Meet Hykeem Johnson

We recently connected with Hykeem Johnson and have shared our conversation below.

Hykeem, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
The word “love” can be overly common to use in this time of age while lacking the actual meaning of the word itself. Yeah things are different over here. I believe my God given purpose in life is to spread love amongst all. But unconditional love, not the love where it fades away in due time over a simple argument. Throughout my career actually my whole life, I’ve always focused on the love & the art of things. I’ve always chose to seek past the materialistic things in this world & and use my talents/love whether it’s helping & guiding other creatives, guiding the youth to the right paths, & things as simple as being a resourceful friend when needed. Finding this purpose of giving love amongst all came about through life trials & finally paying attention to the energy that was directed to me. My focus at this moment is continuing to apply this purpose to my career to eventually become one of the most legendary creatives who’s words teach & heal forever similar to Tupac & Basquiat.

Being this spiritually connected come from a line of family members who all motivated us to keep God in our life. Whether it’s from my Mom who is very wise & has God given senses , my  heavily motivating & God fearing Dad who grew up in the church, my loving & caring sister who spreads her God given love to others, to my hard working & free spoken brother who teaches God given truths. This connection goes deeper to my aunts/uncles, cousins & etc. Being from such a spiritual place as New Orleans we all grew to be spiritually connected.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
The most unique thing about myself is that I was gifted with many talents so one project I release will always be different from the next project I release whether it’s photography, videography, writing, directing, being a music producer/engineer, modeling, acting & etc. My versatility is deeply in my roots of being from New Orleans, Louisiana, the home of many cultures. Moving to Texas is when I began to take my passions serious which lead me to take a choir class in middle school. This is when my passion for music turned into a career. From there my brother Shadcrop & I began to build our names in the creative community & had the support from many of our highschool friends & friends we met on the road. I’ve gave specific names in another interview so this time since it’s a lot of names I’ll let this be one of those “If you know you know” situations. We was able to achieve many things from being music artist & music producers, co-photo studio owners, former director of photography in a diverse mothering agency owned by Davesha Tamia in DFW, having Magazine features to being magazine owners, being photographers at fashion shows to hosting our own fashion shows with the agency we was with at the time, Modeling for local clothing brands & more. We never knew the first microphone Shadcrop bought & one of our childhood friends, Gwalla Cobain, introducing us into the art of recording music would turn into a bundle of success, yet we are grateful of every moment. Still till this day we are giving back by helping other creatives that’s just starting out by offering opportunities at being a creative. These are the times where I was also able to share my message & purpose of life with others which is spreading love in all forms amongst all. I love being able to change someone’s life by offering them the tools needed to get to where they want to go.

I am known to switch careers at a certain time when I am needing some time to rebuild the drive for the career I was previously doing before the switch, to show consistency. I am a heavy believer of quality over quantity so I am currently on a hiatus from photography to focus on music, the film industry, building a team of creatives & a couple new talents I will share later down the line. Lately I’ve been creating amazing musical art with artist like Jayceon & Chi. I am also a member in Shadcrops Collective “CFOD”. The next couple of years will be the years where I am relearning & rebuilding to be able to use all of my talents at maximum strength. There are alot of new exciting projects on the way so please stay tuned!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Being able to direct in traffic where cars isn’t moving because they don’t realize you are behind them seems quite impossible, yet once you are able to honk your horn they will eventually notice you are there & will make room for you. This very statement was similar to the beginning of my career. I’ve faced challenges on how to actually step out & be heard until I realized… no one needs to hear you for you to be great. One of my best qualities about myself (or skills if it fits the category) is being able to keep going even when the odds are against me. Once I was finally able to gain confidence in myself & my work, I was able to understand my greatness & purpose. We all have the dreams of releasing our first projects & having an unrealistic amount of expectations for the project, not understanding that things actually takes time, growth, dedication & sweat to be able to reach those expectations. Always remember to keep going no matter how much you feel like things isn’t going the way you want it to be, because the further you go, the more you will learn about achieving those expectations whether it’s self improvement or your new introduced talents growing with the time. As long as you are putting your heart, real love & real emotion in your art, things will go amazing for you.

