Valtown Entertainment is one of the major independent outlets presenting black culture to a new generation.
In a time where the government is literally banning books and doing its best to rewrite history, it has become more important for content creators to help present and preserve the enormous amount of knowledge around us in the world. Writer Brian Valmond of Valtown Entertainment is just one of the internet’s most prolific creators. Through a combination of balanced writing, historical research, and persistence, he’s developed a major audience on Twitter by promoting some of hip-hop’s biggest icons with his monthly threads.
His biggest contribution, an upcoming documentary on the rise of crack called Rich in the Hood, which is scheduled to release this month on May 28, is the culmination of years of uncertainty and hard work.
Years before he was known to the social media world, Brian was “a regular kid from Far Rockaway Queens.” Born in 1998 to Caribbean parents who raised him to value education, Brian realized at an early age that he had the ability to express himself especially well with the pen. Raised in New Castle County, Delaware, Brian embraced rap music and basketball, originally gravitating to the music of artists like 50 Cent, Nas, and later Meek Mill.
Skilled as a basketball player, he excelled and made Howard High School of Technology’s varsity team as a senior. His conservative religious upbringing prevented him from playing as consistently as he wanted, so once he realized he couldn’t commit the way he wanted, he pivoted from his first love.
Brian’s high school teacher, who kept his papers as writing samples for her classes, encouraged him to go towards writing.
“Reading and writing interested me more than business and finance. My teacher asked me what interested me and I told her outside of basketball, sports movies. She told me about screenwriters and it was like a light switch. I decided I wanted to be a storyteller.”
After high school, Brian began experimenting with screenplays, creating his own projects based on his lived experiences and the ones of his friends. Almost instantly, he ran into the usual hurdles as he attempted to get in touch with various movie studios, who turned him away and insisted he have representation. Brian’s moment came out of the blue when he offered commentary on a Twitter thread in 2017 that focused on the effects of the Reagan era politics.
“I was getting dressed for school and I saw a thread on Reagan talking about the dreamers who came over in the 80s. I could understand both struggles and respected it. I took that tweet and stated that Reagan put crack in the community. From there, I created a thread to capitalize on the numbers. I never looked back, says Brian.
His material which covers known figures and movements from The Supreme Team to Nicky Barnes, Tupac, and the Robert “Yummy” Sandifer story presents information to a mix of both younger and older readers who may be unaware of the impact of hip-hop culture and its more popular figures.
“You’d be surprised how many stories my generation doesn’t know because we take information in differently. It has to be presented a certain type of way”.
Before long Brian’s content began making the rounds, eventually attracting Noah Callahan-Bever, who at the time served as the Executive Vice President of Brand Strategy and Content for Def Jam Recordings. Impressed by what he saw, Bever offered him an internship on the spot, and for four months in 2018, Brian worked for Def Jam.
The moment helped strengthen his faith in his brand and in the five years since has led to his Instagram and Twitter page boasting over one hundred thousand followers. “My Twitter in March was at 34,000 and now it’s at 120,000. My platform is growing. It’s divine timing. I want people to learn from it and also be entertained.”
Like with any successful movement, Brian has faced his share of backlash from people who feel as if his content glorifies the destructive parts of black culture.
“In school, everything stops after they shot King in Memphis. You don’t learn about the Panthers, the crack epidemic, and hip-hop. You don’t learn about anything post-1968 in school. Some people won’t understand it and look at all my content as entertaining, but my content is all about teaching lessons in my own way.”
In spite of the commentary, Brian hopes season one of Rich in the Hood helps to showcase his true goals and bring attention to the rich history all around us.
Wright World 