We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dawud Hasan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dawud, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.
Dawud, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.
Peace and blessings, first let me thank you all for allowing me the space to share and communicate. I truly appreciate the platform and how you guys shed light on the positives in our communities. It is a pleasure to be added.
As far as innovation, that is something I have always stood on in regards to cultivating vision.
The Diamond Minds mission statement is “To create unique programs and events that stimulate growth, education and forward thinking in, globally.”
To date, Diamond Minds has been able to create and help curate several really unique and dynamic events.
One of the most innovative, I think, is our efforts in helping create and curate a month-long guided tour in Africa, in the beautiful country of Nigeria.
This event is called The Return of the Ancestors.
The Return of the Ancestors tour begins August 2, 2023 In collaboration with The New York African Chorus Ensemble, The Endless Roar Tourism and Trade Alliance and The Healing and Teaching Tourism Temple of African Faith international.
Our goal is to invite the global african diaspora on this exclusive tour, as we travel to various cities and states in Nigeria.
This will be an immersive and culturally rich experience.
We want to help dispel the stigma of traveling to and doing business with the continent of Africa. We want to highlight the beauty, the intelligence and the opportunity that the birthplace of humanity possesses.
Our call is for those who have been displaced generations ago, to return to the roots of their culture and place of origin. This reconnection in my opinion is vital to the healing of the displaced African, especially in North America.
Before Nipsey Hussle (RIH) transitioned, he did an interview with the Breakfast Club where he said that his whole perspective of life changed when he visited Africa as a teen.
He said that he was able to see life for what it was worth outside of the organized confinements of South Central.
He saw a way of life that was more naturally fitting to his spirit and manhood that made him change and grow as an adult.
That experience Nip had is common when speaking to African Americans who have made The Return. A sense of tangible identity can go a long way in personal growth and development.
The Return of The Ancestors Tours is opening the bridge for more African Americans to experience that enlightenment.
This is something I am passionate about, something that I believe is innovative.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Well, my name is Dawud Hasan. I was born on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. My journey as a child brought me to Hollis, Queens, New York at 5 years old where I ended up being raised. I grew up a lover of HipHop. My grandfather was a writer and so is my father so I guess I naturally gravitated towards the art of MCing as a child.
Ever since I could remember I always was a writer. I wrote my first rap when I was 8. I still remember the whole rhyme. Lol. “I’m making money. So you should shut up sonny. Cuz I’m the D.A.W.U.D and I’m the best rapper you’ll ever see!” Lol, I was in 3rd grade.
Living in Jamaica Queens in the 80’s, HipHop seemed like it was everywhere. It was life for me, as a child and as a teen.
As life progressed I found myself here in San Diego as a young adult. It wasn’t long before I found a studio and began making music.
Most people know me now as Dawud Hasan the community organizer but those who know the MC in me call me True Light.
MCing was my way of expressing myself.
Some people might think it to be a waste of time or foolish that I spent so much time in the studio making music. Especially as a young man with a young family. I didnt go the traditional route. I didnt go to school or get a career with upward mobility. Those things scared TF out of me. I never wanted to go that way. My spirit moved me to create so I did. I kept creating and I kept listening to my spirit. I stayed making music from 2004 or 2005 to about 2012. Locally dropping my last EP called Diamond Minds in 2013.
As I began cultivating my vision, event organizing grew to become my form of expression. Instead of performing, I started creating platforms and booking acts to perform. Instead of writing rhymes, I start drafting logistics documents, one sheets, proposals, sponsor decks, MOUs etc.
Event organizing actually became many things for me. It became my passion, my obsession, my therapy and my calling.
When I first started organizing, I had access to a beautiful event space in downtown San Diego. In the beginning I had no idea how to organize events.
So what I did was offer the space I had for practically nothing to different organizers I met during my time as an artist who were looking for venues. In turn I would stick to them during the whole process and watch and observe.
From the top to the bottom I took notes on what worked and what didn’t. How promo was run, the ebb and flow of events, the cleanup, the importance of follow up (which is a lesson I learned the hard way through mistakes and a few hurt feelings).
