Sanya On-Air
Sanya On-Air hosts intentional conversations with celebrities and influencers unpacking their celebrity pivotal moments while simultaneously sharing tools/resources on how to provide pipelines to access for marginalized communities.
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Sanya On-Air
NY Times Best Selling Author Omar Tyree: Navigating Modern Black Relationships
From the streets of 1980s Philadelphia to the corridors of major publishing houses, Omar Tyree's journey has been defined by audacious pivots and authentic storytelling. The New York Times bestselling author of "Flyy Girl" joins Sanya to explore the experiences that shaped his literary voice and career.
Tyree reveals how growing up as the oldest grandchild in a household full of aunts, uncles, and cousins cultivated his natural storytelling abilities. Though initially pursuing football and pharmacy, his talent for vividly recounting neighborhood experiences eventually led him to writing. "I wasn't reading books. I wasn't on the reading side until college," Tyree explains. "The whole storytelling thing was watching movies and telling stories in the neighborhoods."
With characteristic candor, Tyree discusses the challenges and triumphs of breaking into publishing, from self-publishing his early works to landing a major deal with Simon & Schuster. He shares valuable insights for aspiring authors about research methods, genre flexibility, and maintaining authenticity while building an audience. The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Tyree reveals how his iconic "Flyy Girl" trilogy—newly reimagined with fresh covers—charts the evolution of Black female identity through its protagonist's elevation from street-smart youth to business powerhouse.
Perhaps most compelling is Tyree's thoughtful examination of the growing disconnect between Black men and women in contemporary relationships. Drawing from both personal experience and cultural observation, he offers a nuanced perspective on how changing family dynamics, economic shifts, and communication barriers have altered relationship expectations. "We're going to start those new conversations," Tyree promises about his upcoming book tour, where he plans to address these complex issues head-on.
Whether you're an aspiring writer seeking publishing insights, a longtime fan of Tyree's work, or someone interested in thoughtful discussions about modern relationships, this conversation delivers both practical wisdom and thought-provoking perspectives on navigating life's pivotal moments with courage and authenticity.
What is the purpose? What am I trying to do? People are giving you keys, giving you gems, creating pipelines to access, talking to influential people icons about how they've done it and sharing the tips so that you can enter into that space. One thing that I do know about marginalized communities is that the Pipeline to Access is often limited. Now, if you cleaned up on Saturday mornings and your parents played old school music, then this show is for you. Yes, welcome everyone. You are now tuned into another amazing edition of Sonia on Air. I'm your host, sonia Hudson, and this is an intentional show where we unpack celebrity pivotal moments and their milestones, while providing pipelines to access so that you can have opportunities, just like the celebrities that I interviewed. So do me a quick favor Before we jump into this all-star celebrity interview and I tell you about today's guest, do me a favor Make sure that you subscribe, like, share and leave a comment Once again make sure you subscribe, like, share and leave a comment.
Speaker 1:It's so important, especially for a content creator who is a woman of color, of a particular age. It is so important to have your support. So, for every like, for every subscribe, for every share, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Let me tell you about today's guest. I'm excited. I'm always excited about every single guest.
Speaker 1:Today's guest is a New York Times bestselling author. He is known for let me just say it's two words the name of one of his novels, fly Girl. If you are a fly girl of a particular age, like myself, you know who this author is, none other than Omar Tyree. So we read all of his books throughout the 90s, the early 2000s, but guess what? There's an evolution of Fly Girl and I think that we all need to be reminded of the fabulosity of the era. The 90s was such an era. It was framed in sexuality, fashion, music, toxicity. But we've made it through. We definitely made it through. When you ask anybody about their most favorite era, the 90s is definitely it. The 90s is just a word. The 90s is an adjective. The 90s is an adjective, it describes everything.
Speaker 1:So we're going to be talking to Omar Tyree about the evolution of his best-selling novel, fly Girl, but we're also going to be talking about so many other things. Some of the things that I really want to talk about is the capacity and the courage to pivot. A lot of people get scared, intimidated when they have to make a change, and this is a milestone that every single person will face, young and old. How do you pivot, how do you ignore or bypass the anxiety in order to get to the next step? We're also going to be talking about how did he sign to a major publishing company the first time around, the first time around signing to a major company, major publishing company. So there are so many aspiring authors that are going to be tuning in to this episode, so this is going to be a gem for you. Pipelines to Access. We're also going to be talking about his writing process and some of the challenges that he's faced.
Speaker 1:I don't know if some of you know, but I'm also a published author. I've written a few books. Make sure that you go check it out. It's all under Sonia Hudson. The name of my first book was called the Seasons of Love and the second book is called A Love I Can Trust, and I'm also a contributing writer to many magazine articles, other novels, so I'm an author too. So it is going to be a pure joy chatting it up with Omar Tariq.
Speaker 1:We're also going to be dispelling some myths, some things that just aren't true. So, if you are an aspiring author, or if you really respect the genre of writing and the career of being an author, you want to know what's fact, what's fiction, so that you can take your career to the next level. And then we're really going to be talking about the evolution of Flagler. You're going to be so happy that this book has been reimagined Same story, all new look, but we're going to be talking about it all. So just make sure that you stay tuned to the duration of this Sanya On Air all-star celebrity interview and do me a favor once again make sure you subscribe, like, share and leave a comment, okay? Also, if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you hit the notification bell. That way, every time I upload an all new Sonya on Air celebrity interview, you'll be the first ones to know.
Speaker 1:So, before I bring in Omar Tyree, I'm just gonna go for a quick commercial break for our show's sponsor. And make sure you support this sponsor as well, because she is a Black-owned business and once again in this space where so many things are being dismantled because of the color of the skin, it is super, super important that we keep brands of excellence alive and well and thriving. So lean into this commercial break. Afterwards, make sure that you go to the website, throw it in the bag, shop purchase, keep Black business in business. I'll be right back with Omar Tarbi. Stay tuned.
Speaker 1:Eating T-shirts and more LLC is a proud Sony On Air sponsor. Get your customized tumblers, mugs, t-shirts, hoodies and passport holders for all of my fabulous Sonya On Air international travelers. But let's talk about these passport holders for a moment. Travel in style with a custom passport holder. This elegant holder not only protects your passport but also personalizes it with space for up to four photos. So make sure you shop Edith's t-shirts and more LLC today. Now back to Sonia on air. I have so many things that I want to discuss and unpack with you Now. The purpose of this show is I unpack pivotal milestones and provide pipelines to access. So the first thing that I want to talk about is the capacity and the audacity to pivot Now. Early on in your career, you thought that you would become a pharmacist, but then it quickly pivoted to becoming an author. What made you pivot careers?
Speaker 2:I actually wanted to play football. You know you had. You didn't have no major called football, but when I went to the University of Pittsburgh my all intentions was to walk on a football team. I was already on a track team and that year the NFL had a strike 1987. And so all the players you know was on strike, and then they started filling out teams with scab players guys that they was grabbing off the street, you know, guys on the practice squad and so we had like three college guys from Pitt that left school early to join these scab teams for the NFL and then our dad, going coach, became like the most vocal coach and everybody wants to go pro.
Speaker 2:That's what your whole dreams is, you know. So when that whole thing went down, you know I kind of got turned off from college sports because I understood how they was using and abusing you know the athletes and you may not get everything you want to get out of it, but they get what they want to get out of it as the college. So you know, you know that pivot thing. You know I wanted to play football but you have to declare a major and my mother was a pharmacist, so I declared. You know what I was used to seeing my mother with pharmacy and I was good in math and science, so that's how that ended up happening with that pivot.
Speaker 1:I understand Similar to now. You want to become a football player. My aspirations was to become a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.
Speaker 2:Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was just something captivating about those cheerleaders. I just loved it. You can tell me that I wasn't going to be a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader. So what I'm hearing is you leaned in, you wanted to figure out what was going on in the career of football and realized that that wasn't for you because they were kind of using their players and you realized that you didn't want to be used. So you said this isn't the career for me. Was it kind of difficult to pivot? Because a lot of people are scared to pivot. Was it difficult for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean you know football is a dream, you know what I mean. Like you're in school where you can study stuff. That's not dreams, you know what I mean. But getting on a football team and getting a chance to really play and shine to the point where you can get to the NFL, that's still a dream was there. But you know, getting to the next level, but in classrooms I had good grades in classrooms. I knew what I was doing. So you know it's not a dream there. So the pivot is easy. It's like I already know how to do math and science. I know that getting on a football team and getting on the field and getting big plays I can't control that, but I can control what I'm doing in class. So it wasn't something scary at all. It's something I already did. You know when you try to be an athlete, you know that's extra, but you're already in school studying stuff. So I just finished what I was already there studying.
Speaker 2:But the whole writing thing, you know we had writing assignments and stuff and writing courses and so once I really understood that I was a standout in that as storytelling, which I was doing verbally at first, and then you start doing written when they ask you to write it down, you know. So once I understood how you know good of a storyteller I was, and other you know kids would get me to help them with their english homework and stuff I said, hey man, this is something serious here, let me, let me keep rocking and rolling with it. So I pivoted to pharmacy, but then the pivot went to writing, because that was a new passion that I found out I could do. Now I could already do it verbally, but writing it down. That's when it went to the next level.
Speaker 1:Got it, got it. Now. You also mentioned a couple of gems. Your mom was a pharmacist, and oftentimes people and experiences kind of shape the evolution from a child to a young adult or an adult. Who are some of the people who influenced you? Now, before you answer that, I just want to kind of give some of my influences and it just so happens that they're authors as well. For example, terry McMillan she helped me realize how to navigate sisterhood and relationships. Elin Harris he was the first author that really explored the down low life. And then also you, mr Omar Tyree. As a young girl growing up in Brooklyn, new York, it was the first time that I saw myself and my friends captured in a book called Fly Girl. That was the first time that I, as a young girl growing up in the project, saw myself in a book. So I just shared who some of my literary influences are, who influenced you and they don't have to be authors, but who are some of the people who influenced you.
