Today we’d like to introduce you to Kevin E. Taylor.
Hi Kevin E., can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My story is quite detailed. I am a pastor and a creative writer, who also writes grants for social support service agencies. I have always loved words and as a child, I was always made to feel like I was too much or words were too much and I finally realized that many people simply weren’t willing to do ENOUGH to unpack them, to live in them, to love them. I used words DILIGENTLY every single day, whether in a grant or in a conversation, in sermons and in standing on the street with someone who needs a moment or a message. I am a person who loves people and I realize that so many people who get paid to do people work do not like people!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I am an out Black gay man and a pastor who is much loved in my city, and it presents conflicts at times and yet, I am flourishing. It makes me a great resource for people who need me and it can be very interesting in spaces.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a creative person who is also blessed with a meticulous mind. I say that I am a storyteller and that works in writing books and sermons, in telling stories of disadvantaged people and in novels with depictions of characters that people don’t often read about in other books. I specialize in finding a way to find the story within the story and help people to see the humanity in the story, no matter the differences.
I am known for my work at Black Entertainment Television, a network that reaches some 150 million households and while there, I was afforded the remarkable experience, as a producer, to develop new programming for the network and to also produce amazing interviews, with the likes of Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, Patti Labelle, Diana Ross and Natalie Cole, who was my favorite singer of all time. I got to work with her as her researcher and discographer for her best-selling autobiography ANGEL ON MY SHOULDER. She even asked me to write the COMPLETE DISCOGRAPHY of her work and so the last 12 pages of my favorite singer’s life story were written by ME! That still blows my entire mind. What sets me apart from others in every field is that I LIKE PEOPLE and that shows up when I’m talking to a homeless who asks for food and gets to buy something hot because he asked or the celebrity who is often dismissed as unapproachable and we end up having a very human talk about music and love and passion. I communicate and that means speaking well and listening even better!
Who else deserves credit in your story?
I have just last week buried my “Dad,” my mentor and my Spiritual father, Bishop Yao K.R. Cheeks, whom many simply called Rainey. He was my rock and my sounding board and his life was so big and his light so bright that Willie Geist and the team @ Sunday Today on NBC did a segment called “A LIFE WELL LIVED,” which they do when so moved, on his life and journey. He showed me how to be THE MOST ME. Also my mother, whom I buried in 2015, talk me how to not be afraid to talk to anyone. That happened because she showed me that using my words was my superpower and that helped me to get to and go to college and to be a sound and solid preacher and speaker and debater and panelist and parent.
In business, a woman by the name of Cynthia Avon Lee, who was the VP of Entertainment and Music Programming at BET, saw something in me and had me, as the network Music Researcher, go home and write questions for Natalie Cole’s first network interview since her UNFORGETTABLE sweep at the Grammys. She read my questions and then said something so mind-blowing when I asked who was doing the interview–YOU! I was going to be interviewing my favorite singer of all time, who I had been corresponding with since I was in 6th grade and now there, she would be, in front of me, while cameras roll. The 90 minutes changed my life and my entire relationship with Natalie (who became a dear friend and sister and soulmate, which she now knew and not just me alone) and when my phone rang and it said NATALIE, I was still confounded. That day, she saw me and lifted me and loved on me because she knew how much I had been changed by her music. But so did Ms. Lee and that’s why she assigned it to me. But she also said “this is how this is going to happen for YOU…because you’ve got SOMETHING. And I can do SOMETHING WITH SOMETHING!”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.KEVINETAYLOR.COM
- Instagram: @kevinetaylor
- Facebook: @kevinetaylor