I learned how to organize events by watching and asking questions.
When I learned the basics of it, I put on my own event called City Heat. That was in 2012. City Heat was the first time I mixed HipHop and health and wellness.
Since then I’ve moved on to create and manage several events. My company Diamond Minds is an umbrella company to those various events I have created or helped create.
As I stated above, Diamond Minds specializes in creating unique programs and events that help stimulate growth, education and forward thinking.
What problems do you solve for your clients and/or what do you think sets you apart from others?
Diamond Minds is spearheading a movement in both running and HipHop with The Hip Hop Health and Wellness 5k and festival.
This HipHop based run acts as a platform of health and total wellness for communities that have been systematically cut off from healthy lifestyle choice options and health education.
The Hiphop5k and festival is helping put the activity of running and walking at the forefront of our daily lives through the lens of Hiphop culture.
Combining hip hop and running tackles several problems at once. As people of color, we suffer from diseases that are not necessarily death sentences.
By increasing the amount of time we spend walking, jogging, running and eating clean we begin to naturally combat those preventable and CURABLE diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
Bringing in a culture of walking and running into communities in a tangible and relatable way, helps increase the overall health of our people.
It is our prayer that those steps lead to more clarity of mind, body and soul in black and brown communities world wide!
My goal with everything that I am doing in event organizing is to help build a better tomorrow. I want to help visualize a new day.
I often hear people talking about the great shift happening. The feeling that maybe systems need to be challenged, uprooted, replaced or modified.
The quarantine showed us a lot. Quarantine showed us what life would be like without a time clock.
The freedom to grow, to be still, to be creative, to reflect, to absorb. The freedom to choose, the freedom to rest. The freedom to just BE is priceless.
My goal is to help build platforms where people can re imagine the future and to create it in the most sustainable and organic way possible.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I think that being able to pivot is paramount to being an effective organizer. When dealing with so many moving parts it is foolish to think everything will go as planned. Most times, things will have to be adjusted along the way. Whether that be last minute updates, last minute staffing issues, or last minute operations changes, you have to be able to adapt and pivot.
When covid shut everything down and separated everyone, endurance competitions were one of the many industries affected so we could not host a Hiphop5k physically that year.
The pivot was to host a virtual 30 day movement challenge.
So in the last 30 days of the year we held the challenge. It was a blessing having people send us videos of them walking, running, dancing, biking and just moving in general.
We encouraged people to get up and move while we were all social distancing. This was a great accomplishment for us as we adjusted to a new way of life.
We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.
Some people create businesses just to sell them away, as a strategy. I understand that concept but in my beginning years, events I created were like children to me.
How could I sell it off, or give it away? In a million years I never would have thought to not hold the reins to an event that I created. I held my first events very close to me, nurturing them with all that I had.
So much so that I hurt myself in the process. That is how much I cared for them.
But In 2017 I came to a point where I needed to take steps away from organizing the event that I cared for the most, which was the San Diego HipHop5k and festival. I had come to a point where I couldn’t give it my all anymore.
I needed to focus on my personal life, a life I had long neglected.
Like with most things, I went and sought advice. An elder of mine gave me some good game. Her name is Sister Gwana, (shoutout to her). She told me, “if this event is too heavy for you to carry right now, don’t be too arrogant to hand it to someone else”
That was very difficult for me to hear because the SD Hiphop5k was my baby.
I had to really face myself to make that decision.
Separating business and personal connection. That was a great lesson for me.
Handing over the baton was very strange. I was young in event organizing with a huge dream that I had given everything to.
Sitting back and letting someone else steer the ship was difficult. But gradually I was able to step back, and by the time 2019 came around I was almost completely out of the many roles I played in the formation of The SD HipHop5k.
2018 and 2019 were the first years I had a chance to actually walk as a participant in that event.
I thank the Hiphop Health and Wellness team so much for all they have done to help keep the event going for the community!
But to the outside eye, this change in leadership was sudden and shocking to some people.