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I didn't have any influences on the writing level. I wasn't reading books. I was out there in the streets with guys in Philadelphia, you know what I mean? It was the 1980s. We'd go on to parties, we'd break dancing hip hop. We'd go to the mall, we'd go to the movies. I played football. So I played football my whole life until the college years. So I'm, you know, I'm practicing playing football. I wasn't reading books. I wasn't, you know, on the reading side until college, you know.
Speaker 2:So with me, the whole storytelling thing was watching movies and telling stories, you know, in the neighborhoods, you know. So I didn't have an influence as a writer. I was the writer. I was doing it verbally instead of written, and so I was the one that was always talking about what happened at the party, what happened at the fight, what happened when we went downtown, what the girl looked like, what the party flowed like, who was wearing what, who threw the first punch in the fight. So I was always the verbal dude like no, this ain't how it went. Dude threw a punch over here and this dude. So I was always ain't how it went. Dude threw a punch over here and this dude. So I was already in the middle of the circle as far as and if you got something wrong, I would correct you. No, that's not how it went. This is how it went, and so I was never influenced by a writer.
Speaker 2:My writing came straight from me, looking at what was going on and being very descriptive, you know. So when I started reading other people's work, stealing stuff later on, then it would be, you know, uh, walter mosley with his mystery books and how he described things. Terry mcmillan and how she, you know, had chapter titles for every chapter. She had a title for the chapter, and then her stuff was contemporary, and then the poetic, you know, afrocentric, flow of tony morrison. There was a whole lot of people once I started writing, but I didn't have any influence to start writing. It was me. That was a whole lot of people once I started writing, but I didn't have any influence to start writing. It was me that was a storyteller already. I wasn't reading books.
Speaker 2:You know, I tell people all the time. I've always been smart, but I've never been a nerd, never. You know what I mean. I was always an athlete. I was always outside in the neighborhood I grew up in. Everybody had to fight in the bottom of West Philly, that's all. Us were fighters, so I didn't have a chance to be a nerd, but I was still smart.
Speaker 2:So I was an aggressively smart, which, when you're aggressively smart, they call you something different, you know, and they don't call you a nerd. Typically, they call you arrogant because you protect your intelligence, you protect it and you dominate with it, and they don't like that. They want to take it away from you. So I was, you know. Well, he think he knows something. He think he because I was very confident in my confidence and you know my skill base. But yeah, I wasn't really influenced by other writers. I was influenced by the surroundings. You know everything that was going on this girl, this car, this fight, this party, me watching everything and then knowing how to verbalize it. That was it. So I really wasn't influenced by other writers.
Speaker 1:I get it. You know similar stories. You know I'm very well aware of Philadelphia. I actually visit there about twice a month. I have a lot of family that live there. But also smart in school, growing up in the projects that wasn't celebrated in school, growing up in the projects that wasn't celebrated Also coined, arrogant and protecting my smartness by not allowing that to deter me from going after what I knew was destined for me. But Omar, that had to come from somewhere. So, although no one kind of shaped your literary side, who helped shape the man Omar Tari? Was it family? Was it friends? I know that you mentioned your community and your environment, but were there people who helped shape you as an individual?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I grew up in the baby boom era. I wasn't part of the baby boom era, but my mother was the oldest of eight and my father was the oldest of four. So what happens is I end up being the oldest grandchild. I'm right in the middle of aunts and uncles that not that older than me. I had an uncle that was two years older than me, so I grew up with uncles, aunts and cousins. They were from the baby boom era. I wasn't, but if you growing up with them, you're going to act just like they do. So I'm old school through the core man, loyal to the core, and then you had uncles and older cousins that were part of that manhood.
Speaker 2:So it was very physical. You know, the first words I knew was for manhood was take it like a man playing football. They didn't want you crying and whining and whimpering. You know because then, grandma, what's y'all doing down in the basement? Because you take you tackling you trying to get to the wall and tag the wall with the football and they tackling you on hard cement in the basements in Philly. And then, whenever you got hurt, take it like a man. Take it like a man because they didn't want you crying and whining and then grandmoms stopping what we were doing. And so that was the first thing a man heard from me toughness, you know. So I've never had a broken body, broken bone, whatnot the toughness.
Speaker 2:And then you, you get older, and then there's responsibility. You have football coaches. We have football coaches that were black police officers. We had this league called powell police athletic league and so, yeah, guys, yeah, these guys were black, you know, uh, police officers. So they had that tough love approach. Look here, now I want to lock you up. I see you doing something you keep, you know.
Speaker 2:So, of course, you really do understood, like, and then when you got in the household, I had a stepfather, six foot four, 230 pounds, so I'm still not that big. Yeah, now you put on some weight. He might be 250, 64, but he's older now, you know. But with that you grew up and his whole thing was, you know, you got new laws, new rules and new regulations. You ain't gonna be running around in the street wild and all that.
Speaker 2:And so responsibility of manhood, you know, with them type of men being around you, it's all hardcore responsibility, doing what you need to do, no excuses, no feelings, and that's another thing you know when you start talking about men versus women, the the feelings component. They took that out as young men. We don't hear about no feelings. You got to go to work, you got to take care of your family, you got to be tough. Nobody want to hear nothing about no feelings, how you feel about this, how you feel so with men, we ain't got time for that. You got to go do your work, do what you need to do, and so that's why I was. I was influenced by uncles, cousins, football coaches, my stepfather, you know, and that was a time the 1970s, 1980s very masculine Philadelphia, very masculine.
Speaker 1:You know we have such similar stories and you know you shared about how black men aren't encouraged to show emotion, to be vulnerable. But, as you were talking, I'm just like you know, as a Black woman. It's the same story on this side as well, especially, like I said, growing up in the projects, we had to be strong. Boy or girl, you had to be strong and if you weren't, you would get eaten up by the streets. And this is why I'm always encouraging people who, when you become an adult and they see your strength, they see your fortitude and they translate it into arrogance and I'm just like if they only knew my story and not my glory, they would understand those people and the environment that shaped me. And this is why I'm so audacious now. So I totally get it, why I'm so audacious now. Yeah, so I totally get it. But very similar stories. I also ran track through PAL, so I have, you know, once again, very, very similar, yeah it becomes a defense mechanism.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. You want to protect from people trying to crush your dreams every day. You know what I mean. So you start saying, look, I ain't listening to you, I don't know what you're talking about. And then they look at that like was something wrong with her? She just want to ignore people. She hard-headed, you know, because you're supposed to listen to them and just be a regular person. Nine to five no dreams, though, when you listen to them. But when you don't listen to them, oh, you think you know somebody, you think you're bigger than somebody, you think so we get beat up either way, man. So you know yeah, I went through that too when you think you can do something in the hood and everybody else is doubting you.
Speaker 2:But you know my aunts and uncles. They were optimistic too. They did some great things. So we had that kind of family that we're going to do it anyway, no matter what y'all think. And I was the youngest in the household. You know we had like 15 to 20 people in the house, because my grandmother was like the favorite aunt of all the cousins, and so every time they got kicked out the house or something crazy androdean, I'm coming to stay with y'all for a minute, you know, and then my mother was the oldest, so you know I couldn't come home and go to an apartment, whatnot. So I'm at grandmom's every single day and my mom just picked me up after work, so I'm with grandmom and them, with all the cousins and aunts and uncles and all that stuff, you know. Then I got my own room at night so I was spoiled, rough and spoiled at the same time. So it's, it's crazy, because I had my mom, had money, but I'm still growing up in poverty. So I'm spoiled, but I'm still in poverty.
Speaker 2:So I still got the feeling of poverty, but I can do whatever I want to do. So now it's awkward because I'm this aggressive, rough inner city intellectual dude who's spoiled, who's still optimistic, and so it catches you off guard Like well, if you from the hood, you're supposed to be thinking like this, not like this. How did you end up thinking like this? So it's just a weird thing. When I really look back at you know my whole life trajectory just really different. You know, even back with me being a hyper intelligent dude but never being a nerd. You know what I mean, like I've never been that. You know, and so it's always been like he a cool, smart dude.
Speaker 2:They try to put the term street smart in front of it. Right, we can't just be smart. You got to be smart, we, we got to put that in front of it to make it black and cool yeah, but we only do that in our community, which is so sad.
Speaker 1:We always try to minimize excellence, black excellence. You know it just can't be. You're smart, like you said. You know it has to be your nerve smart. No, why can't we just smart? So I'm very proud to hear your story of where you came from and, you know, managed to go to Howard, another institution of excellence, something that they're trying to minimize.
Speaker 2:They didn't think I could get in there either. You can't go to Howard, man, that's the number one HBCU. And then I got in there and graduated with honors. And the only reason I didn't have a magna because my first semester I wasn't planning on staying, I just wanted to check out the atmosphere. And then my grandmother got to me and she was like well, you know, you know oldest grandson, and don't worry about it. Go to Cuba, do what you want to do. Everybody's watching you. You're the first one. You set an example. But go do what you want to do. If you want to drop out, go drop out. So she did the reverse psychology on me. You know like, oh, you're the oldest, everybody watching you. But you go, do what you want to do, don't worry about us. You know. I was like all right, grandma, I'm going to finish for y'all. And I've never had my Howard degree. I finished it. I gave it to my mother from sarcoidosis in 96 and then my grandmother got it. So it's been on my grandmother's wall ever since the 90s.
Speaker 2:You know my Howard University degree, because it was more important for them. I knew what I was going to do regardless, because I was already a scholar. I was going to learn what I needed to learn. But that degree from Howard I gave it to my mom and my grandmom and they're real proud of that. And then my younger brother, sure enough, went to the graduation and he said I want to come here. He's looking at the girls and stuff, you know. And he went ahead and went to howard and graduated from howard because he saw his older brother and that's exactly what my parents told me. I said look at this, look at this. I didn't ask, I didn't ask to be the first one, I didn't ask to be born first, but I got to deal with it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you know you gotta got to get part of manhood. Again my mother was like you're the oldest, you got to. It wasn't no getting away from it. I was back and forth arguing with her. Then my grandmother got me you're my oldest grandson. So I was like, ah, I got to do it. You know what I mean. So again, I had to take my emotions out of it. All right.
