Omar Tyree
New York Times
Best Selling Author
by
Darrell Reid
It’s not every day that you get to talk with one of the greatest authors of our generation. This guy is not only an author but a poet, educator, lecturer and a journalist. He is a New York Times best seller, who has sold over 2 million books worldwide, an NAACP Image Award Winner, a Phyllis Wheatley Literacy Prize Winner and the Founder of the Urban Literacy Project(ULP).
He is the only, and only OMAR TYREE and is as normal as they come. I really mean that. His enthusiasm and energy made the conversation with him feel like I was hanging out with oneof my good friends at Taco Mac, while watching the game. During the conversation, Mr. Tyree gave me so much information and insight into his world of writing and publishing that I found it impossible to write everything down. Just minutes leading up to our phone conversation I was nervous as hell, and he gave me plenty of time to remain nervous. The conversation started about ten minutes to nine, while originally scheduled for 8pm, while he dealt with a last-minute business call. And as I was watched the time, I kept saying to myself, “I cannot believe in just a few a minutes, I will be interviewing Omar Tyree.” So I went through my questions over and over again.
I had everything outlined and was thinking about how I would approach the questions, all while watching the time like a countdown to the NFL Draft. And as soon as I said, “Yeah, this is Omar Tyree” on the line, I had to keep my fanatic energy on chill mode and ask the man some major questions.
I had explained to Mr. Tyree that this particular interview would be featured on my cousin’s blog “Bars And Warfare.” Mr. Tyree then informed me that he wasn’t really a big fan of blogs. He stated that it was nothing personal but he found blogs to have shortened articles. He said he was from the old school of extensive articles that could reach 2,000-3,000 words and deep introspection. And he was not satisfied with reading the incomplete meals of short blogs. So he joked with me about the articles and posts being of short content and possibly chopping up his interview into a hundred "Bars and Warfare" blog features.
Our conversation began with how the celebrated author caught the writing bug I the first place. Tyree explained that he caught on to the passion of writing in his freshmen year ofcollege at the University of Pittsburgh, where he was actually studying to become a pharmacist, with dreams of walking on to the football team. He then realized that other students were interested in what he wrote, which was amazing to him. The young author’s eye for detail would unknowingly become the core of his further career. The University of Pittsburgh conselors even advised him to publish "Diary of a Freshman” in a student news letter, all about the details of college life from the eyes of a student in his first year.
Those early writings laid the foundation for what was to come. But it wasn’t as a pharmacist. I cannot picture Omar Tyree confined behind a desk, counting prescription medication for patients. With his excitable personality and entrepreneurial spirit, I could not create a visual image of the dynamic writer tied down to one occupation. And indeed, people questioned his transition from pharmacy to journalism. As Tyree put it, “There is a scientific method to approaching your writing too.”
When not at speaking engagements or writing new best-sellers, the author says he loves sports and going to movies. He was planning to see the new Captain America film that same weekend as our interview. Tyree also listed Fabulous, Jay-Z and old-school rap artists as his music of choice. He said he loves Jay-Z’s way of reinventing himself professionally and musically. Tyree even released his own rap and spoken wordalbum, Rising Up as The Urban Griot some years back in 2002.Yeah a rap album!!!
I almost asked him to give us a freestyle over the phone, but I didn’t want to put him a famous author on the spot. I mean, it was a dozen years ago. I could only imagine how many new words and poems he had written since then. But he confessed that he would never do another rap album or music projects, with a lot of time and money lost. He called recording music an addictive process that needs the right support of the people behind you who buy your music in order to succeed. But he also stated that he liked the old school of music business where anyone had a chance to gain a loyal audience with pure skills and diversity, where in the new market, the flavor of the monthis all about social media numbers or old school artists, who already control all methods of publicity.
I asked Tyree what he would be doing if he was not an accomplished author. Tyree said that he would have always had a business or some sort. In his college years, he even thought of owning a franchise of barbershops or even a limo transportation business. Tyree called himself a natural-born entrepreneur from the hardcore city of Philadelphia, where he learned to work hard and hustle at an early age. And instead of punching in on someone else’s clock, he started MARS Productions and published his own books at age 23 to start making his own money on his own terms. How that for a pharmacist?
But Mr. Tyree explained a catch-22 on ownership. He said, “You can own a hundred percent of your art, but if it’s not being marketed to give a return on your investment, you are just holding onto to it. So you work out a percentage deal with a company that can push it out in the market and make it mean something. But you never want to give anything away for free, that’s the catch-22 of the business/art situation. Tyree added that getting published has definitely become harder because the marketplace is now overly saturated, where publishing companies are now only willing to push those who will bring the most revenue. And Tyree said that social media is definitely the wave of the future to get notice in a growing market of attention-seekers. He said that many Americans will now go to extreme measures to get attention for anything. “So it’s harder for an author to maintain a large number of followers, including their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.” And he definitely wants to see social media followers embrace authors more for their maturity and intelligence rather than just entertainment and drama issues.
“Bar and Warfare” readers, I was trying to capture everything in our conversation, It really was a (LOL) session too! Y’all know how I feel about education and being entrepreneur. Well, Omar Tyree feels the same way and he spoke about his literacy efforts with the Urban Literacy Project(ULP) which focuses on instructing students, teachers and parents to utilize a clear and repetitious method of strengthening the literacy rates, capabilities, confidence of students from levels K through 12. He said his “5 Key Components of Literacy” are:
1. Reading to process and consume information.
2. Writing as the process of communication.
3. Thinking as the process of focused movement, emotions, desire and intellect.
4. Visualization as the process of understanding the past, present and future through words images and ideas.
5. Application as the process of executing learned knowledge.
I then took an opportunity to talk with Mr. Tyree about his latest book series “The Traveler.” Tyree explained that this particular series was all about wanting readers to do more than just read the story. He wants the readers to feel as if they are IN the story. Tyree said his whole purpose is to involve his readers in the political and cultural issues of his stories. The first fullbook in “The Traveler” series takes place in the Middle East in “Welcome to Dubai” and will definitely take you on a journey. Tyree said that there are plans to for “The Traveler” seriesstories set in Shanghai, Cape Town and Rio de Janiero just to name a few of the next locations.
In conclusion, I asked Mr. Tyree what advice he would give to an aspiring writer. And one thing I can say about my conversation with Mr. Tyree is that he is straight forward andvery honest. He was just an all-out cool dude. So his advice was for writers is simply to WRITE. “Don’t be afraid to write your thoughts down.” He said to execute your thoughts with a certain fearlessness, where there is no longer a thing called “writer’s block” of internal fear. “Too many aspiring writers edit themselves before they write, therefore ‘blocking’ their own creativity. But real writers know that it’s all about bravery. So be brave and write what you really think.”
And yes, we are all still waiting on a movie deal based on some of Omar Tyree’s legendary books, including “Flyy Girl,” “Leslie” and Just Say No!” But Tyree informed me that he and his film partner at Global Renaissance Entertainment are waiting a green light through Lions Gate Films productions and other Hollywood distributors to make it happen very shortly. He said, “It’s just a process that takes patience and the understanding regarding the politics of the film industry.”
So I made it through the full interview and I kept my cool as a huge Omar Tyree fan. And after we were done, I realized that this will definitely go down as one of my most memorable moments I the writing business!!!
** For more information about Urban Literacy Project(ULP) and other Omar Tyree Inc. books and properties go to www.omartyree.com
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