To be honest, I never planned on working in politics.
As a child, I dreamed of being a Toys R Us kid but that all changed when my grandmother taught me how to cook. I started off doing the basics, cutting carrots and potatoes, but in my mind I was prepping another award winning meal in my future restaurant Ma & Son’s Kitchen – one of the top restaurants in Philadelphia. My goal was to serve as restaurants head chef and musician, playing the piano for our patrons every night.
Then one day, at the age of 13, my mom told me that those dreams would be put on hold and I had to get a job. While my passion was cooking gourmet meals, and writing music that would make you beg for dessert, the thought of making money and doing the little bit I could to support my family was more comforting.
Excited about the opportunity to showcase my skills, I applied and secured my first job at a local grocery store bagging groceries. Some would say humble beginnings for a biweekly paycheck, I thought of it more as a paper or plastic hustle.
I would continue to climb the dynamic customer service ladder by making pizzas at Pizza Hut, serving as a valet and bellman for the Marriott and selling women's shoes at Dillard’s. Oh and this was all before I went to Florida A&M University (FAMU) on a journalism scholarship from the Palm Beach Post.
At FAMU, my school and work life balance was centered on the most important thing for a self-determined 17-year old whippersnapper - finding myself! With a diehard commitment to work for everything, I committed my time to the children at a local daycare and working the graveyard shift at Target between classes. By 2007, I pursued other opportunities and began working with the Boys & Girls Club, FAMU men’s basketball program and serving fresh-warm cookies at the DoubleTree Hotel.
Then three weeks after the 2008 Presidential Election, and two weeks before semester finals, my life took an unexpected turn. For the first time in my life I found myself unemployed, with no relative plan or financial resources.
I was literally lost until I listened to Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreaks and heard Track 8 - Street Lights. I don’t know why that song resonated with my soul but my intuition told me that despite the downfall I was on the verge of something that would change my life forever. So I stepped out on faith and took an unpaid internship in the Florida House of Representatives working for Representative Dwayne Taylor and the Democratic Minority office.
Little did I know that my years of customer service experience, along with my rain man like memory, would put me in a position to get a full grasp of the policies and politics that impact the everyday people I used to serve. An unlikely internship, along with an opportunity to represent some of Florida’s top interest as a political director of a law firm, fueled a hidden passion to educate businesses and underrepresented industries about their political future.
In 2014, I founded Singleton Consulting a strategic governmental relations and communications firm. Outside of politics, running political campaigns, cooking, and teaching more people about the cultural diversity of Millennials – the future of our nation, I’m just an everyday guy trying to become the first lobbyist to ever win a Grammy award.
