BNG MAG® December/January 2015 (Vol.-1/Issue-3 | Page 6

WELCOME: KENDALL JACKSONWRITER BNG MAG’S NEW Kendall Jackson is a 23 year old author who was born in Decatur, Alabama and raised in Riverdale, Georgia which is where he gives credit to his keen sense of hip-hop. “Growing up in Atlanta during the 90’s is equivalent to growing up in New York in the 80’s when it comes to hip-hop culture and ethnic culture in general,” says Kendall. “A lot of folks don’t consider Clayton County as a part of Atlanta but, I mean, a family in my church lived across the street from one of Ludacris’ houses and they lived further south than me.” Kendall says that growing up, he was exposed to all kinds of music which is important because hip-hop, being one of the newest genres, has been influenced by every other genre from rock and roll to reggae. Jackson’s first experience writing was for his middle school newspaper, a monthly column entitled “Sixth Grade Advice”. “In all honesty, I didn’t like writing much back then, they required us to do it too much in school, and I hated school. I had no desire to pursue any type of career in writing,” Jackson admitted, and continued to state, “I did begin to enjoy writing early in high school, but I wasn’t even sure I was good at it until I was an adult. I started ‘editing’ peoples papers (which he admits me