Between Thursday and Friday, I got two good opportunities to meet some famous personalities. Last week I passed up the chance to interview the Prime Minister of Kenya because of a previously scheduled trip to Denver (no regrets in a million lifetimes,) and suffered one of the biggest embarrassments as a journalist when I found that a really good interview I'd had with tennis player James Blake never recorded. I was quite pleased when I got to interview actor Kal Penn, who's the star of the Harold and Kumar movies and TV show House, and who's now a White House official.
Originally, Penn, whose real name is Kalpen Modi, wasn't supposed to grant an interview. In fact, although his title is associate director of public engagement, I had received prior instructions that I'd only be allowed to get video footage with no audio whatsoever. Now what journalist will be satisfied with that?
So using my charm, which is quite evident in the short clip I posted below, I not only talked my way into an exclusive interview with him (beat that local TV stations with bigger budgets!) I was also allowed to tape the first 15 minutes of his round table discussion with a select number of FAMU students and alumni. Might I add that he pronounced my name quite eloquently that I may have offered him an honorary citizenship to Nigeria.
On Friday, my broadcast mentor Mike Walker invited me to a taping of the "Architects of Hip-Hop," a talk show hosted by hip-hop great Christopher "Play" Martin, which is being taped at my school. Play has been a visiting professor at FAMU the past year and created the show to interview the legends of this genre of music, and his first guest was pioneer Big Daddy Kane.
For more than two hours, the approximately 30 people in the room (not including the production team,) listened to BDK talk about his highs and lows in the game, and just about nothing was off limits. So what we witnessed was one hip-hop legend, plugging the mind of another-no holds barred. I won't go into any specifics especially since I don't know what audience would get to watch this yet. But I will say that I was one of only four studio guests who got to ask him a question (if you know how involved in hip-hop I am, thanks to my sister Ngo, then you'd know how big this was for me to do this.) So barring being cut out of the final product in the editing room, you may get to see me on TV wearing my fan hat instead of my journalism hat.
Anyway, here's two pictures of me with both legends:
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