Versatility got me everywhere I needed to go whether it was being able to speak in different groups of people due to having similarities in all groups, performing any career or task due to quick learning skills, or helping in any situation due to life experiences. This second best quality of mine comes in handy & I also take the most pride in this quality. I became an advocate of doing the impossible because it’s actually possible to someone that can make it possible. I use this quality to determine which career I will be performing at the time needed.

Knowledge is one if not the most important thing to have in my opinion. I am also an advocate of learning & teaching. This is actually what drives me to continue to be a creative. In my early life I never failed on learning things needed to be learned & now I am dedicating this time to teach what I have learned to the individuals wanting to learn no matter the subject. Later in my career I would love to offer classes in all diversities to anyone willing to learn new things.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
Throughout my career, from start to now, I’ve always been open handed to collaborations. I can name so many talents & brands in the dfw community I’ve collaborated with in order to achieve the goal needed. I can say I am proud to have friends, supporters & friends that turned into business partners in my life that push me to the next level. I have no limits on the range/ types collabs I am willing to do whether it’s collaborating on paint colors, making movies for clothing brands, shoot day in life’s for videographers that shoot day in life’s of artist, create a musical collab album & etc. I would love to be able to stretch each of my talents to its maximum strength while also gaining new knowledge through new collabs. As you see, I would like to continue to break new normals like we (Shadcrop & I) have been doing our entire career. A list of artist, friends & friends that turned into business friends range from:

Shadcrop, my brother & business partner that literally is the reason I am a creative. The person who bought our first camera & made history do what it do. Shad also is the reason I became a magazine published model & featured me in a few of his short fashion films starring me as an actor. Stay tuned for his new collective CFOD @cfod.oeuvre which I am a co-creative director in.

Jayceon, my friend that turned into a business friend who I have been working with since 2018 on projects from music recordings, fashion show directing, music video directing, group photography Bts, & more. Jayceon is also the reason I am now back recording music. Please be on the lookout for his new YouTube channel @raritv

Fre, my friend that turned into a business friend who I have been working with for the past couple years on various projects from short film directing, vocal tags, to musical studio projects. Fre is also as versatile as they come & will be showing the worlds her versatility soon! Special thanks to Fre for never failing to show your love, range & support & it will always be the same way around! Please be on the lookout for her amazing songs which she sings like an angel in! Instagram @Babefre

Daveshatamia a friend that turned into a business friend who have allowed me to step higher in my career & become what I’ve dreamed of becoming. She allowed me to become a former Director of photography, Former studio owner, Former magazine owner, fashion show & event planner & etc. I use the knowledge taught from her still till this day! Please support her new couples page @the.dk4l

Chi, a friend & business friend you all will see more of soon through various projects & collabs! Thank you for trusting me with your visions & allowing me to reboot old talents! Your support have been amazing for the past year & there are many new highs we will reach! Please Support Chi’s amazing musical art @Chi_coquette

(previous year so I may miss a few names) Chi, Jayceon, Jaylen, Mo, Gwalla, BP, Almetress, Beatsbysammie & etc who all helped me get back in the music studio or have played a part in providing music studio needs.

Indintokyo, Julianthegirl, Jayceon once more & etc who all allowed me to either direct or be the videographer for their musical projects

Almetress, Stoetre, Gnarly, Shadcrop, Fre & etc who all showed their amazing skills in the previous short films we’ve created together & more!

Amiya, Almetress, Jalynn, Vonross, Haleigh & many other models who have created amazing photography art with me for the past years before my photography retirement/hiatus. You all have literally been the reason behind the art of many vibes which tells the stories that heals the world! I can’t be more grateful to have worked with such amazing talents as you all!

There are many other names I could name yet we will be here forever! The names & talents listed shows all of the types of collabs I am open to work with plus more. If you would like to reach me, my Instagram is @J_Keem. My business instagram is @Jkeemxs.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Almetress, Brie, Aarron, CoreyVhs, Haleigh, Jalynn, Shadcrop, Twosimpleclothing, Jordan Mahoney, Donnie Gambino, Amiyaa, Daveshatamia & Crelucent.

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