Speaker 1:I'm going to finish for y'all, and I did it. That was making me think about a lot, just about the responsibility to continue the narrative and the journey of excellence. And oftentimes excellence isn't just for us. Sometimes it's about paying it forward and making sure that we're providing the same pipeline to access to someone else. But with that responsibility comes a lot of pressure. Did you feel pressure to stay in college because your mother was encouraging you to access to someone else? But with that responsibility comes a lot of pressure. Did you feel pressure to stay in college because your mother was encouraging you and your grandmother was encouraging you? Did you feel pressure?
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to say, pressure on somebody else forced you to do something you didn't want, but I didn't have pressure in finishing, it was easy to me. So the pressure for me was this is not what I want to do and that's what they want me to do, you know. But then I had to take it off and say, all right, that's my family, they're right, I am the oldest, so all right, let me just do that. So I said, all right, I'm gonna finish these last one year. It was only one year left. Right, I said, let me finish this one year for you guys. And I did it, you know.
Speaker 2:So now, when you go through that, now, if I got kids, of course I gotta do the same thing. Hey, I finished, you gonna finish, you know. So, both my sons finished as well. But yeah, I had to go ahead. And but that's what I was saying earlier, when you got to do what you got to do, you got to do what you got. Ain't no emotions involved? And I think, like today's generation, there's too many emotions involved when they get to back out. Where we didn't get to back out, we didn't get to back out. You, coming out of Brooklyn, you know what you got to deal with. You don't get to back out these kids now. It's like they got too many options. All right, I'm going to do this instead. I'm going to do this instead I'm going to do we didn't have them out. You don't have no option Finish this or Go live out in the streets. You know. So that that's what it was. We had to grow up that way and it's yeah, I'm glad.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that you segwayed into that about this new generation and how things are different. Aside from doing radio and podcasting, I'm also an educator. I started off as a classroom teacher and now I'm a high school administrator. I've been in education for over 25 years and it is a daily struggle just encouraging kids or reminding kids or convincing kids that sometimes you just got to push through.
Speaker 1:There's so much privilege and there's so much entitlement in this generation and this is why people like us we have to keep these conversations going to remind them that sometimes you just really don't have a choice and sometimes you just have to keep one foot in front of the other. So I'm glad that you mentioned that, because that was definitely a gem and a tool that a lot of this generation of young minds need to hear. But another milestone and pivotal moment that you were able to be successful in was signing to a major publishing company Simon Schuster your first time around as an author. How did that happen? Because that's not an easy feat. How were you able to sign with Simon Schuster your first time around?
Speaker 2:I was already selling books, so just like the kids are doing now. You know big fish, swallow little fish, but you got to be in the water already, so I already had three books out.
Speaker 2:My first book called it on white campus. I wrote when I was at Pittsburgh, 19 years old. Then I wrote Fly Girl, between 19 and 20, because I started it in March, my birthday's in April, so I started it at 19 and I finished, like I guess, at the end of April. So I was 20 because I turned 20 in April. So I was 19 to 20. It was only took like two months to finish, but it started in March, finished in April after I turned 20. And then, uh, and when DC they called it a murder capital. When I was there it was really vicious with drug selling in the early 90s. You know, after rachel edmunds he was like the king of legal farm illegal pharmaceuticals. He went to jail when I first got there at 89 and all the underlings in dc wanted to take over. So they called it the murder capital for 90, 91, 92 with so many deaths. If you was in a drug trade they were not playing in dc. Do not sell on my corner.
Speaker 2:I will kill you and I'm almost wasn't playing. But if you wasn't selling drugs you ain't going to worry about dc. But I wrote that book too, because it's called um capital city the chronicles of the dc underworld. So that was my first three books. College boy, where it's colored on white campus with all the blacks going to predominantly white schools, like I was at pittsburgh, we were like five percent of the population. Then I went to the hbcu. You know I had the howard thing with the fly girl thing. I wrote, you know, about the 1980s hip-hop era and then it was the gangster era, the drug dealing era of the night. So all those books were already out.
Speaker 2:And then I did a lot of expo events, just like I got a table right in front of me right now where I got all my books on the table and stuff. So I can see, you guys can see that. Yeah, so I used to have tables like that where you would do expo events in new york and philly and dc, baltimore, atlanta, cleveland, detroit, and then you just rent a table for 200 at these expo events and then sell your books from the table. Yeah, I would sell like I would make like eighteen hundred dollars in a weekend. You know, the man didn't, you know, sell you. So I kept doing that, that. I was selling books out of stores and I was distributing out of stores New York, philadelphia, virginia, you know.
Speaker 2:So the publishers were learning about like who's this Omar guy with this fly girl book? And then I hooked up with the super agent, denise Stinson, and she was out of Michigan and Denise was a big-time sister with getting publishing deals. I met her through a sister named Vanessa Lloyd, somebody out of Philadelphia who does a lot of PR events with books, and so it was just like one meeting one person meeting the other person, me and then they did the name will start bubbling, who's Omar Tyree with this fly girl book. And that's how it ended up leading to Simon Schuster. And they had a sister there named Dawn Daniels, who was like one of the few black editors at a major house. And I immediately was like all right, I wanna sign with the black editor, I wanna sign with the black. So I'm telling Denise Stinson like hey, let's sign with the black woman.
Speaker 2:And she went in there and got the money immediately and then she was like Omar, the money came too fast, I'm going to ask for more money. And I was like hey, don't mess it up, don't mess it up, don't mess it up. And she's like no. She said no, I know how this game works. And she went out there and got me double of what I asked for. And I was like wow, and that was with the, you know, simon and Schorster, dawn Daniels, the black editor, editor, and then we went from there.
Speaker 2:I was already a hustler, already knew how to sell, already you know, a media person, and so I knew how to do interviews and a whole nine, and so I jumped right on them. But that's how it happened. I was already in the game, already professional, I was just young and doing it. And you know how it is now when they grab you young I was 25 years old they grab you young, they they jumping up and down, they like we got it, we got it. And then I just went ahead and did my thing once I got in the door.
Speaker 1:Wow. But you know you mentioned once again some other gyms you were doing the work already. Nothing was just handed to you. You weren't actively doing the work, you were going out there. You know you were participating in the evolution of your success. Nothing was just handed to you. You were able to connect and meet with people who were in the field to make sure that they took your career from point A to point Z. What I really want to understand, because, as you were showing us the books that line your table right now, omar, do you even understand the magnitude of the impact that you've made on people's lives like me?
Speaker 2:Do you understand that I don't, because you're still living, you know. So when I wrote my book Just Say no, which became my most that's my favorite book, this big, thick, 500 page. You know the character in it, john Loverboy Williams. He told his friend, he said to be a legend. You got to die while you're in the character in it, john lover boy williams. He told his friend, he said to be a legend, you gotta die while you're in the middle of it.
Speaker 2:This is his philosophy, because I'm writing and he was like if you don't die in the middle of it, they'll get used to you, you get worn down and you just become the old man. You know, he puts you aside, you know. And so in his philosophy he wanted to die at the king of his father. You know, like like two foxy, core and biggie, because now they can never talk about the negative parts of you. You got all positive stuff.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, so when you still alive and whatnot, you're still trying to do things so you can ride up and down with your popularity and what you're doing, you say the wrong things, you do the wrong things. Nanny don't like you, so yeah, when you got to live through it, it's different, you know. So, yeah, when you gotta live through it, it's different. You know what I mean, cause you still in your bus, so it's still things I wanna do. I still wanna do movies. I haven't been able to do that.
Speaker 2:And so now, the things you've been successful at, the things you haven't been successful at, you thinking about those things now, and so you don't really get want to do, you still got motivation, you still got, you know success, successes and failures, and so, yeah, I'm just you don't feel it because you're still here, I'm still alive, I'm still energized, still trying to do stuff. So, yeah, it's a funny feeling because you know that you done, said that stuff, but you're still thinking I want y'all to see this in a movie now. I want y'all to see my other idea, I want y'all to see my international idea. So I'm still working hard, trying to get new things done I get that, omar, but I beg to differ.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't want us to to wait until we're dead, and you know, um, we're carried by six and there's a whole lot of slow singing and flower bringing. Shout out to biggie, I want us to get our flowers while we're still here to smell them. Um, yesterday I was listening to a church sermon and it said that you have to have the courage to be disliked and, and while we're alive, we just have to feel these emotions of being liked and being disliked and to understanding that we've done some great work. Recently, I created this amazing partnership with NYU Hospital for a New York City high school, just providing a pipeline to college admission and to those students who are interested in becoming doctors.
Speaker 1:And someone stopped me and they said do you understand what you've done just now? And I was like no. And when they spoke to me, I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize it because I was just going through the motions of okay, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. So I was going to encourage you, omar. Stop sometimes and give yourself credit, because there are people like me. I'm not waiting until you die or you transition. I want to give you your flowers now. So in this moment, I want to let you know that, as a young girl growing up in Brooklynoklyn, I read all of your books and I was captivated by them and they shape, helped shape the woman that I am today, and for that I thank you while you're still alive and able to hear it. So I want you to receive that thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:You know, I was in an event in um, virginia. Yeah, I got allergy season, so it's killing me, man Theraglomology, where your nose keep running for no reason. You don't have a cold and it's theraglomology, but anyway. So I was in Virginia and the sister was saying that I had a style of writing and I was like, nah, my books are always changing because I got different subjects. She said, yeah, but your women are always strong women. And then I had to stop and I was like, yeah, you're right, because my mother again my mother was the oldest of eight and she was the official boss of the household.
Speaker 2:It was crazy because, again, I'm a storyteller, I knew who my mother was talking to without being in a room, based on how she was talking. So if she had this highfalutin voice, oh, how are you? Oh, I'm going to be there, that's okay, she's talking to some white people at work, because she would do this highfalutin, oh, how are you? And whenever I said it, oh, sound like a white woman on the phone. Oh boy, stop that, don't do that, don't do that. And then she'd get on her. And then I told her and then she's going to try to do this. So she sounded like the girlfriend talked to him and then I knew when she was talking to family members because she went into that boss mode. Well, who's she talking to? Well, have her call me. Well, I'll call her up and tell her, because she went to. So I knew who my mom was talking to based on how she spoke on the phone.
