Thug Life Army

What do you do when the 5 year-old student that you taught to read and write uses her newfound abilities to scribe the words to the latest rap song? Ask Hotep, whose multi-media EDU-tainment company Skinnymen Productions has been making huge waves in both entertainment and education news alike. Besides being owner, operator, producer, director, designer, author, engineer, artist, videographer and promoter for the company, Hotep is also creator and featured guest speaker for a series of empowerment workshops called The Manifest Destiny Project. Even more astounding, he accomplishes all of this while being a kindergarten teacher.

It’s been said that one man can’t do it all. Whoever made that statement obviously had not met Hotep. Indeed. Since1997, Hotep has been responsible for 9 hip-hop and spoken word albums, 3 music videos, a series of educational cd-roms, a Northeastern tour and numerous events for the entertainment industry. At the rate Hotep a.k.a. “Hustle Simmons” is working it won’t be long before we’ll see his face in the dictionary next to the word “multifaceted.” says RollingOut Weekly in a recent spotlight article. www.skinnymen.com  

This year Hotep will release his first full-length film (a documentary entitled “Independent, Doin’ Major Things”) and plans to finish a book about relationships. When asked why he undertakes so many media projects Hotep explains, “Media is the most powerful educational tool we have. If you control what people see, hear and read, then you control the way they think and therefore the way they behave. This is my way of improving problems in the Hip-Hop and African-American communities, by educating through entertainment and mass media.”

If being recognized as a gifted musician, speaker and visionary weren’t enough, Hotep (a Morehouse college grad), is also a nine year veteran educator in the Dekalb county school system in Georgia. Not only teaching kindergarten, but he tutors after school and mentors young men in the community. One of these young men (whom he taught in fifth grade) will be releasing a poetry book and cd through Hotep’s Manifest Destiny Project.

To merge both his gifts as an educator and experience in the entertainment industry, Hotep transitioned Skinnymen Productions into Atlanta’s first EDU-tainment company. Today, he uses his talents, knowledge and products to tour as a motivational speaker. Hotep’s mission: to lead the "underground" to the light of independence and inspire all, to Manifest their own Destiny!

Check out the web site  HERE .