We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mwalim Peters. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mwalim below.
Hi Mwalim, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
Growing up, I was fortunate to be surrounded by a family and environment that fueled my dreams and interests. Their encouraging voices drowned out those who tried to discourage me. The skeptics told me I couldn’t make it in music, but those voices fell silent when my work earned Grammy nominations, awards, and grants. They warned I wouldn’t get into college, and even if I did, I wouldn’t finish. Fast forward to today—two master’s degrees, a bachelor’s, and a 35+ year career as an educator later, and those once ominous voices are nothing but echoes in the past.
This journey was more than just personal victories; it was a battle against imposter syndrome, a shadow cast by America’s skewed societal norms around race, gender, and class. In this narrative, white supremacy plays puppeteer, dictating that certain spaces are off-limits for people of color. Breaking through these boundaries triggers a relentless gaslighting that whispers we don’t belong.
W.E.B. Du Bois, a Black American sociologist, aptly noted, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” These words resonate today, as the remnants of colonization manifest in the unconscious biases woven into our society. The historical injustice persists, inflicting generational trauma on many Black Americans, attempting to strip away their humanity and erase their identity.
What’s disheartening is that when a person of color, especially a male, maneuvers through life without succumbing to imposter syndrome, society is quick to slap on the label of arrogance. It’s a perplexing paradox—we strive to break free from mental chains, only to face judgment for doing so. The battle against white supremacy and racial bias is not just an individual struggle; it’s a collective effort to dismantle a system that perpetuates these harmful narratives.
In this fight, we must grant ourselves permission to thrive and rise. We need to embrace the spaces society deems off-limits and make them our own—whether in education, business, or home ownership. Giving ourselves this permission is not just an act of defiance; it’s a crucial step in reshaping a narrative that has for too long sought to confine and limit the potential of people of color.
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?
My name is Mwalim DaPhunkee Professor (born Morgan James Peters) and essentially, I am a storyteller. My stories take the form of spoken and written poetry, tales, plays, songs, and essays. Some of my stories have no words and are told through melodies, harmonies, and rhythms. I am the owner of Polyphonic Studios, LLC, a media company that includes a commercial-grade recording studio; a label, Poly-Groove Records; a film and video production division; and a roster of bands and ensembles, including two that I’m directly involved with: The GroovaLottos and WAMPTRONICA. I am the founding Artistic Director of Oversoul Theatre Collective, Inc. (OTC) a 30-year-old non-profit, professional arts and education organization. One other hat that I wear: I’m a tenured professor of English and Black Studies at UMass Dartmouth, where I began teaching in 2003. I’ve been a performing and literary artist for a little over 40 years, and an educator for 36+ years. My stages and classrooms have included schools, theaters, arts academies, nightclubs, community centers, colleges, jails, temples, festivals, street corners, museums, libraries, powwows, conventions, and lodges.
I refer to my brand of creative output as the ‘Bronx Boheme’, a reference to where I was born and mostly grew up in with a strong artistic influence. As far as artistic diversity and independence, two of my primary role models were Paul Robeson and Melvin Van Peebles. There are two main sides to what I do: the creator and the teacher. I’ll address the creator first. Storytelling has always been an aspect of my life as I come from a long line of storytellers, conversationalists, and philosophers on both sides of my family. A constant theme in my life: everything that I’m now really good at, I was bad at when I started. I was rather late at learning to read and the teacher who made it happen taught be how to read by having me write the stories I wanted to tell. By the time I was in sixth grade I was reading 4 grades above my level. In fifth grade we were introduced to instruments, and I was assigned the viola. The music teacher didn’t advance me, but with lessons I re-auditioned and was in orchestra at eighth grade graduation I received the school’s medal for music.
As a student at Music & Art High School I began learning the piano because I was interested in composition. The better players would keep throwing me off the piano. My first piano teacher was my maternal grandfather, Allan H. Nurse, who was a classically trained pianist and came to this country from Barbados, initially to study medicine but chose to follow music as a composer. Discovering that 1920s America had no such things as a professional, classical Black musician, he directed his skills towards being an arranger and bandleader in jazz, and worked out of the Brill Building a lot, producing records for Decca and Southern Records, and leading a 16-piece orchestra that toured the Northeast regularly. Because we lived a distance apart, I only had about 9 lessons with him before he passed in the spring of 1985. It was shortly after that that I had my first studio session as a violist. By the time I was in college at BU, I had played several recording sessions and students at Berklee would have me come in to play keys on their production project because I didn’t sound like a Berklee player.
My interest in writing stories led to me entering writing competitions in high school and winning school and city-wide awards. In college, I began writing skits and sketches for the drama collective’s coffeehouse shows. Around this time is when I joined New African Company, New England’s oldest, continuous professional Black theater and became a student and apprentice of the late playwright and director, Lynda Patton; and actor, director, and professor, the late James Spruill. Through immersivity studying all aspects of theater, I discovered that my strengths were writing, directing, and acting… acting being the least interesting aspect of theater for me. I also became the company’s composer-in-residence, creating and collaborating in making music for numerous shows, plays and musicals.