Speaker 2:So I always the phone so I always understood, you know, the elements of, of, of hierarchy, and yeah, I mean individuals in in power position and I was in that same position. I was born into it. I'm the biggest cousin, so I got all these younger cousins and they all looking at me like you and you hanging out with the uncles and the aunt and the aunts. So I'm like my youngest next cousin was like five years younger than me. You know like a kid when you're you is old and he's three.
Speaker 2:You're like man, you can't go to the playground, so it's like I already had. You know what I mean? That that hierarchy and stature my whole life is nothing I can do about it. I was born into that position and so I tell people all the time is look, dude, I'm not a follower. I don't know how to follow. Even when I was meeting people when I'm throwing up, I was very used to being around older people because I grew up with them. So now when I get around the distributors and they're 40 something, I'm 20 something, they're like man, you seem like you were old to do like yeah, because I grew up, I'm telling you like I grew up with older aunts and uncles, so I don't feel that you know like oh, you're too older than me.
Speaker 2:No, I'm like hey, man, let's do business. They were like man, you act like you're our age the business.
Speaker 2:For me it was easy and natural, central. I was a hard worker already. I was a kid that grandma would send to the store and I come there quick and get me a quarter for it. I was quick. Well, like grandma, like, send the grandson, he's gonna get there the fast game. I had no messing around, none of that. I was not playful at all. I was a very serious kid because of how I was raised and and the level I was raised in. Being the oldest, I'm the chief of the family. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm in that position. So I had to, you know, take that mantle and run with it. It wasn't nowhere nothing else I could do.
Speaker 2:They kept saying that you're the oldest, you're the oldest, you don't have to be the oldest right, that's so when you get to be older and people like, well, I can't try to, I'm trying to figure out omar, you got it. When I tell him this history like, oh, now I get it, like he was in that position, you didn't know me. But when you're getting them, people like, well, who's Omar? Think he is dude. I'm the chief of my family. I'm sorry if if I need to apologize to you for my authority, but I've always been in this position and there's nothing getting around it. I'm the dude. So you know, when everybody I'm still here, they're gonna all say call uncle Omar, call cousin Omar, call you know that's what it is. So you have to accept that responsibility. It's like the lion king. I'm the next man up and you got to go ahead and get your wars ready, get your you know your muscles ready and do what you got to do. So I I didn't have a choice, I didn't have it.
Speaker 1:I did not have a choice. I love that. I love that quote. Now let's talk about some things that are fact or fiction, right? So is it fact or fiction that an author can only write about the experiences that they've gone through, right? Is that fact or fiction that they can only write about experiences that they've gone through, or can they write about experiences that other people have gone through? Is that fact or fiction?
Speaker 2:yeah, I tell people all the time, if you can only write what you know you got about three books in you before you start being redundant you gotta, you gotta write what you research and that's why my degree in journalism becomes you, you know, huge, because I can always research things all day long. You know, now I wrote a football book about the Eagles and Green Bay in Brazil. They went to Brazil in September last year and I didn't get a chance to go to that game, but I got online and did all the research I needed to do on Brazil, sao Paulo, and I already know Philadelphiailadelphia. I went online and did research on green bay, so I pieced that story together, you know. Then I had to get the portuguese translation and I did all that without even going to brazil. And that joint is on point because, again, you're doing your research, you're reading, listening, and I'm from philadelphia, so I know what the philadelphians are like and what we do with the games and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I've done a whole lot of books California I'm not from there did a book on California. St Louis I'm not from there did a book on St Louis. Brooklyn I've been up there plenty of times in New York did a New York book the Caribbean islands. I've been down there, wrote books about it. Yeah, I've been over to London. I want to write books about Africa, the Middle East, shanghai. I wrote a book about Dubai, welcome to Dubai and my Traveler series. So, yeah, I got 30 plus books because I know how to research and write about things that I may not know but I'm interested in.
Speaker 2:And I went to a forum from Octavia Butler, the famous sci-fi and fantasy writer who passed away, octavia Butler. She said the same thing years ago. This is 1996. She said you write what you're interested in and what you're passionate about, because you can have stuff you know and be bored with it. And you're going to write a boring book because you're bored with it. And that's the same way I would be if you asked me to write a fly girl 2025. I'm like dude, I was passionate when I was young, when I was 19, but at this age, age, nah, I'm not thinking about that right now. I'm thinking about other stuff that I'm passionate about. So when you write it, when you're passionate, it comes out a lot different from just trying to write something because you want to make money or somebody told you to write it, or you got a two book deal and a contract and you got to finish the second book. I always wrote from passion and so my books are always on point, but research allows you to write anything.
Speaker 2:I'm not from DC, but I live down there. I did the research on what areas were the roughest areas, how they talk, what they did, what they did. I always was doing research on people's slang. New York, of course, has the most slang of anybody, but every city has their own slang. So you can't have people talking in DC the way they speak in New York, because they speak differently With the Geordie and the Joe and the Let Me Find Out and Curry and all that. Everybody got their own language. So that's the first thing you got to learn Like, hey, man, they speak different in Chicago, they speak different in LA, they speak different in Houston, they speak different in Detroit with the R100. So you got to be very cognizant. When you're doing research, your ears always have to be open. How do they speak in Brooklyn? How do they speak in Harlem? How do they speak in the Bronx?
Speaker 1:You guys got four different fathers in the world where they're different in each one, so you got to understand that as a storyteller.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you always got to have your thinking button on when you're writing stories. But yeah, people say that you write what you know. That's why we don't get a lot of credit for how much we know. As writers, we know a lot because we're always researching stuff that we're interested in. I read for interest, I read for information, not for enjoyment. You gotta like, oh, I'm just enjoying, I enjoy information. That's why I have to tell people that all the time I enjoy knowing stuff. I don't like saying I don't know, I don't like that. I remember when, uh, chris rock had that, that famous one when he was talking about black people love saying I don't know, I don't know, I don't know and dude, I was like dude, I would make up something before I said I don't like saying that because you feel idiotic like I should know this.
Speaker 2:How come I don't? In fact, when we was coming up in philly, we used to have this thing and you don't know. You better ask somebody you better find out you know, we used to say that you better find out, you better ask somebody. We we made into a smart though. You don't know, you better ask them, you better find out, you know, so yeah. So I didn't like that whole I don't know thing. I want to find the answers and that's what they're talking about.
Speaker 2:You, if you want to write more books, you got to find the answers the solutions to the problems, to the issues, and then write about it, and that's why I got 30 books. I went away from it for a while because I wanted to do movies. I wanted to still tell stories. Movies are hard to get the money, but now I'm back in the book game. I got new books coming next year and I got new books I'm already starting on and actually I want to be an editor and edit other people's books. So I'm going to be negotiating, you know, an end point deal, one of the majors.
Speaker 2:I started talking to Simon and Shorster. I might end up talking to Random House and Hackett, because now I know so much about books and how to do it. I want to be able to pass that down to the other kids and publish the books that I believe in, because now social media is really taking over, where now you got to be popular before you can do anything, and that's awkward because you can have a whole lot of intelligent people who are not social media. You know mavericks or on, you know, look at me, look at me. This is the most vain community we've ever had. Man, like everything is, look at me, look at me, look at me and I'm like yo, dude, dude, what you got? A genius writer who ain't think about looking at them.
Speaker 2:They just think of that book and they don't have a social media following and they're not popular. I want to be able to push them out there and make the book popular. A lot of companies don't want to do that now.
Speaker 1:They want to buy a ready-made person yeah hard now, man, it's really yeah, it is, and I'm glad that you mentioned that you that today's space is measured upon the likes on social media and you could be the most popular person, the most intellectual person, and get overlooked because the likes don't equate to what they you know. So I want that for you, Omar. I want you to transition into that space so that you can further drive in the narrative that this algorithm isn't working and so many people are going to get lost if we stick to this current algorithm. It just isn't working. But another question when it comes to fact or fiction for an emerging author, does a successful author have to just stick to one genre of writing? Is that?
Speaker 2:fact or fiction. That's another one. Again, I've done all the different genres too. I got children's books, I got mystery. I got the urban fiction, I got the romance fiction, I got the thrillers, I got the science fiction. Yeah, I got horror. I did a vampire story, a werewolf story. I know how to write those. So, yeah, if you know how to go into it, you got to read other people's work. But again, I I watch movies all the time. So a lot of the stuff it comes from other stuff where I'm really checking it out. So that's the same thing. If you stuck in a genre you can't write other genres, then you got to stay there because that's what you know. But if you know how to bounce around and do other things. So I wrote the autobiography of mary and barry. You know, I've helped other people to write their books because I understand the facts and I understand the fiction and I understand how to mix them both together and I understand different genres.
Speaker 2:I love science fiction is my favorite movies. When you start talking about aliens and star wars and really all the marvel comics is science fiction. They call it hero stuff, but if you think about the heroes it's all dealing with science, x-men and mutants, and you know what I mean Special biogenic, you know issues and all and science, space and all. It's science fiction. But they call it superheroes because they got superpowers. But yeah, that's my favorite film stuff science fiction. So I can write that too.
Speaker 2:But then when you start writing for black people, they have to now be the audience. Are you going to read science fiction? Right? Actually, even when I wrote the traveler series, we grew up on James Bond. Right, it's Bond, the name is Bond, james Bond. So we grew up and he would always travel to these exotic locations right all over the. And I'm sitting there watching like, damn, he's in Brazil, now he's in Australia, now he's in Japan, now he's in London, now he's in brazil. Man, he's in australia, now he's in japan, now he's in london, now he's in the caribbean, and so you love that. So I wanted to create a series called the traveler, and then black people immediately was like, well, I don't get to travel like that. I probably wouldn't read that. So I'm like man.
Speaker 2:So now you're restricting what I can write because I had to have an audience for it. So now I can't write that because you're not going. So I went ahead and changed the character to a white character, wrote the book. People that read it loved it. I had a female, black female, to be his, like, his supervisor. You know what I mean. But if we're not going to read it, I had Will Smith in the lead. Then I had to change Will Smith to a white guy because we and so, yeah, it can discourage us from being able to write if we don't think that we write in certain genres and whatnot.
