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

Jonathan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Soul’d Creative Collective ideated during a heart-to-heart talk with my co-founder Christian Sinclair one late night shift at All People Coffee in February 2022. By that point in time, I just retired from the National Football League and wanted to start my professional career over, so I began working as a barista there. Christian was fairly new to Nashville, graduating from Middle Tennessee State University in 2020. Instantly, we recognized there was no access to safe spaces that celebrates BIPOC arts & culture, especially coming off the pandemic in a city that is engrained in celebrating white, mainstream culture.

Nothing happened swiftly following from that conversation. I just remember one spring night Sinclair texted me about hosting a poetry night at All People Coffee. At first, I was surprised that he wanted to do it with me; I didn’t know what would that bring about. To help, I did my best to form a team and plan this, hit up my contacts and networks to spread the word in the process. In addition to working as a barista at All People, I told a lot of customers about it and that created word-of-mouth marketing.
Once it was the night of the show, our expectations were blown away at how many people attended and how many influential creatives supported the show. We had top-renowned poets perform, the line to enter was forming out the door of the shop, customers were enjoying themselves, and we received joyous feedback. The biggest feedback of them all was “When is the next event?” Sinclair and I didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, but we kept hosting events after that.

As we hosted events, we created a buzz and established our identity as Soul’d. Each event, we refined our mission and what we want to do, but we kept going and figuring ourselves out. Understanding the impact and our value to the Nashville creative community over time, I committed myself to growing Soul’d. I knew our purpose of bringing people together over the love of BIPOC arts & culture was something the city needed. This year, we honed in our focus of education, collaboration, and access. Solidifying our focuses articulates the reason for our projects/events and why it is important in the long run.

Now as a start-up nonprofit, we’re in this refine, clarify, and grow approach. We know our purpose; now, it’s setting out succinct goals and seeing how we can accomplish them. I can forsee us diversifying our resources and networks under the utilization of our focuses within our projects. Growing our internal infrastructure to where like-minded creatives are involved and active. Expanding the width of safe spaces across the city to where there is equitable access for BIPOC creatives to create, connect, and thrive together. Doing this, we add to the conversation for how the next generation will see that Nashville is not just country music.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Jonathan Wynn, and I am a creative entrepreneur, writer, author, inventor!

I was born and raised from Stone Mountain, Georgia. As a kid, I played outside and participated in sports the majority of my life. What people didn’t know was how much my parents kept me around books and the arts. My mom would always take me to Barnes & Noble on her weekend coffee runs. My dad would take us to the library a lot as he read magazines or grabbed CDs. In addition, I remember my daycare taking me on a lot of field trips to museums, parks, and other places of culture. My imagination and body was always moving.

What brought me to Nashville was a football scholarship to Vanderbilt University in 2013. Former coach James Franklin sold me on how I can receive a world-class education at an institution that is located in a thriving city and play football in a highly, competitive football conference (The SEC conference). In addition, I saw people of my race in top positions actively there. That was the sprinkles on top coming from Atlanta.

I attended Vanderbilt, doing well on and off the field during my time there. Graduating in 2017 from the school of Peabody in Education, I also had the opportunity to play in the National Football League, so I took it. I played for the Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions, and had a small stint with Carolina Panthers towards the end of 2020. Outside of my time with football those years, I explored it all as a creative. I ideated VitaSleeve, which is an athletic, compression sleeve stitched with a vascular design that helps football players improve ball security. My way of creating something that improves performance for athletes and presence (swag) on the field, which in result, improves their brands. Currently, I am in product development, testing it with local high school athletes in hopes of licensing it one day to a more, established sports apparel company. Also in 2019, I created a t-shirt line called “You Know I’m Prolly…” The song Boo’d Up by Ella Mai was the seed of my creativity with this line, and I made a lot of sales to my friends and networks. Once the pandemic came, I decided to shelf it, but I loved all that I achieve with the brand. I would write for magazines and pick up side writing work too.

I even enjoyed songwriting on the side. One night in Fall 2021, I gingerly walked on an open-mic stage with a knee brace on at Cafe Coco and performed some songs. My voice sounded bad, but Ahmadmusic (a phenomenal, local R&B singer) loved the songs and we embarked on a songwriting friendship. Eventually, he gave me a song placement to one of those songs on his most recent album. The song is called by Body On Me by AhmadMusic, check it out and check him out on Apple Music and Spotify!

