We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stephon Simon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Stephon, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

I want to build an infrastructure that creates bigger and better opportunities for creatives to be heard and efficiently support outside of the state of Oklahoma. When I’m gone I hope they talk more about how I helped others accomplish their goals.. I will be remembered for being family a oriented person.

Stephon, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Steph Simon. I am from Tulsa Oklahoma. I am an Hip-Hop artist, educator, and community organizer. I got into this field be studying my cities history and learning as much as i could about the Tulsa Race Massacre and why my city was called “Black Wall Street. It helped me find my purpose to not only create music that is a soundtrack for risk takers, but do to lack of resources I enjoyed the process of creating platforms to help the next person build in the spaces i create so they don’t have to run into the same problems that I do such as lack of performance spaces, and education on how to become self-sufficient. I am most proud of a executive producing an album called “Fire in Little Africa” that was release May 31st 2021 with Motown Records. It is a hip-hop compilation album created by multiple artist in the state of oklahoma to commemorate the 1921 tulsa race massacre. That album reached a national stage and helped shed light on Tulsa’s past, present and future.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

When I initially created World Culture Music Festival/Dreamland I had no knowledge on gaining funding or sponsorships. In order to gain capital I worked extra hours at my minimum wage job until I had enough money to pull off the project. I knew I had a lot of social Currency and thats what I used to make it happen.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I built an audience on social media by actually reaching people in real life. 80 percent of the people I engage with online have met me in person or experienced an event that i’ve created which is an extension of who I am. From there it transfers over to social media. In order for me to gain a bigger presence i have to go to different places and meet new people. Thats my recipe.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.stephxsimon.com
• Instagram: @stephxsimon
• Facebook: facebook.com/stephxsimon
• Twitter: @stephxsimon

Image Credits
Headshot (ryan cass) festival performance shto (christopher creese) fire in little africa logo – trey thaxton everything is us logo – kejaun nolan