Speaker 2:Even Octavia Butler she didn't want to use her photo because she didn't want people to see that she was black when she was writing science fiction. Yeah, she said this in 96 when I went to the. It was the Atlanta Art Festival. They had the book festival there every summer in Atlanta and I was there in 96. And, yeah, octavia Butler, big time, she got a book called wild seed.
Speaker 2:That's science fiction, fantasy. That's my favorite book of all time, mixing african history and african mythology with with science, with sci-fi and stuff. So, yeah, I mean the research is important to be able to move around in different genres, but you have to have an audience that's willing to move with you, and the audience can hold you back if they only want you to write street books and you want to write something else. If they only want you to write romance and you want to write something else. If they want you to write girl books and you happen to be a male. You know what I mean, because this book, in fact this book here, if you can see it, it has a guy on the cover with the girls at the bottom screaming and yelling like they do at a concert.
Speaker 2:That's what they do and I had a woman that emailed me and I was like, yeah, my new book. I'll just say no. And she was like is that the book with the guy on the cover? And I just stuck with this with the guy on it. It's just, I can't put a guy. I can't put a guy. I'm a guy, I'm writing about guys. I can't put a guy on my cover. So it kind of behooved me that we had gotten to the point where we were so used to feminine books that I'm not even and I'm a guy, I'm a straight male, I'm like yo, dude, I can't write a male book.
Speaker 2:Now you know like you guys want your books. That much you know. So I said, wow, this is something else. But yeah, you get impacted by a lot of what you know and people try to push you into that, but it's up to you to let them know that you can write other things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, you just mentioned, you know writing other things. You mentioned Octavia Butler. You mentioned, you know she didn't even want her picture to be on the book, but as you were talking about those things, it made me think about the emergence of what they termed as urban literature.
Speaker 2:Well, you know I get in trouble with that because you know I inspired a whole lot of people, that you know, because I started calling it urban because of radio, you know. So you know again, even with that, no, the credit Again. I was the first to do that because I was down there in DC with Kathy Hughes WOL Radio at 8th and radio at eighth and eighth street, northeast dc, hanging out with them. I'm a young whippersnapper so she used to say I gotta pay my bills, gotta pay the bills, and she do a commercial. But they called it urban instead of black and so I was hip, like, hmm, you know it's black radio, but they're using the word urban, urban, top this urban 40, urban, contemporary, urban, adult. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna call my black books urban. So I started saying urban, classic, urban, books, urban.
Speaker 2:And it picked up man and catched on in the early 90s. And then the people that was in prison, they started putting the street word on it. So then it was urban street because they writing these street books, drug dealer books and all that. And so then it blew up. But it got to the point where it started outsizing the science fiction and and out doing the mystery books and out doing the children's book. Then it was like you go to the black section of the bookstore and every book is gangster girl, gangster girl, five right away girl. And then it got to the point like yo, this, okay, I understand, I started something that don. And then it got to the point where I'm like yo, this, okay, I understand, I started something. That don't mean everybody got to do it, everybody do it all the time and that's the only books we put out, and so then, they started getting mad at me.
Speaker 2:Like, well, omar, how you going to tell us to stop writing? I'm not saying to stop writing it, but you got to write about other stuff. We not just urban hood in this. You know, like yo, we got other stories, you know, so I got in trouble for that. But I'm willing to say like we got too many of them, dude, we got other jobs.
Speaker 2:Now it's toned down, it's calmed down yes I mean, we went through that period yeah people were beating at me and I and I was like, look man, I feel like frankenstein, you know, you make it happen. And then the monster goes out there and starts killing people. And you got to go out there and grab him back into the lab, like what are you doing, frankenstein? And he's like, oh, these Franken people. So I'm like yo, dude, I created something that I got to go grab and put it back in a shelter or something you know, because it got out of hand.
Speaker 2:But yeah, a lot of people. How dare you try to take away my money and all this other stuff?
Speaker 1:I'm like yo dude I'm protecting the culture at this point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wrote books that needed to be written, but after you get to like the 20th gangster girl books, it's like yo, dude, do we need another gangster girl book, particularly if they're not learning the lessons? And that's the other thing. My books taught you lessons and so some people could be like, well, oh, my book, no, every single book that I put out, I ended it with responsibility. I ended it with a lesson where I could say, hey, she went to college at the end of this. Did your girl go to college at the end of you know what I mean. So it's like at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:And then when I came back to the sequel, you know, for the love of money, and then, boss lady, she did some, some, some bigger things, you know I mean. So I didn't keep it in the hood. She kept elevating and even though people was mad at me, why, why, she didn't marry victor. Okay, so now I got a dude to go to jail. He's supposed to wait eight, nine years, come out, marry her. So she didn't ignore. And she went to hampton. So now she didn't, went to school with college dudes, ignored, all them dudes waiting. I said that's totally disrespectful to an hbcu man that I'm gonna go to school with this girl for four years, but I'm not good enough for her while she's waiting around.
Speaker 2:I said that's crazy man, and even the dude in jail was like I wouldn't expect you to do that. I'm in jail, you need to go on with your life. You know what I mean. So it was crazy.
Speaker 1:But you know what, as you were talking, it reminded me of and I hate to say this, about us, the black community. Sometimes we are so used to the trauma of it all that we just can't let it go. So that's why, you know, they wanted you to write that book differently, because they wanted the main character, the woman, to stick to the trauma. They wanted the main character, the woman, to stick to the trauma of. Let me just wait, let me not go through the Black excellence experience of going to Hampton and making something about. No, let me wait for somebody who's going to do nine years in jail. We are so attached to trauma. But going back to the oversaturation of the urban literature, I'm so glad that it ended because it looked like the publishing companies wanted to capture that and they weren't willing to sign anyone unless they had that street literature and it kind of dummied down, in my opinion, literature. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Well, when you say that you got to be careful because their main goal was money, so, the street stuff was cheap.
Speaker 2:They wasn't asking for a lot. Oh, just give me $20,000. They had to pay me $250,000. So it's a different level. So now you come in there as a literate writer, you want $100,000, but a street writer just wants $15,000. And it's selling. So you got to understand.
Speaker 2:The publisher was like, hey, man, this stuff sells if we don't have to edit it a lot. You know so it wasn't a thing. But they wasn't trying to get. The money is money. So they're like, okay, this stuff is. And so, yeah, it got to the point where it was too much of it and everybody's getting money. And then they're getting in the way of the bigger stuff. You know now the sales, even because I was doing bigger sales before a whole lot of urban street. Then they jump in and then my sales go down because I'm competing with people. And then I'm gonna tell you a book leslie, my new orleans book. I love this book, my favorite character, new orleans. This book suffered because it's in hardback. It costs 22 plus taxes. 25 people were selling 10 books, like all over har.
Speaker 2:So it's like Omar, they're not going to buy a $25 book if they can buy three for $25. So I was getting beat up. So now they're like well, leslie ain't that good because it ain't selling, it is good, but they're looking at a price tag versus the. So then I started doing the others. That's where I really started thinking about film. I said I got to get a helicopter.
Speaker 2:If you driving from Philly to New York and you want that turnpike, I don't care if you want a Rolls Royce, if you want that Jersey turnpike and it's jam packed, you ain't going nowhere fast. So you right next to a Yugo, you right next to a Kia Soul and you want a Rolls Royce and you're like man, I'm right next to this guy. But if you get a helicopter and you fly right to new york, that's what the movies do. The movies become the helicopter. So you can really see how advanced my stuff was when I was really putting it out there like that. And I didn't get the credit for that, because then he had all these other books that were coming out and they just buying it for a cheaper price, not really for the excellence of the work, and so that went down too.
Speaker 1:So when we talk about the monetization of books and the amount of money that authors were earning and when urban lit started to enter into the genre and we now saw authors like you not making the same amount of money, we also saw the emergence of digital books. Emergence of digital books, kindle and Nook. How did that impact the sales or how much money you received as an author Did?
Speaker 2:it impact you significantly. No, everybody was bragging about the ebook thing In the break of the 1990s into 2000,. Stephen King if anybody can break something, it's gonna be Stephen King, and I've business right. He's like the dude the American writer nobody can guard with. Stephen King couldn't make ebooks go to the next level he was trying to do.
Speaker 2:They're gonna read it to a certain extent, but, like you said earlier, holding a book in your hand and the having a bookshelf where you got multiple books on your bookshelf, like that it's not going away. So I was telling people back then like man, you got an e-book reader where you got this device thing in it. So we tried all that. E-books are going to sell to a certain extent. It's never going to take out the physical book maybe another hundred years or something, but we're not there yet. So people were all talking about it and then it went back down and then it does what it does. The physical book is still the physical book. So yeah, I made a little bit of money off of e-books, but the whole e-book thing is way overrated.
Speaker 1:Way overrated.
Speaker 1:Physical books is still the king, it is, it is. Physical books is still the king, it is, it is. And, like I said, it's paying it forward. I'm seeing the legacy of being an avid reader continue. Like I said, it started with my dad, it spilled over into me and, because I was an avid reader, my daughter is now an avid reader and I think she challenges herself to read, let's say, 200 books. Let's say, in a year or six months, you will always find her holding a book. She's familiar. She's about to be 30 on March 20th. She's well aware of who you are. Matter of fact, she's ear hustling because she's a fan of your work. So I love this. How everything is, it has a season, it has its time, but, once again, the essence of an actual book it will never, ever go away. Now what I want to jump into next is you know, same legendary story, but an all-new look.
Speaker 1:When I saw you on social media mentioning the re-emergence of fly girl, I said, oh no, I have to have him on the show. And then I went to a few of my coworkers and I'm just like, guess who I'm going to be talking to tomorrow? And then there was a woman. She is about 35 years old and I said Fly Girl, and she was like Omar Tyree. I said yep, she knows your name. Then I went to a guy and he's about in his forties and I said fly girl, do you know the author? And he was like no. I said, well, my brother, let me tell you who he is, and then you have to tune in to this episode and then you also have to talk about his books to your students. So, for those who don't know about the story of fly girl, remind my audience or introduce to an all new audience. What is the story of Fly Girl? Remind my audience or introduce to an all new audience. What is the story of Fly Girl about?
