CHICAGO — From drug dealer to successful musician and bar mitzvah host, a recording artist from Chicago's Near West Side said he's taking care to spread only positive, nonviolent messages while serving as a role model for other kids from the hood.
Kareem Wells, whose stage name is K.W.O.E. (Kareem Wells of Excellence), started Flow Entertainment, an interactive entertainment company that offers clients everything from sound and lighting to dancers and MCs. Flow Entertainment is particularly popular among the Jewish community for bar mitzvahs, he said. So popular, in fact, that he travels outside of Chicago and people have to book his services three years in advance.
Wells got involved in the events business about 12 years ago when his brother asked him to dance at a bar mitzvah. He started doing it part time, mainly on the weekends. Then he was asked to MC an event, and Wells said he became so well liked that it was only natural that he started his own entertainment business.
"I had heard from word of mouth that he was the DJ that you had to have, that he was the MC you had to have," said Elliana Bondy, who hired Wells to do her daughter's bat mitzvah in June and her 40th birthday. "He always treats every event as if it’s the only event in his life that he’s doing. He gives it 110 percent."
Bondy, of Highland Park, said she really appreciated the connection he made with each client.
"This is not just a business for him, he wants to get to know families," she said. "He comes to your house before your event to meet the kid, to meet the family, and get an idea of what’s important to them."
Wells also co-owns a bar in New York City and he’s working on his EP, hoping to drop his first album by the spring. He’s also the founder of a nonprofit, the K.W.O.E. Hope Foundation, which aims to help young people get on and stay on the right path.
Wells credits his success to God. Once he changed his life around, doors started opening, he said. But it wasn't an easy process.
Wells grew up in a single-parent home, living in the former Henry Horner Homes, a public housing development. He said he needed to find a way to survive.
At 15, Wells found himself dealing drugs.
“I sold dope,” he said. “I hit the block, and that was my way of trying to get my mother something, myself something. It was more about business. I didn’t realize I was hurting people by selling drugs.
“My boy, he showed me how to do it,” Wells said. “He showed me how to bag up, how to distribute, how to hit the block and really make profit.”
The young drug dealer was making up to $1,000 a week. Eventually the desire to make more led him to drop out of high school. If it weren’t for the very friends who pulled him in, he said he probably wouldn’t have pursued music. At 23, his friends persuaded him to get out while he still could.
“I was told, ‘This is not for you, you got talent, a gift,’” he said.
When he stopped selling, he had a baby on the way and needed money. He became a busboy and waited on tables downtown. During this time, he was working with Ivan Dupee, the owner of Dupee Productions, who turned him to God. Wells worked with the company for 18 years and eventually started working with Level Next Music. He's been with the label for four years.
Today, he is working on getting his GED and plans to pursue a degree in music business. Wells has been writing songs and producing music since grade school. He said his message is always the same: Anti-violence and positivity. He leaves all the bottle-popping, women-chasing and vulgar language to the other artists.
“There is a responsibility to being an artist,” he said, adding that it’s common for artists who promote violence or drugs to deflect criticism by saying it’s a family’s job to raise their children.
“But here’s what they’re missing,” he said. “It’s 2015; ain’t no parents in the house, momma and daddy aren’t there. Times are different now.”
K.W.O.E. said that spreading positive messages isn’t what’s “cool” anymore, but he refuses to promote negative behavior just to gain more fame or fortune.
“People think the word 'positive' is a negative word now, it’s not cool,” he said. “You lame if you’re doing positive things, if you don’t cuss in your lyrics, you’re lame, if you don’t turn up you’re lame. Well I don’t mind being lame. As you can see, being ‘lame’ got me really far in life. It got my bank account looking good.”
He said he hoped that more artists would step up and set a positive example. He also believes that more black men need to reach out to young people.
“By a lot of black men not being there, the ones who aren't there for their kids, it has ruined us,” he said. “We have ruined the next generation, that’s why we’re facing what we’re facing right now.”
Wells says he’s doing his part by going around to different schools and talks to the students.
“I care about the kids knowing that there is a black man who has made it out, who went through some of the same struggles that they’re going through,” he said, adding that he feels it’s important to share his journey.
“I’m telling the truth about myself. It’s important for me to do that, especially when you see the violence. When I see the violence going on out here, that bothers me. I am a bridge between the po'-coast, meaning the hood, to the Gold Coast.”
Listen to K.W.O.E.'s music here.
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