My biggest accomplishment of all is writing an adolescent novel called Summer Juice while playing in the NFL, and when I say write, I mean I wrote it word-for-word myself. I didn’t hire a ghostwriter or nothing. The original plan was to write a ten to twelve page children’s book on my summertime experience as a kid. My publishing company at the time, 13th & Joan publishing, read my manuscript and loved it. Following up from their response, they challenged me to turn the ten page book into a 50k+ word manuscript. At first, I didn’t want to do it, but I prayed about it and made up my mind to do it. The whole summer of 2019, I wrote every day on the story, whether it was a little or a lot. By the time of training camp that August, I was done with a rough draft to send to 13th & Joan. A year later, I published Summer Juice on the first day of summer in 2020. So many people bought my book and you can still purchase it on Amazon. Writing that book taught me that I can truly do anything I set my mind to do as long if I stay patient and consistent, don’t give up, and keep going.

So when people wonder how I became so committed with Soul’d, my backstory led me to it. Quickly, I realized my gift of creativity, storytelling, and bringing people together before retiring from the NFL. Once I declared to God that I’m going to commit myself to his plans, even when I didn’t know what that was, everything opened up for me in 2022, and here I am.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

My pivot from football to entrepreneurship was a scary decision at the time. I went to a San Francisco 49ers tryout in the middle of August 2021. I wanted the opportunity so badly to play after not having spring/summer practices with any teams that year. After one drill, I landed awkwardly and tore a thigh ligament in my right leg. From then on, I knew my internal tug and pull between football and creativity needed to be decided. I felt anxious the rest of that year. Doing something I enjoyed since I was eight years old may have to come to an end.
Before the end of that year, I journaled and prayed on my final decision. I realized that football provided me the tools to be great in life. It’s a different practice, but the discipline, the hard work, the other intangibles can still be applied. I declared to God that I was done with football December 2021. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew he wouldn’t leave me. So I took that leap of faith scared, taking on a barista job at All People Coffee.
It took time for me to adjust. Going from making a lot of money to minimum wage, interacting with professional athletes all the time to regular, working people — I had my days where I questioned it all. Once I got in the groove of working there, everything that I am involved with now came to me, including my current girlfriend. My new friends outside of sports, ideas turned into events, traits and skills that equipped me to be a leader in my community — it all happened there, which is crazy to think about.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have so many stories and moments. I feel like I named some within this interview.
For the things I have accomplished, it was a lot of difficulties, hard moments, and anxious times.

Laughing at myself right now, I remember my first NFL training camp with the Minnesota Vikings. I had a lot of odds stacked against me. I was close to last on the depth chart in my position, I didn’t receive a lot of reps in practice to get better, The transition of football as a sport I love changed to football as my livelihood to feed me, my family, etc. in my mind. It was a difficult time to where my emotions were a rollercoaster ride. I wanted to show everybody that I can play and I deserve to be there.

The night before my first game in Denver, I journaled about everything I was feeling, what I envisioned happening in the game for me, my desire to represent my family and community. I remember going to sleep dreaming of affirmational dreams and making plays. The next day, I was amped. I was so focused going through the game-day routine. I prepared for the game as if my life depended on it, studying the game plan, hydrating a lot so I don’t catch any cramps, stretching a lot so I don’t pull anything and I’m loose, bumping pre-game music that reflected getting out the struggle and shining. I wanted to shine so badly.

During the game, the coach called me to go in. Right by his side, I sprinted on the field and got in my position to receive the play call. The first play, I played my position strong, but I wasn’t in on the play. The second play, the opposition ran the ball the other side and my teammates made the play. On the third play, I beat my opposing player as the quarterback was about to pass and I sacked him for a big stop. The announcer said my name loud and bold, the sidelines was cheering for me, I jumped up so proud and screamed in excitement. It was from then on, I knew I belong and no matter what, I can play. After the game, I cried because my play from the game symbolized how much I need to keep going before my big breakthrough.

This story represents that for me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @wayyback_wynn
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-wynn49/
• Other: https://music.apple.com/us/album/body-on-me/1727098922?i=1727098927

Image Credits

Getty Images, Vanderbilt Athletics, Urbaanite, Player’s Tribune