Jharrel Jerome, Preston Mitchum, Tinashe and More Celebrate Creativity at CultureCon

Photo Credit: The Creative Collective/ CultureCon

For all creative content creators CultureCon was the place to be this past weekend. The Creative Collective in partnership with Max took over the Brooklyn Navy Yard for two day cultural convention which featured discussions with some of the top Black entertainers of today, entrepreneurs, and social media influencers, along with activations set up by companies including Adidas, Spotify and Kickstarter and food tastings from Black owned restaurants and chefs in New York City.

During the two day event, Adidas allowed attendees the opportunity to express their creativity by designing their own Adidas classic sneaker, and Spotify allowed attendees to record mini single person podcast in recording both that they set up, in which attendees were also encouraged to launch their own podcast on Spotify for Podcasters. Award winning photographer Greg Noire was also on hand taking photos of attendees who stopped by the Culture Rated activation presented by Amazon Prime Video.

Emmy Award winner Jharrel Jerome spoke at the CultureCon on Saturday (October 7). While Jerome is known for his acting in the Oscar winning film Moonlight and his Emmy winning performance in When They See Us, and his current role in I’m a Virgo, he is planning on releasing a four part musical project titled Someone I’m Not through Sony Music. Speaking on the timing of the musical project during a discussion during CultureCon Jerome told the audience, ” I think the Emmy was a blessing, but at the same time it comes with what’s next for me, can you top it can you keep doing it. There’s a big reason why I’ve been quiet and haven’t been rushing into the next project. I want to make sure that the project challenges me like the last one did and that’s not easy. Projects that I have been a part of don’t come around often. So as an artist I know people are looking at me like alright you wanna rap that’s cool but what’s it for what’s it about, and so those are the questions I got to answer in order to gain the respect and in order to garner a certain attention for it. So I’m willing to take those questions and roll with the punches”. When asked about mentally dealing with challenges of wanting to move into music while still dealing with his acting career, Jerome explained that he ‘blocks out the world’, and relies on his confidence.

The following day on October 8th, CultureCon hosted a panel discussion with Faith Jenkins, Real Housewives of Potomac star Candiace Dillard Bassett and Summer House: Martha’s Vineyard star Preston Mitchum, discussed navigating career after achieving an initial level of success, while finding ways to showcase other talents to prevent being boxed in, and helping to find ways to deal with and overcome imposter syndrome. “You will really find yourself creating a lot of mistakes if you don’t know who you are before you get your big break. There’s the purpose of saying no just as much as saying yes, so know what you have to say yes to and most importantly know what you need to say no to to define your purpose”, Mitchum stated during the panel discussion. “Not everyone feels they have to be accountable to our community when they are representing themselves on TV, and I think that’s a real shame, honestly. I think when we do take this mantle, we have an obligation to community right and it means also we’re gonna make mistakes. The reason why I love reality TV so much I was watching all of them before I also became one of them, and it’s such an opportunity to discuss real things”, Mitchum also mentioned.

Singer/Actress Tinashe shared that “there’s absolutely no substitute for experience” when she hit the stage to discuss how she navigates her career in the music industry. Tinashe recently released her album BB/Ang3l and is planning to promote the album on tour.