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I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Grammy-winning poet J. Ivy. Some might know him as the one who nicknamed John Stephens, “John Legend”, others may know him from his work on Russel Simmons Presents: Def Poetry, but he’s most well-known for his work on Kanye West’s College Dropout. The song titled Never Let Me Down, which also featured hip-hop legend Jay-Z, inspired me to do a motion typography piece to the hit song. After entering it in a competition at school—and winning nothing—I decided to post it up on YouTube one evening while I was in my animation class. By the time class was over and I got back to my apartment, I had a message in my YouTube inbox from J. Ivy. He expressed his gratitude in bringing the vision of his poem to life and requested that I work with him on his upcoming project, Here I Am. I ended up designing his logos, website, and album. The exposure that was received after that was incredible, and I have since then worked with people in Chicago, Los Angeles, D.C. and New York—before I even graduated from school. All I can say is that God is good and true hard work is rewarded.