The Skinny: Hotep on Hustle

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ATLANTA NATIVE, ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER and self-proclaimed independent hip-hop media mogul Hotep, a.k.a. Hustle Simmons, will be showing his debut film, "Independent, Doin' Major Things," at this weekend's Urban Film Series. The film features exclusive, behind-the-scenes interviews with the likes of Ludacris, TI, Big Boi, Young Jeezy, Jill Scott, Lil Scrappy, KRS-1 and many more luminaries of hip-hop and R&B talking about the entrepreneurial spirit of Atlanta, the "Motown of the South."

Hotep will also being signing copies of his book, "The Hustler's 10 Commandments," at a Karibu Books-sponsored signing Friday at 6:30 p.m. at The Mall at Prince George's.

» EXPRESS: How you get into all those private events in the film?
» HOTEP: One of the hustler's 10 commandments is "It's not what you know or who you know, it's who knows you." And because I've made a decent reputation for myself in the city of Atlanta, I'm able to do things that the average person isn't able to do.

» EXPRESS: Was this your first venture into film?
» HOTEP: Yeah. It started as a promotional piece for my music. I make it a habit to think outside of the box and separate myself from the common person. And so while a lot of musicians were going to showcases and continually putting out albums I decided to try through video. As I went around shooting, I kept running into more and more people that like myself embodied the independent spirit and were doing major things in their industry.

So it grew from being about what Hotep was doing to what Atlanta was doing. Then, it moved from the music industry to film, spoken word, fashion and modeling. There's also the whole entrepreneurial business spirit that's really blowing up here in the city of Atlanta. So I dubbed the term "Atlanta Renaissance," and within the next 10, 20 years from now history books will quote this time here in Atlanta as the Atlanta Renaissance.

» EXPRESS: You talk about Atlanta as if the streets are paved with gold.
» HOTEP: It's a great place to make your mark, to network and find other likeminded people. It's a good place to nurture forward-thinking ideas, but you will find that it's a very small city. It's not New York; there's not enough room for everybody to make it big in this city. Once you do well, you have to go to other cities in order to expand.

» EXPRESS: Where are you branching out?
» HOTEP: I started in Atlanta. And last year, I started a regional tour in the Southeastern cities. Now, in 2007, my whole campaign is focused on going national. [Recently] I announced that Skinnymen Productions entered the network-marketing field and has become the first hip-hop-based company to do that officially.

» EXPRESS: Why is the Urban Film Series so significant?
» HOTEP: Being an educator I've learned that people act in accordance to who they think they are, and what determines what people think they are is media, music, film, anything they read, see and hear. And being that the current media is imbalanced and doesn't show the best of us at many times, I decided to get into media — not be a part of it, but create my own media forms that would basically empower. ...

As far as the film festival is concerned, I really think there's a big need for it to balance the scales. And I'm not saying it has to be all positive, because in life you have dark as much as you have light; it's just a matter of balancing the scales.

» EXPRESS: What keeps you grinding?
» HOTEP: Skinnymen started in '97 but it wasn't until I lost my father in 2001 that I really took off. It's like my father passed the baton over to me and I'm Jesse Owens with it now. When people ask me my motivation, I say it's not the money because money doesn't move me. It's more about leaving a legacy, that's what I'm doing right now. When I listened to them read my father's eulogy and say all these great things about him, I sat there and thought to myself, "If that was me, what would people say about me?"...

So now, in 2007, with the book, the film and more books and films to come, I'm going to leave a library for people to erect for me when it's my time to go. …

Mark my words: I'm about to smash the planet.

» The Mall at Prince George's, 3500 East West Highway, Hyattsville, Md.; Fri., 6:30 p.m., free; 301-352-4110. (Prince George's Plaza)

» Urban Film Series, various sites; tickets range from $10-$55; one-day, four-day and all-festival passes available.