We were lucky to catch up with Shameika Rhymes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shameika, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?

Two of the biggest heroes in my life are my maternal grandparents. They were both a shining example of what hard work, love, and faith could do in a person’s life. They were my safe place where I was allowed to just be a kid and tap into my imagination and be creative and carefree. My grandmother’s nurturing and encouragement taught me how to have the morals I still have today– even if they are a bit old fashioned. After all, I am a product of spending a lot of time at their house when I was growing up. My grandfather had a work ethic that was undeniable even at 94 years old, he could out-work and run circles around anyone, including me. Up until March, I was always getting career advice from my grandfather because his wisdom and ability to help me gain a sense of clarity when following my dreams was exactly what I needed. Both of my grandparents encouraged my writing, my inquisitive nature, and they taught me that you have to treat others the way you want to be treated. So when I’m doing an interview, I’m always making sure I am giving people the same grace that I would want to receive. Two things my grandparents always said, “don’t take no wooden nickels,” when it comes to getting paid, and certainly don’t stress, “put your mind on something else and things will get better.” Both taught me how to put fear to the side and have enough faith to chase my dreams and to believe in myself.
I’m blessed to have had both of them in my life and still watching out for me from heaven.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am an entertainment journalist and host that loves old-school everything and pop culture. I started out in television news as a production assistant and worked my way up to senior news producer. However, there was always something missing and I felt stuck. Not to mention, I had leadership that constantly told me I couldn’t follow my dreams of being on-air and I wasn’t that great of a writer. I had something to prove. I started blogging and realized how much I loved telling stories and eventually, TheMofochronicles.com was born. It focused on the ups and downs of dating. Eventually, it changed as I evolved, and the acronym took on a new meaning of “My Own Freaking Observations” to cover everything from lifestyle, entertainment, blogs about health and more.

I took a quick detour to reality television on a show in 2007 called “I Want to Look Like a High School Cheerleader Again” that aired on CMT, thinking this would help open the door to bigger and better things. Spoiler alert, it didn’t because I wasn’t ready to do the work at the time. A year later, I started working as an entertainment correspondent for “The S.E.L.F. Show” and caught the interviewing bug. I also started writing for friends’ blogs that covered music and entertainment and realized this was what I was missing. After I got paid for my first article with Creative Loafing Charlotte, I never looked back. I went on to write for SoulTrain.com for five years, the best training ground a novice entertainment writer/reporter could ask for.

Since 2011, I have written for multiple publications and digital platforms including Vanity Fair, Ebony Magazine, Essence, became the blogger for WEtv.com, Shondaland.com, Parade.com, Zola.com, and I’ve written cover stories for Studio Gannett USA Today’s special publications, the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM), and most recently NBC Universal.

I realized, some stories were still being missed out on because SoulTrain.com was no longer, and NMAAM switched its focus so the stories I wanted to tell didn’t align with their vision. A friend told me if I wanted a place to tell the stories I wanted to tell, then I had to start my own thing, My grandfather was instrumental in this because he also confirmed that maybe it was time to take matters into my own hands, but I didn’t think I was ready to go forward with being in front of the camera just yet. I quit television news in 2017 and by 2019, the universe intervened and I got my first on-camera interview with Tia Mowry for Right On! Magazine and launched my own YouTube channel.
Initially it was going to be the extension of the blog, The Mofo Chronicles, but I felt like it needed to encompass all that I am and that wasn’t just dating horror stories anymore. It needed to align with my purpose and passion and the niche I had carved out while at SoulTrain.com, the nostalgia of the music I loved, but it also needed to have some freshness of today. “Check the Rhymes TV” was born thanks to singer Will Downing for the name inspiration, and the show was rebranded and kicked off in 2020 with one of my inspirations, former MTV VJ and talk show host Ananda Lewis. Her encouragement and praise, let me know that I was headed in the right direction. That was over three years ago and I haven’t looked back. Check the Rhymes TV is where GenX meets pop culture and it has become something I am super proud of.

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

I initially went to college with the goal of being an entertainment news anchor/reporter/talk show host in the 90s. What I found out quickly after graduation is that it doesn’t work that way if you come from a school in northeast Tennessee and nobody knows who you are. I ended up working in television news, but decided to learn everything I could about the business so that I could use it to my advantage whenever I was able to make the jump. I pivoted many times, because what I learned was that just because you have a specific dream and goal in mind- it may not always look like you thought it would. I had doors slammed in my face with auditions, demo tapes being trashed, and enough rejection letters to cover every wall in my townhouse. Until I created my own blog, and eventually became a freelance entertainment writer/reporter, is when I realized that I had to pivot a bit. While I wasn’t on-air, I was on those red carpets I had once dreamed of, I was speaking to the artists I grew up listening to and pretending I was interviewing with my hairbrush. I once again pivoted when publications shut down or stopped using freelancers and the checks stopped rolling in. My latest pivot was to rekindle my dream of being on-air but in this day and age, you don’t have to wait for someone to approve of your reel, looks, voice, etc. I have been able to be the entertainment talk show host/correspondent on my own terms by having my own platform and airing the content that I want to air. It’s been a blast!

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

While pivoting and working towards my dreams, I never imagined that I would be diagnosed with fibroids. Fibroids are tumors made of smooth muscle cells and fibrous connective tissue that develop in the uterus. I had my first surgery in 2013 to remove 10 of them and had to deal with post-op nerve damage in my leg that forced me to walk with a cane for almost two years. During that time, I lost my grandmother and had to deal with grief while trying to heal my body. I never stopped writing, interviewing, and pushing towards my dream while advocating for myself and my health. By 2015–I was back on a red carpet and in Shemar Moore’s face, if that isn’t a blessing, I don’t know what is! Then my world came crashing down again in 2020, not just because of the pandemic, but because the fibroids had come back and my iron levels had reached severe anemia. I didn’t make myself a priority enough to even realize that I was tired from the lack of iron. I just knew I had to keep grinding to get my YouTube channel monetized and keep gaining subscribers. Ultimately, I had to have rounds of iron infusions since my body wasn’t absorbing the iron, and another surgery in 2021 that didn’t help, in fact things got worse and the iron plummeted again. I kept going, even co-hosted ET Canada Live while barely being able to hold my head up. Finally in 2022, I made the tough decision to have a hysterectomy and leave my ovaries. This time, I let myself heal and I took the time away that I needed to get through it. During that time, my podcast that I co-host with Chelley Cheyenne was born, “Ladies Edition.” It’s a safe space to talk about fibroids, endometriosis, pre-and post-hysterectomy, and other women’s health issues. Now, I’m healthy and my iron levels are great.

Contact Info:

• Website: TheMofochronicles.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChecktheRhymesTV/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Checkthe_Rhymes
• Youtube: ​https://www.youtube.com/checktherhymestv
• Ladies Edition Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LadiesEditionPodcast/

Image Credits
Credit: Jon Strayhorn –for the photo with the Check the Rhymes marquee in the background