Speaker 2:Well again, I grew up in Philadelphia in the 70s. The 80s became the most materialistic generation Black America ever had and there's no competition, dude, like we had more jewelry, jewelry, more designer clothes, more hairstyles, more fanciness, and then we were a very extroverted culture. When you start talking about break dancing and hip-hop parties, we walked to the parties. We didn't even catch the buses for the bus going right past you. We want to walk because we want to show off our boots, we want to show off our shoes and pocketbook, we want to go to the mall about want to show off our shoes and pocketbook, we want to go to the mall. And so that generation man it's like the 80s was crazy with popularity, ostentatiousness, with the jewelry and all that. And so the word fly.
Speaker 2:I was at the playground in 1985. I was 16 years old and I had moved to an area called mount airy and it was like the move up area in philadelphia. They called it uptown, now mary, germantown and west oakland. I had moved on up, you know, because my mom had the money. So I moved up from west philly to this area and when the 80s hit we had the flyest girls in philadelphia and I already live in that area, and you had guys coming from all over philly north, philly, south philly, west philly to talk to these mount aryan, germantown and west oakland girls, and so when it came time to start writing books, I was like yo man, I'm gonna write about you know what I mean the philadelphia fly girl era. You know, when I got to college, it wanted us to write about different scenes and characters and where we're from, and so I already had the whole ideas of us chasing after these ostentatious, fancy girls from the 80s, and then it just went into a whole book of what's her lifestyle like? Why does she chase God? What kind of guys is it? And so then I wrote it from the girl's perspective instead of my perspective. But I'm one of the guys that wants one of these girls. So it's the same thing with research. Again, you're writing about the girl that you want, that all of us want, and then I'm breaking her down. What makes you do this, what makes you do that, what kind of family she come from, what else you think about, what does she say here? And so, again, with me memorizing how people speak, what they do, what they wear, all the details came together and I happen to be a writer instead of a rap artist and so instead of putting out roxanne, roxanne and and an old sheila and candy girl, I wrote a book. You see what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:But these same songs are like guys talking about girls and music. I wrote the book mary jane. You know what I mean? All that stuff, we had all these girl names in music. But I was the one that wrote about the fly girl in the book and we even had a fly girl from brooklyn, the boogie boys, a fly girl, fly, fly, fly and say 85. That came out. I'm 16, I'm at the playground in west philly and that song come on with the dj fly fly, and we got the fly girls at the playground and we went on hawaiian shirts back then, with the pk shoes and and the hawaiian shorts and all that. We had all that stuff and these are gangsters, hardcore gangsters in philly wearing hawaiian stuff. You know, because that was the era.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, I went ahead and wrote the book and I was the again the first one to do that, with all the lingo, all the stuff we did on point psychology, because I'm from the hood, so I know how we talk, I know how we get down. And then when people got it, it blew their minds like, oh my God, he's right on point with everything, and so it was just one of them things. I wrote it in a book instead of putting it on a song, and that's the only difference.
Speaker 1:So, like I said, we're now seeing a reemergence of Fly Girl. Now I know what happened, because I've done my research, but tell my audience how did it come about that we're now seeing a new look to Fly Girl? How did that come about years later?
Speaker 2:Well, I was trying to get the movie done. Lionsgate had the rights to do it. I wrote the screenplay too. Amazon has a screenplay and we were trying to get the thing to happen. But you know it's like if they don't write the screenplay, you know you can't do the movie, you don't get the money, you don't do the movie, you don't get the production. And so it's been years and so I was like man, can I put a tag on a book soon to be a major movie? That would help the book sell more. And then I started calling Simon Schultz hey, it's the 25 year anniversary, just put a stick on it. Hey, it's the 30 year. And they were pretty much ignoring me, like, oh, when the movie going to get? When the movie they keep asking about them? I said look, I don't have control over the Hollywood. Money can put it back out.
Speaker 2:To make a long story short, last year I put out a book called control, because I don't have control. A lot of us don't have control over a lot of stuff, but we want control. So I put that book out of psychological thriller with kensington last year and simon ashore got in touch with me and said hey, we would like to put, you know, your books back out. I thought he was talking about the whole backlist. I was like, all right, cool, I want to touch, I want to, you know, teach at the colleges and stuff. But they said, all right, we're just talking about the fly girl series. So I was like all right. And then they asked me, they wanted me to help them design it. I was like yeah, so I had to put the earrings in there, because that's the iconic thing you got that triangle earring.
Speaker 2:That I said, okay, each step she elevated. So she from the $300 earrings to the $30,000 Birkin bag. So you see, the For the Love of Money she's got the Birkin bag on there. And then the last one's the $300,000 Rolls Royce. So it shows her elevation going up Earrings, birkin bag, rolls Royce. Of course, when you got a Rolls Royce now you got the mansion and stuff too, and that's what she did as a character. She went up and up and up and up, and so now I'm coming back with him like wow, I wasn't thinking about it when I wrote it, but yeah, the elevation I gave her is amazing. But at the end of that elevation now we're looking at the boss lady. How do we now deal with the black woman as the boss lady at the end of that elevation?
Speaker 2:you gotta mean so now you're dealing with the young girl that was dating any cool drug dealer when she was young. Then she elevated to okay, now I gotta have an educated man with money for my career. Then she elevates okay, now what man qualifies for me? Now you know what I mean. Like I got my own money and so that's three stages that I actually wrote at a young age that now we got to talk about again with the new books and I'm like I'm all for talking about that transformation from 17 to 27 to 37. It's something else. It's something else.
Speaker 1:We're excited. What do you hope that this, this trilogy of books, does, that it hadn't done before this trilogy of books does?
Speaker 2:that it hadn't done before. Well, we're going to start those new conversations, because now I have now created the whole arc of the contemporary black woman, whether she likes it or not. You've got to find another series of books that did what Fly Girl did. Well, actually, I started at six, because she had a six year old birthday in the book 1977. Because she had a six-year-old birthday in the book 1977. So, to go from 1977 in real time into 2025, let me say another series of books that did that. And I'm right on point, when I had the book boss, lady Oprah Winfrey was the only one calling herself that, outside of Diana Ross, of course, that we grew up with you know outside of that, beyonceyonce wasn't beyonce yet, like that.
Speaker 2:You know, elia was still here. We didn't have that. But we didn't have megan estallion we didn't have. You know, all these new girls that become bigger and bigger and bigger and bosses now we got athletic girls is doing that thing now. So now, from the time that book came out in 2005, we got a whole lot of new boss women in the thought line of that. So it's going to be some great conversations to say, okay, how do we deal with this new power now? Because it is a new power.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is a very much new power. So, once again, I really loved how you explored the different layers of becoming a woman, from a girl to womanhood, and the dynamics of relationships. They have all changed and we're embarking upon this discussion of the disconnect between men and women. In this era, do you think that you're going to write a book exploring the disconnect between relationships between men and women?
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to because you know this whole tour. I'm going to be talking about it because, again, that watch how this works. We talked about my history. Now, you know I was raised by men. I had a masculine mother, even because she was the oldest. She had four younger brothers. When you are older sister to younger brothers it's a different thing to come at you because you got to deal with them differently. So my mother was used to dealing and then she hung around masculine cousins and my father, robert Tyree the whole neighborhood know he was the fighter dude, like your pop was. And then she married a six foot four, melvin austin senior who was rough from overbrook high school. Both of them went to overbrook high school. That will smith brags about, of course. Will smith was a young buck back then we talking about. You know, in the 60s and the 50s both my pops my world pop dropped out. My step five graduated. You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean so I was raised by all these men old school. Now you want a new generation where old school manhood that's like the neanderthal thing, that people don't like that anymore. So now I'm stuck in the middle of it like yo. I was raised this way. What do I do now that now we? Now I gotta ask women um, what do you want me to be? How do you want me to be? How do I supposed to act with you? What do you want me?
Speaker 1:to do you want me to open the door.
Speaker 2:You want to be dead. Because now it's like what, what do you, what do I, what can I get away with as a man when I was raised that way? So now it's like the older men are like wow, and then the younger dudes are like I don't know, dude, I don't know dude, I don't know what to do, I don't know what they want. So it's going to be some great conversations.
Speaker 1:But let me tell you, in my opinion, why a lot of that has changed. The disconnect because you mentioned, when you were growing up, your household had men Right, and today's space households, a lot of households don't have men in them anymore and a lot of women are now raising boys. I remember when I became pregnant and I'm telling this the true story I got on my knees and I prayed to God and I said God, please don't allow me to have a boy, cause I don't know how I could handle that responsibility to raise a boy into a man. I knew that my job was to be raising a girl into a woman. So I think that that's where a lot of the disconnect starts from.
Speaker 1:The household dynamics have really changed. Women are raising boys with the absence of the fathers. Women are getting more college degrees as opposed to men. So now we're on a different playing field. You know, even talking to my daughter, who's 29, about to be 30. And she came to me last month and she said mom, a guy wants to date me and he's not even planning the date. He's asking me to plan the date and she's like, how do I navigate around that? Like, do I just do it or do I encourage him by telling him the things that I like so that he can plan the date? So, once again, our voices have been forced to amplify because we are raising men without the, with the absence of, of of men. So that's the cause of this disconnect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard. So I'm looking to see where that's going to go in the next 10 years. You know, I brought up the fact when I wrote Single Mom in 1997, I did the research 71% single mother households. Now I looked it up because I have a friend that you know he's breaking up with his wife and he wants to do a whole movie about the disconnect. And I brought up the number, looked up the number again 73. You're not a man. It's like wow, man. It's like. And now you got some young women that they do, don't even want to marry the dudes they were to do. They want to have a kid and get the alimony check. And it's like whoa, like what's going on? Like you don't want the man in the family, no, I want the check and the child, the child protects me before the check.
Speaker 2:I'm like wow and I remember when we didn't even have that term baby's mama, baby's daddy.
Speaker 2:They started that in the 90s we had men during our era, dudes, this one's taking care of responsibility. We didn't have a word for it. Then they started oh, this is my baby's daddy, that's my mama. Like we started war. I'm like what the hell in the 90s, my mama? Like we started. I'm like what the hell In the 90s?
