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Prince Shakur is an award-winning queer, Jamaican American author, freelance journalist, videomaker, and grassroots organizer. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio to Jamaican parents that immigrated to the United States, he gained a love for reading and writing at a young age. By the age of 20, Shakur wrote six books ranging from middle grade to YA murder mystery. As a student at Ohio University, he organized to bring Black Lives Matter to the campus and helped plan a pivotal rally that led to the ousting of the university president.

His love for social justice became integral in his post-grad life as he worked as a labor organizer in Seattle, disrupted a 2016 Bill Clinton speech to call out the impacts of the 1994 Crime Bill, documented his travels/social movements through his Youtube channel, Two Woke Minds, and organized during the height of the George Floyd protests as a core organizer with Black, Queer, and Intersectional Collective. In 2021, he earned the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award and was praised by NY Times Bestselling author, Morgan Jerkins.

As a freelance journalist and writer, Shakur has penned numerous op-eds, essays, and features in Teen Vogue, Daily Dot, CodaStory, Cultured Magazine, AfroPunk, and more. His writings have been used in university classrooms, including Nikkita Oliver’s Prison Abolition course offered at the University of Washington. His debut memoir, When They Tell You To Be Good, about his political coming of age in Obama and Trump’s America earned him residencies with Sangam House, La Maison Baldwin, The Studios of Key West, and The Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Shakur has a love for travel that charts his entire life from visiting family in Jamaica during childhood summers to working seasonally as an adult. He has worked odd jobs in Yellowstone National Park and Big Sky, MT; which has gifted him fond memories of hitchhiking and accepting lunches from strangers. In 2016 and 2018, he traveled to France in the footsteps of James Baldwin; ambling around the streets of Lyon, going to French house shows, and falling in love. At the beginning of 2017, he spent three months in the Philippines backpacking with his best friend, eating pork adobo, learning about Filipino culture, and documenting for his Youtube channel. He has also loved working as a volunteer at hostels in South Korea and Morocco.

WRITING

Prince’s writing centers on marginalized, queer, and often silenced voices. Through film and creative nonfiction, he aims to explore the complexities of gender in black and Caribbean communities, the strain of political resistance, and the power of conscious travel. His creative and political praxis compels him to unpack capitalism, colonialism, and engage in deeper conversations about political histories and icons.

OUT 10.4.22

When They Tell You to Be Good charts Prince Shakur’s political coming of age from closeted queer kid in a Jamaican family to radicalized adult traveler, writer, and anarchist in Obama and Trump’s America. Shakur journeys from France, the Philippines, South Korea, and more to discover the depths of the Black experience, and engages in deep political questions while participating in movements like Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock.

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HIS PODCAST

The Creative Hour is a podcast of meaningful conversations between artists about their life and art’s most impactful moments. Hosted by Prince Shakur and broadcast through Verge.FM.

He also shares his online writing through The Black Reading Hour

HIS ACTIVISM

Since university, he has worked as a boycott organizer with unite here local 8 in Seattle, a lead field organizer with NextGen climate, and have participated in movements in the United States, France, and the Philippines. in 2016, he disrupted a Bill Clinton speech to call his family’s political dynasty out in their racist 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.

For nearly two years, he co-worked on Two Woke Minds, a travel and documentary series centered on people of color. This earned the 2017 Rising Star Grant from GLAAD. In December 2018, he visited Tijuana, Mexico to get a better understanding of the US’ attack on the human rights of migrants/asylum seekers attempting to enter the United States. He was recently a co-lead organizer with Black Queer and Intersectional Collective in Columbus, Ohio.

PRESS