At first, at the inception of the SD Hiphop5k and Festival, I was the one spearheading marketing, meetings, presentations, vendor acquisition etc. So my face became synonymous with the event. As I started stepping away from these roles and getting more comfortable with being in the background, new people started to stand upfront.
There was a perception of uncertainty in some people. They did not understand the change and wondered where I was.
It came to the point where people who were new to the event did not know who I was as founder.
But I never let comments bother me as I began to relinquish more duties and responsibilities to our newly forming team.
I heard it all, why are you letting other people get the shine you deserve, why aren’t you on stage or at the center of attention?
I brushed all that off my shoulders for years as I began to heal and as the team began to grow.
It took a lot of prayer, self reflection and rest to begin my own process of growth.
It also took a lot of time.
From the end of 2017 to 2020 I did not organize. Besides helping out during the transfer of responsibilities at the SD Hiphop5k and Festival I did not organize or visualize. I felt very stuck. Uninspired.
It was the end of 2020 by the time I organized an event again. That December I cultivated and directed the 30 days of movement challenge for the Sd HipHop5k team.
After that, going into the next year, I started feeling better and more confident to step back in.
I started off doing smaller events on my own, testing out my skills, brushing off the cobwebs. In May of 2021 I cultivated and organized a 3 day art exhibit called The People’s Exhibit with a wonderful art Director by the name of Kim Phillips Pea.
Each day we held a different event in the gallery. 1st day was a mental health panel where we invited Vicky Bowers, the mother of Ryan Bowers to speak. 2nd day we held a Versus Battle between Miki Vale and Queen Kandi Cole at tribal with Dj Artisik and Dj Hec (All people I had met and became friends with during my time performing in San Diego)
The 3rd day showcased a project called Around Mountains Where Flowers Grow; an art collection about the relationship between fathers and daughters. That is a project I collaborated with Ms Ghia Larkins on (who, I met as a photographer at one of my old performances)
Later that year in Sept I cultivated and helped organize a tribute day for Vickies son Ryan Bowers. This was the first time I organized two events at the same time.
While directing the Bowers tribute event, I was 1 of 3 Directors responsible for introducing San Diego to our elder Queen Mother Delois Blakely of Ghana by way of Harlem NewYork.
We were able to escort her to the Bowers tribute show where she took the stage and instead of preaching to the crowd she started freestyling with a young San Diego talent by the name of Don Elway.
A month after that we had a successful 5th annual SD Hiphop5k.
Connecting the dots of inspiration.
After those events in 2021, I went into 2022 preparing to cultivate the Ryan Bowers tribute event into a run/walk and also to nurture the contacts we were blessed with on the continent of Africa.
All 2022 I organized those 2 things. Shoutout to The Hodads Foundation for stepping up for Ryan and his family and for all those suffering from mental health issues in OB!
At the beggining of the year we began to create and curate The Ryan Bowers Suicide prevention run walk.
We met and planed and organized for about a year building the event, building up a wonderful excitement, only for it to storm like crazy the day of the event lol.
Event day was on a sunday, it rained sunday and monday, sunny as a summer day sat and tue lol. So we had to postpone. That was a first for me. I have never had to deconstruct an event before. But I did. And I learned.
At the same time I was crafting the Suicide prevention run, I was helping formulate and conceptulize The Return of The Ancestors Tour in Nigeria.
So now, in 2023 11 years after I started event organizing and 19 years since I started on my journey as an artist in Daygo I am blessed to be organizing my first international event in Aug!
The Ryan Bowers Suicide prevention run in Ocean Beach is slated for mid Sept and we are expecting the 7th annual edition of the SD Hiphop5k in Oct!
I would have never been able to expand out, have time to heal myself and keep the Sd Hiphop5k thriving at the same time without letting go of ego.
So as my brother Terrell Rackley says the analogy is, I gave birth to the idea of the SD Hiphop5k, we nurtured the vision, then others came to help it grow. Now it stands strong in our community, with brothers and sisters popping up around the world, and I give thanks for that. God is indeed the greatest! Ase.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sdhiphopsd5k.com
- Instagram: @dawudhasan23
- Facebook: dawud hasan
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