-shirt with the words “Got $200 Billion?” after news came out that the company would be cutting jobs after “misplacing” close to a quarter of a trillion dollars. I wanted to make a political statement, my friends wanted to know who was going to prom.
As I got older I started to see the advantage of seeing the world differently. I’m constantly asking questions and even dismantling my own beliefs to see if they’re legitimate. This now translates to my music career. If you look at any of my content from 2008 to now, I’ve always taken the road less traveled. What some may look at as weird or smart (depending on who you’re asking) I look at it as natural. My mantra has always been when everyone goes right, you make a hard left. I would only have gotten this mindset from information passed on to me which I attribute to my grandfather Leon. The lessons he may have very well learned from his father was definitely passed on to my father which he’s given to me.
So in short, when I see where I am at today with my production company (Room380), the records and albums I’ve produced, and being a part of a record label that just made billboard I have to attribute that to the work and life of Leon Atchison and example he set for his children and grandchildren.
I just hope the work I’m doing is making him proud.