Speaker 2:I was in college when they started that. I'm like, wow, and so now that's normal, that's my baby's dad, my child's mama. You know what I mean, instead of saying my wife, you know the mother. It's crazy. We've got new words now, you know. So words now you know. So we gotta, we gotta see where that's gonna go, man. But now I'm gonna be talking about it all summer long because my books represent that at the end of the book, boss, lady, she has no children and no marriage.
Speaker 2:And again, when I write books, I'm not writing fantasy stuff for you to feel good about. I'm writing stuff that's strict to the culture of a journalistic perspective of what's going on, and I wasn't thinking about it. Then I was in my own 30s when good about I'm writing stuff that's strict to the culture of a journalistic perspective of what's going on and I wasn't thinking about it. Then I was in my own 30s. When that book came out, I wouldn't think about the trajectory of where Black women are going to go with the whole boss lady thing. But now that I'm here I'm like, wow, if no man qualifies now, if your daughter's like, okay, now I got to pay for the man man, that's not gonna make a woman feel like wow. Like you know, now she has to get. Am I supposed to pay for the man now? Mama, get like my, because she's not used to that.
Speaker 2:You know, even with dude, like with me being an older dude, I'm automatically pulling my money out. I'm not used to a woman paying. So now I'm like I'm. It's confusing. But now the younger dudes are like, hey, man, women got more money. I'm asking her. I would be like I would never ask a girl. I would ask if she want to go dust, if it's the first date or something, but I would never because I'm old. So I'm like I don't do. But the new people like, hey, dad, they got their own money. I'm like man, this is, yes, changing right in front of it.
Speaker 1:yes, and I'm trying to. I I don't know if I want to adjust to it because that's just not how I was raised. Like my parents were together for over 50 years, so that's what I know to be true. So it's such a visceral reaction when now my daughter is facing these dating nuances and I'm just like trying to give her my perspective from my reality. But that's not her reality because this era and space is so, so different. But that's not her reality because this era in space is so, so different. So I hope that you pin a novel that is exploring the ever-growing gap of disconnect between men and women, because it's a real conversation.
Speaker 2:I actually had a. I started a book called Carnival where I'm talking about Trinidad and Tobago and I know y'all got a lot of Trinidadians up there in New York. You know I went to school with them at Howard, so I know the Trinidadians all over the place.
Speaker 1:I'm from.
Speaker 2:St.
Speaker 2:Kitts, my dad, St Kitts, oh there you go there, you go, so, yeah, so even down in DC Ben's Chili Bowl Trinidadians you know what I mean. I did articles on them, but getting back to chance to finish it because I want to go down to Trinidad, see it, taste it around the culture, the whole thing. So I want to go there, first for my research, because I don't want to do the Brazil thing with that, I want to be there. But anyway, in that book it's two married men who go to Trinidad for carnival and you already know what the women go. So you and they go down there and they having problems with their wives.
Speaker 2:So to disconnect. And here's at the end of the day, you're dealing with publishers that are used to female readers. So immediately they were like Omar, is this a female bashing book? So now I'm like I'm a guy, I can't even talk about the disconnect that men have with women, because you're immediately like, well, what if the audience doesn't like? So now I can't even be honest about what men are going through, because if women don't want it in the book, they won't reject them. But I'm like but this is what's going on we got a passport boys.
Speaker 2:That's a real thing. I can't even write about it because women are going to be upset. I'm like whoa. I mean, that's what culture and art is supposed to be like you said sometimes you got to be disliked, sometimes you got, but you got to put that stuff out there.
Speaker 2:And so the editors were like, oh, we don't want you. Then they backed off and said, okay, omar has a point. We can't start, you know, angling a book toward massaging women if this is what's going on right now. You know what I mean. So, yeah, that disconnect, even in the publishing, is so female dominated that now, as men, you know, I saw men when, when I was writing my books, I never pandered to an audience, which means I never broke the audience down or try to demean.
Speaker 2:But I've seen other books where the guys in the book I'm like I don't know guys like this that are this, you know, soft or this, you know, commendable to the woman. So I'm reading and I'm like, definitely, this dude wanted to appeal to women with this male character, but that doesn't do a service to men who are real men. It's like yo, this ain't no real, you know. So I'm reading books like that, like I can tell that she's trying to satisfy the female audience, but you're not being honest about how real men really think and how they get down, and so, yeah, it's something else when you start doing that as publishers and you say, look, you want to sell books, make your audience happy, but you're making them happy with lies. You're making them happy with mistruths. You're making them happy with stuff that they're going to be unprepared for later on. Oh, I thought this was like someone. No, I gotta give you. So the truth hurts man. Like sister soldiers said, if the truth hurts, you'll be in pain. If the truth is crazy, you'll be insane.
Speaker 2:We are at war, but the last they haven't heard sister soldiers speak, so they don't have any idea of how militant and how old school she is with what she stands ground on, but then Sister Soldier says she said it all the time dude, if the truth hurts, you'll be in pain, but right now, a whole lot of people cannot take the truth. It's all about buttering up your audience and making more money off your audience, instead of telling them what it is.
Speaker 2:And so these books are bringing back the truth, because I was telling the truth when I was a young kid, just writing it the way it was naturalistic books. And so now you got the trilogy coming back where I have to talk about the evolution and the elevation of the black woman, because that's what the series does.
Speaker 1:That's what it does well, you know, I'm gonna keep praying that you get a seat at that table to be a decision maker, because we want the truth from the male perspective. There is an audience for that. Most recently, I was having a conversation with Jay Alexander. He is one of the co-founders of FUBU and he is now the founder of the For Us by Us Network and some of the content on there. It's a little salacious for me and it is offering the woman's perspective, and I challenged him. I also want to see the male perspective. I want to know the nuances behind the way that you think, because that's how we're going to, you know, kind of lower the gap. We need to understand one another. We just can't have one version of the story. So you just sit at the table, omar, it's waiting.
Speaker 2:So please do us proud once you occupy that seat yeah, and then I got to keep my emotions in check and be very analytical and logical about it, because you can get emotional and those type of discussions. But that's what I've been telling sisters, you know, for the last couple of years. I'm gonna keep saying it men have a tendency to protect what they want. What do I mean by that? Since you were a little boy, the older guys would tell you do not tell that girl that she's not going to give you none. You tell her this.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you, like you are everybody, every man listening, from new york to la, from houston to detroit we've been through that with with older brothers do not tell that girl that she is not gonna give you. So we learn how to lie to women all the time. And then you get to be a grown husband and I'm around grown husbands right now and I'll say, omar, you're not gonna change women, you know how does it. So they all have complaints but they like, dude, that's just the way it is and what. You're not gonna change that. So a lot of men, even though they don't like it, they don't talk about it now with the younger dudes.
Speaker 2:Here's the deal. I'm talking about married older men in their 50s and 60s. When you talk to these younger dudes in their 30s, they're not married yet and they still are apathetic about where they're going with young women and they're doing stuff like this. Well, you know, when she don't like me, no more, I just speed on. I just I'm gonna get ghost that's the new word ghost. Right, I'm gonna get ghost. And I'm telling women like if that dude has a plan to get ghost and you walking around like everything is great and whatnot, and he's not expressing his real emotions about what he don't like when he gets ghost, you got no idea why you got it and you're sitting there like, well, why did my? Wow, you didn't have any conversation and that's what I'm trying to get sisters with. You cannot have a silent man who doesn't like what you're doing but won't say anything about it. Then he goes to the barbershop and tells them everything, blow by blow, but you don't know any of it. That is a problem.
Speaker 2:And I'm telling you now and that's why I'm going to keep bringing Sister Soulja up. If the telling you now and that's why I'm gonna keep bringing sister soldier up if the truth hurts, you're gonna be because we got to get back to that truth. Because if you got men who are not saying what the truth is and they looking at that clock and saying, all right, when I'm done with this, I'm just gonna move on to my other girl, you, a whole lot of women, are going to be left holding it back and I'm trying to get them prepared.
Speaker 1:You got to have that tough conversation, so you know, where you're going with that man yeah, yeah, yeah, and it won't be easy at first. You know, I'm going through a situation where, at first, communication was non-existent, but now the individual, or my person, is better understanding that communication is allowing us to, to grow, to learn more about each other, so that we aren't let me disappear for five minutes or five days or five months, because I just don't want it anymore.
Speaker 2:What you disappear for. Oh I just needed some space to myself. Why, oh, I don't want to talk about it you got to talk about it.
Speaker 2:I'm tired of hearing that I don't want to talk about it. You have to talk about it. You can't keep thinking somebody going to guess what you mean Well about it. You can't keep thinking somebody gonna guess what you mean. Well, he should know what I want. Well, he should know what I mean. Well, he should know what he need to do. No, you gotta talk, man, you gotta say something so that point there is driving me much. He should know that already.
Speaker 1:Well, you were man you should know, but you know. No, you gotta tell him, you gotta tell them. I am an unapologetic truth teller. I am bold in what I say, I mean what I say. I'm straight, no filter. You know, that's just the cloth that I was cut from, because I'm a Brooklyn girl born and raised. You know. So there's nothing else to me. So you know. Are there any final thoughts that you would like to convey to my audience before we close out this amazing conversation?
Speaker 2:Well, this is going to be a fun time, you know it's like now you got the social media generation where everything happens and doesn't happen on social media, but we were here before social media, yeah, so you got to go back to the physical events. You know, beating the bush for the people, getting them talking. And I'm gonna keep talking about the elevation of the black woman, because I happen to have written that series and, whether I was thinking about it at the time or not, I did it. It's coming back out. I'm a grown man now that's going through my own issues of watching what's going on with it. I'm concerned about it and I'm gonna keep talking about it.
Speaker 2:So I'm gonna be, you know, nice and poised and logical, but we're gonna keep talking about the disconnect that we have right now because it's getting steeper for your daughter and for my sons. It's getting steeper when I hear young guys saying, well, when I'm done with it, I'm just gonna walk away. I didn't think about that. When I'm done, you got Mary's and kids, but when I'm done, I'm just gonna walk away like I wasn't raised that way. Man like what the heck is going on. But if that's the thing women like, well, I'm just gonna take my kids and he's gonna pay for it. It's just like nothing, like like y'all didn't go to the auction and say you know, for rich or for poor, but but we heard that, but we ain't sticking to that, so that's right dangerous, so yeah I'm gonna keep talking about it.
