We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sterling Hampton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sterling below.

Hi Sterling, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

There comes a time in every creative’s life when they come to the inevitable crossroad. That crossroad if whether or not they truly want their dreams to happen. In a world where cheap comfort/dopamine is the greatest readily available hinderance to progress, it’s the artist’s sole choice to choose something greater. This decision is to bet on oneself. To throw caution to the wind and take a risk. After being a touring videographer/photographer, music video director and a commercial director for some of the biggest artists and brands in the world, I decided to take a risk and bet on myself.

My dream has always been to direct feature-length films since I was 15. But I quickly learned that I’d need to find a way to compete in what is truly a rich person’s sport historically. So that dream had to take a back seat for some years. After securing enough practical resources/experience and expertise, in 2021 I decided to make use of 6 hours to make a short documentary.
I directed, produced, edited, colored, sound-scored, composed and mixed this piece…and it took me to places I didn’t know I could go. My 5-minute short landed me premieres at Sundance, Tribeca, AFI, Urbanworld and 20+ other film festivals. Winning Best Documentary at Urbanworld, DOC LA and a nomination for Best Documentary at Sundance.

I choose to speak about this particular project as an instance of taking a risk because it was one of the first instances where there was no immediate co-sign or attachment to any outside forces/entities with already established notoriety. This is significant because the results from the project are obviously understood to be the product of an unobstructed feature of yourself and the team you assembled. It means that something you had complete control and belief over was useful to others…it resonated with the universe without an immediate cosign. Understanding this at the core then suggests that your “you-ness” is the currency. Your team’s “one-ness” is the engine. And with said understanding, you soon recognize that there is no limit to what you can achieve. All because you chose to take a risk.

No matter what the ups and downs are, I know that I can create my way in or out of any situation. Because I’ve done it before…and I’ll do it again for as many times as I need to until my team and I reach the heights we know we can reach. We will reach the sunshine and feel the frequencies of light illuminate us.

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 Sterling Hampton IV. I’m a film director, producer, editor and composer from California.

I’ve performed the above craft in the following capacities:

-As an early-20-something I was a music-touring videographer/photographer for the G-Eazy, Witt Lowry, Mario and The Black Eyed Peas.

-As a middle-20-something I was a music video director for the artists mentioned above and others like Jake Miller, Ps1, Estelle and others. I also somehow am able to say I directed and photographed a commercial campaign for Mercedes-AMG x will.i.am.

-Now as a late-20-something, I am a film director with works that have screened and won awards at Sundance, Tribeca, Urbanworld, AFI and 20+ other film fests.

My current mission is to find distribution for my latest feature documentary, option my feature narrative script (when the strike is over and the industry has it’s come-to-jesus moment), and get established in more humanitarian/philanthropic endeavors to help the homeless crisis in Los Angeles.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

There’s a few contexts to interpret and respond to that question. The first goes as follows:

-My personal young person goals in my creative journey are similar to that of what I’d assume my peers are…and that is to become successful creatively and financially. So that I can live the way I desire to live and be able to buy my freedom back in society that requires you to; being born into a western capitalistic society.

-My extended, more wholistic and self-actualizing mission is to be at a place where I can become a steward of a better world. Philanthropy and humanitarianism efforts to help the world sort through things like sustainability, allocation of resources, mental health and spirituality in a cosmopolitan context.

Ultimately if nothing else, I want to make people understand that we focus way too much on nonsense when there are very obvious and immediate issues we should be concerned about. The topics of who is darker or lighter than who, who is allowed to date who, who is better than who are so devastatingly useless and are distractions. If we’re not able to understand the fundamental idea that we are all truly the same (when you strip back the layers of historical and systemic prejudices and ignorance), then we are doomed before we even get started. Truthfully, all anyone wants is to be able to live well and feed themselves and their families. The logical next thought after that should be how we sustain this phenomenon in the most equal way we can without disenfranchising others in the process.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

The tech/system they run on is useful for things like birth certificates or Laker Tickets if nothing else.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.clashoftheartisticminds.com/
• Instagram: @mastersterling
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mastersterling/

Image Credits
Jose Negrete, Sterling Hampton, Adam Shattuck, Dan Vo