We had the good fortune of connecting with Darius A. Stanton and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Darius A., how does your business help the community?
The social impact of my business is very important because we are reprogramming society and other media influences to focus and promote strengths and assets versus sensationalizing peoples deficits. Our society and especially the media profits off of the weaknesses or demise of others. Our media company and partners help businesses, organizations and individuals profit off of the strengths of others and the power in harnessing the best in people to make their financial goals. We have found an ecosystem of businesses and investors that want to put principle over politics, put people over profit and still make a lot of money.
Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am in my second career. My first career was in human service. I was the youngest person to serve as a drug czar for the Mayor’s office in Annapolis, MD. in the country at 22 years old! I then went on to be a Boys and Girls Clubs executive and work my way up to become V.P. of operations for the largest Boys and Girls Clubs in the country in Washington D.C and Maryland. I also started a Boys Club in a juvenile detention center in Baltimore MD. known on the TV show “The Wire” as Baby Bookings.” Where we helped decrease the rate of violence in the facility by 75%. My new career is in media broadcasting and production. I am the host and executive producer of three talk shows. One daily cable television show called Good News Bowie with Darius A. Stanton. Two weekly podcasts named Peace in the Morning Show with Darius A. Stanton and The Lights of the Roundtable. I started doing my first TV show when I worked for the mayor on cable television weekly on a drug prevention show titled “Annapolis Fights Back!” But it was one day that my father whom was a sports broadcaster for the local high school games said to me. “Darius I heard you on 88.9 Morgan State University radio on a panel today and you were the most prepared with data, organized, and you had the best voice for radio. You need your own talk show!” So I started a show with The Diamond Petty on blog talk radio called “The Solution Hour!”. I did that for a year and came back with a 5 days a week morning talk show called Peace in the Morning. I am also the executive producer of the 50th Anniversary Documentary of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus that will premiere in November 2021. I am also a sports broadcaster and VP of programs and strategic partnerships for a new media division of Streetz Media named Scholar Athletes Sports Network.
The reason why I started producing media is because I asked myself when I went to get my Masters degree from The Lincoln University. What can I do to change not just help one but change the negative and violent behavior we have towards ourselves in the Black community and throughout the world. I determined it had to be through mass communications. So my life’s work as a motivational speaker and media personality and content producer is rooted in asset based communications and community development. Mass media controls how we eat, what we buy, how we treat people and ourselves and sadly today our health outcomes. Look at the 1.7 million people that die annually from obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. So I decided to create content that focuses on highligting positive images of us and to promote people who are pushing people. Our programming is also focused on solutions and the power of words. We also call it action based media so once people leave our programs that have some actions to execute to improve their lives, their family and communities. My mother Queen Ayacodobae taught me how to use educational entertainment as our major foundation to reach people and plant seeds that will germinate into positive, productive, human beings.
The Motivational Speaker!
Words have power we can’t keep saying “No Justice and No Peace” if we want just and peace. We have to speak what we want into existence. Which is why Ichant at rallies and protest. “We will have Justice and We will have Peace” I am not asking for someone to give me something that is a God given right.
In 2018 I introduced the concept through my speaking platform of “Education being the New Sport.” I want families and educators to put the same amount of energy and fun into spelling bees and science fairs as they do into sports. In 2019 speaking platform was “Men for Domestic Peace”. Men must take the lead in ending Domestic Violence which is the root cause to the violence we see in the street and throughout the world. Hurt people hurt people and helped people help people. In 2020 it was “Retooling Leadership” which means we must become asset based leaders to get better results. In 2021 my speaking platform is “Being Bold for Good!” I think that speaks for itself.
I have learned some valuable lessons. The power of having a team to support your work and whom you can support. One of our co-host musician/entrepreneur Marcus Johnson taught us its better to have it done than perfect. I also learned to keep pushing not to get down and to be to hard on ourselves. We must stop bullying ourselves.
The challenges I have faced is balancing my new career in media is how to streamline it all so I am not overwhelmed by doing my normal 3 or 4 jobs / projects but get real focused on media. I also wanted to learn how to monetize my content I was paying people to broadcast on their networks but the content producers were not getting paid on these internet stations. So I created platforms for content producers to get paid too. So contact us to promote positive content imagine if BET and MTV for the last 30 years pushed positive and motivational music instead of gangsta rap music and videos that glorifies spending money of things that don’t support our communities, disrespectful women, promotes violence and alcohol and other drug abuse. I have overcome these challenges by teaming up with like minded people and seeking advice from people like motivational speaker Willie Jolly and following Roland Martin’s shift from being on a major network to paying himself as independent producer of his own content.
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
So I am from the DMV The District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia you could add Delaware because I’m going to take you to the beach too. I would start by understanding what you’re interested in so I make sure I am a good host to make sure you get what you want out of the experience and not just what I think is fun. So let’s go. I am from Annapolis, MD and raised partially in Baltimore. So we are going to start at the City Dock of Annapolis where the movie Roots dipects as the place slaves came into America Kunye Kinte plaque and a Alex Haley, author of Roots, statue resides. Have lunch on the water and watch the sunset and boats float in and out. I would also take you to some of the beach houses owned by Frederick Douglas in a Black owned beach community called Highland Beach and Arundel on the Bay where Black folks own houses on the water. I would take you to where I grew up so you could see my old neighborhood Spa Road and see where I come from. Day 2 we would take you to DC so you could visit the African American Heritage Museum so you could see the four floors including Emmitt Tills casket and displays of Malcolm X, Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five, Hip Hop greats and a history of the slave trade from Africa to the America’s. Of course you would see the White House, the capital and we would visit the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King memorial. We would eat on H. St. at the world famous Ben’s Chilly Bowl. I don’t eat meat so all of my food would be vegetarian but you would be in a DC treasure. We would stay in the Mandarin Hotel so we could get a spa treatment after all of that trauma and beauty walking for four hours in the museum. Then I would take you to Georgetown the next day in DC where you could go shopping and then take the water taxi over to the National Harbor to the MGM casino and party a little bit. We would end up having dinner back on the water looking at the sunset on the Potomac River. The next day we would get back on the water taxi and go back to DC and visit Adams Morgan, U Street, Southeast DC where Mayor Marion Barry was a Councilmember and lived. We would head out of DC down 295 to Charm City, Baltimore City. We would go to the Blacks and Wax Museum where they have great displays of giants in Black history and the Reginald F. Lewis museum for some more Black history. We would also visit the Walter’s Art Gallery and visit the Baltimore School of the Arts where Jada Pinkett and Tupac Shakur went to High School. We would eat lunch at the Inner Harbor and stay at a Black owned Five star Hotel named The Ivy and the hotels restaurant. We would ride by the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles stadium, Lexington Market (food and vendor spot in downtown Baltimore.) We would also visit Mondawmin Mall, one of the original malls in the region still operating. We would visit my old neighborhood and hit Druid Hill Park and take you to some of the rough spots in the city so you could see what it’s like. Ok time to head to the beach Ocean City, MD but on the way we will stop on the Eastern Shore and go by Harriet Tubman’s museum and trails in Easton, MD. Then to.the Beach. Spend a day at the beach their then to Dewey Beach in Delaware and catch the Lewis Ferry to Cape May another little beach town in Southern New Jersey. Stay there have some good food and come back from the ferry ride and go back through Maryland to DC and take you to a GO GO on your last night so you could party with bands that played with Jill Scott, Curtis Blow, Snoop Dogg and see.the legendary Chuck Brown statue. If we have time one night we would also go to a club in Baltimore so you could get a little house music in your blood.
Originally Published on Shoutout Atlanta
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