Speaker 1:I'm Me too, but you know something else that you mentioned on the male side. You know I'll talk about the females too, because you know, even though I'm female, there are some nuances that we need to address as well. Even in this space and era, you have more females saying no, I don't want to get married, I'd just rather have this baby. I'm like what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't even have aspirations to be a wife anymore, you just want to have a child. And that's it, the faith, the confidence and faith in the black man. You know what I mean and you said it. If too many people are being raised without a man, then in their minds, what is a man? What's a man to do? And if I'm doing all this stuff without a man, then I'm going to keep doing it without a man. What do I without a man? What I need a man for? And so, yeah, it got to that point where it's like I don't need no man to keep doing so. A man becomes a contemporary thing, not a long-standing family thing, but a contemporary thing of what I want right now. And oh, that's well, that's a hard world to live in, but that's yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:You know my father. You know he's in his 70s and although he's an older man, I often, too have to remind him. I still need to be intentional in how you move and what you say in front of your granddaughter, my daughter. It is an ongoing responsibility. We have to hold each other accountable, men and women. We have to communicate what we need, how we want to be represented, how we want to be treated, how we want to be loved, and it's all going to be successful if you're willing to have these open conversations. So, even though he's my father, and although he's raised me and he is an amazing man, I still give myself full permission to look at my father and say, okay, can we kind of do this a little bit differently? Because I still have my daughter watching and I want to make sure that she's getting the right examples. So be unafraid to have these conversations, no matter who it is with, because I think that we owe it to ourselves, because this disconnect can't grow any wider. I don't want it to.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm glad that she gets a chance to see her grandfather and talk to her grandfather. You know what I mean, because that's the thing again where we had grand, I was around my grandfather, you know. So. My sisters were around, you know what I mean. I got two sisters on my father's side, you know. So when you get around older people, you know how they are, you know how they act. So I don't feel pressure around older people at all. I did it quickly. I did an interview with what's his name, the football player, mike Singletary, big-time football player, old-school Chicago Bears, and he's the kind of man old-school where they got that gruff, rough, kind. But I was raised that way. So I talked to him like he's my uncle and he's like man. You talk to Mike Singletary like that. I'm like yeah I had uncles.
Speaker 2:I had coaches like that so I'm used to it, so I wasn't afraid of him. You know, because I again I had a six foot four, 230 pound monster in the house who would knock on people's doors and, excuse me, you parked your car in my spot. I would like if you came outside, moved it and then with no gun. I'm like this dude is crazy. But I came up with that, so I will do the same thing if I need to, because I'm used to it.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people.
Speaker 2:They're not used to that. They get intimidated. But it's like yo, dude, I couldn't. I had to go every day, I had to come home to this dude this big. So after a while you get used to it, like, get used to it, like I gotta stand up, I gotta stand up. So even though I'm only six foot 160 something, I still have that, that thought line and I'm this bigger just because I was raised by that. So that's how I'm thinking, like the napoleon kind.
Speaker 2:Now of course I'm not short, short, but I'm not six four you know, but yeah, man, you get raised a different way, and so a lot of people like, well, how come you come off like that? You can't see who I was raised by, right I'm talking about you just right me, but I had to deal with that every single day of my life, and so, as they say, iron sharp as iron I'm iron and I didn't have a choice. I'm sorry, I gotta apologize to y'all, but that's how I survived this dude every day wow and survive.
Speaker 1:you did and thrive. You are doing, omar, once again. I am so proud of you. I am so happy that you decided to bless my platform. This was a great conversation and I wish you nothing but continued success. Where can they pick up this re-imagined, same legendary story, but old, new look, of a trilogy? Where can they pick up your books? For the love of money, fly Girl and Boss Lady? Where can they pick it up?
Speaker 2:We started promoting it early but it's really going to hit the market May the 6th because they still doing the cover design, so I had to stop promoting it. Now I'm promoting the Fly Girl brand gear. So we got Fly Girl clothing coming. We got cell phone. We got perfume. That's so. We got fly girl clothing coming, we got cell phone, we got perfume. That's the biggest slippers. Everything fly girl. Because now I have to make it more than just the book.
Speaker 2:You got to make it a whole movement, make it international and yeah doing that now, but the books would be back out with all the links and all the pre-orders. May the 6th. And then, of course, my summer tour starts in june and I'm still trying to book something at the the sharp was that the schomburg center in harlem, and it's hard. Man, she's trying to get a new york thing. It's hard. So I'm still trying to book that. And then y'all got the boys and girls brooklyn high school that y'all do that event in the summer I might come back there and do that. But yeah, all summer long I'll be pushing the book they move that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they move that from boys and girls. Yeah, they moved that. It's downtown Brooklyn. It's been here for a few years now, but now they're talking about relocating the fair, so be on the lookout Because there may be a new location this summer. But I'm definitely going to order my Fly Girl gear Because I'm headed to Aruba In two weeks and I got to represent the fly girl movement all the way in aruba and y'all started it because the brooklyn book boogie boys from brooklyn started that song, so and then I had it.
Speaker 2:I added the extra y. So when you see fly with two y, I did that. Everybody else spells with one y, including the boogie boys. I added the extra y because that's how we say it. Fly, we hover, yeah, and nobody says fly. Nobody says that fly. You know what I mean. So, yeah, I added that extra y for the for the four fly girl. Four and four makes eight. You know real simmons metric, like boss lady, and yeah, it's gonna be coming back out and we're gonna be talking about the elevation and the elevation of the black woman.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. I'm going to stay tuned into this conversation because I'm interested in, you know, just hearing about the elevation and the evolution of the black woman and the disconnect, so that we can kind of reengage. But once again, thank you so much, omar. Where can my audience follow you? Are you on social media?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm at only one, the number one, omar Tyree on Instagram, and then TikTok is Omar Tyree, facebook is Omar Tyree, LinkedIn is Omar Tyree and X is Omar Tyree. So then I got Fly Girl Fridays on Instagram, where I'm starting a whole store. Every Friday we release a new Fly Girl product. We got the first t-shirts on there. Next week we're doing the hoodies, and so I'm going all out and we're going to show everybody the stuff first. Then we're going to open up the store in April and we're going to have it moving. So I'm going to have a lot of sisters that's designing clothes and running the company, and so sisters that's designing clothes and running the company, and so sisters again are in position because I don't wear the clothes. So I gotta listen to the sisters that omar, this color, omar, this curve, omar I'm like cool. So I'm gonna have a whole bunch of sisters in business bald ladies that I'm working with.
Speaker 1:Yes, I like the pink and, and I believe it was the yellow one, so I'll be talking about that real soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I'm part of the movement. I'm a fly girl too, but, omar, once again, thank you, enjoy the rest of your day. I'm going to continue on with this episode, but, like I said, it has been a blessing and it is already written, it is already ordained. You already have your seat at that table and you will continue on with this movement and we will be there cheering you on. We're just waiting for it to happen, but it's already happening right now, thank you.
Speaker 2:You got it. Thanks for having me and let's do a follow-up. And after the whole tour is over, we do a follow-up in the fall, like September or October.
Speaker 1:I'm here. Just tell me when and we'll make it happen. Thank you so much. Okay, I'll talk to you soon. You got it, bye-bye, yes, so there you have it.
Speaker 1:Omar Tyree, bestselling author. That was an amazing conversation. He really just talked about his life trajectory, the journey of his life, the pivotal moments who shaped him. This is something that a lot of people don't understand. You see these adults and then you're like who do they think they are? Who does he think he is? Who does she think she is? It's the audacity of how we were raised. It is the audacity in how we were raised. So, when you see excellence, step in the room and I'm talking to us, I'm talking to my people. When you see excellence, step in the room.
Speaker 1:We have to stop leading with our trauma and automatically finding something wrong with it. Instead of celebrating it, we have to align ourselves with greatness. Omar mentioned that in his series of for the love of. I mean for his series of Fly Girl, fly Girl, boss Lady. People wanted the main character. They wanted her to wait, although she was a college student and she became a celebrity and her boyfriend was incarcerated. They expected her to wait eight, nine years for him to get out of jail. Why? Why does he have to be the prison bae? Why do black women always have to be the prison bay? I don't get it. I don't get it. We have to stop living in trauma and if we don't acknowledge that, once again, the disconnect, the gap will continue to grow.
Speaker 1:So make sure that you align yourself with this movement, the fly girl movement, because there are so many fly girls out there like myself, and he's an author that deserves it. I'm telling you, I'm so true when I say that I am praying for him to get a seat at the table. Praying for him to get a seat at the table. It's already written, it's already happening and I'm excited to see what Omar is going to do once he signs the contract accepting that position and he's able to make a film out of Fly Girl. Who doesn't want to see the Fly Girl film? I do. I'm waiting for it.
Speaker 1:So, once again, an amazing conversation. Listen to this conversation over and over again. Make sure you share this conversation with your family, your friends, people that you know could benefit from this, people who you know aspire to be an author, people who you know who are current authors. This was a information-filled conversation. Make sure you also support the Sanyo and your sponsor. Go to the link in the description section of this episode and get your shop on Black-Owned Business Once again.
Speaker 1:We're living in a space where we need to elevate, we need to acknowledge, we need to celebrate, we need to protect Black-owned. It is so super important. So do me a favor. I just have one request Even if it's once a month, support a Black-owned business. Even if it's once a month, support a Black-owned business Business. It could be a podcaster, share their episode. It could be a store, buy something for yourself or for a friend, but support, support, support, support. So this has been another amazing edition of Sanya On Air. I have a lot to think about. After every conversation on Sanya On Air, I walk away and I just think. I just think about what was communicated, what was said, what was learned, what needs to be unpacked, and I implore you to do the same. So stay tuned for another amazing episode of Sign On Air, where I unpack celebrity pivotal conversations, celebrity pivotal moments and milestones, while also providing you pipelines to access. Take care, my loves, Smooches, bye-bye.