The underground side of the music industry was what drew me in. From sneaking into the Paradise Garage as a high school student, to promoting independent records in Boston to get into clubs under-age, to producing dance music for independent labels and self-releasing my own recordings. I never made a killing, but I always made a living. My first studio session was in 1985 and it happened because I was in the room with my viola, just observing the production process, and they needed a string player to fatten out the synth string parts. I remember doing about 2 hours of playing and being handed a small wad of bills. This was New York City and I had to make it back to the Bronx. I remember lining my sneakers with the bills to avoid getting robbed. I later did some keyboard work for Jazzy Jay in his studio when he was in Westchester Square and later above a fruit and vegetable market on Allerton Avenue.
In college I majored in Music Composition & History, and my composition. focus was music for film and television, which opened two new interests for me: I started making music for my friends student films which drew me into film and video production and I began working with MIDI and audio production in the school’s newly growing electronic music program. I began producing recordings in the electronic music studio and sending the results out to the various indie labels in New York. Going into senior year, I was given an offer by a label that looked really shady… because it was. I had just finished reading a book called: How to Make and Sell Your Own Record and also came to know a singer with a group who also had his own label and guided me in becoming my own label as an artist. Bobby “T-Boy” Taylor of Cheryl Records/T-Boy Entertainment helped me secure a distributor (MTI International), and from having done record promotions, I knew all of the club and radio DJs and record pools in the region. In March of 1990, I released my first single from my dorm room, with a record release party at The Hub Club in downtown Boston, and delivered a couple of hundred to my distributor in Long Island City. As a poorly mastered first release, the record did rather well and the local radio station’s manager -who at the time was Stephen Hill, now an executive at BET- used my record for commercials and ads running on the station which boosted by airtime credits.
After taking the video production courses at the local public access station, I enrolled in BU’s grad program in film, finishing as a screenwriter (because my cinematography was terrible). I later emerged as a skilled film and video editor. Degree in hand, I found myself drawn back to live theater, largely because of its affordability. One of the skills that my time with New African Company had developed was teaching and I found myself subsidizing my arts career as a teaching artist in schools and community programs, including a stretch as a theater and music teacher at a public high school in Boston.
I produced a band recording of some of my compositions that got play on local radio stations in 1995; but in 1999 I came out with a single called “Thief in the Night”. The thing to remember was that the Internet was not as regulated as it is now and it was a lot easier to use the Internet as a means of promoting your music through sites like mp3.com, BlackPlanet.com and various email listservs and chatrooms. Through these means I was able to network with other indie artis and created a promo co-op where we would promote each other’s releases in our respective regions while we promoted our own records, a move that made us look more like indie promoters than artists. I was also able to book shows up and down the east coast, leading to me selling over 20,000 copies of my CD and getting an offer from a major label. This might sound like a dream come true but what I discovered was that the major labels were trying to suppress the rise of indie artists and those who were gaining large scale indie growth were to be offered deals, signed to a contract, and prevented from creating and selling music. Essentially, a way to knock out the competition. The labels had effectively sand-bagged several artists with this method; but I was apparently one of the few who had a lawyer look at and make modifications, as I was able to exit my contract with minimal repercussions and no “NCC” (No Competition Clause that prevents you from recording elsewhere for a period of time).
I also began getting my plays produced around the country including Off-Broadway houses in New York City, like The Harlem Theatre Company, The Nuyorican Poet’s Café, Live From The Edge Theatre, The Afrikan Poetry Theatre, The Duke, and the American Globe. What made this particularly gratifying is that many of the plays that were roundly rejected by Cape Cod, ended up getting produced in New York City: “OM! A Street Corner Griot’s Comedy”, “Working Things Out”, “Look at My Shorts”, “Out! By The Roots” all enjoyed full houses and won grants and awards and ended up bringing me to the attention of UMass Dartmouth’s English Department who was looking for a new film and theater professor. As a student of Lynda Patton, writing historical drama was a part of my training, including the research aspect. These skills were called to use when I was requested by the Prince Hall Grand Lodge to write plays depicting the formation of African Lodge in 1775; which led to a series of short plays called “Among Brothers”. Since 2008, one has been performed at the opening of African Lodge 459, which occurs bi-annually.
The GroovaLottos started in 2009, growing out of a jam session between studio session and touring players living on or near Cape Cod. We were all pretty burned out from our industry experiences and just wanted to play our music on our terms. Two years of jamming turned into playing out at community events and local venues, and eventually a soul-funk band became a regional legend. Being a mostly Black and Brown band in New England, especially Cape Cod and Plymouth, proved to be an interesting experience as many venues -including community organizations- were not welcoming at all. I became very good at creating our own gigs with venues and community groups, creating a direct following. When our debut album, “Ask Yo’ Mama” we had a national radio campaign, gigs booked all around Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island and virtually no venues on Cape Cod. I came up with creating a street tour, where we would set up on street corners and in parks around Cape Cod and perform through an application of local and regional free speech laws. “The PHUNK HITS” tour provide to be highly successful in two ways: we discovered we made more money in a bucket in a shorter time than we did at and of the venues; and that people who bought our CD on the street proposed the project to the Recording Academy and we ended up with 4 Grammy nominations that year and an additional two the next year.
When I opened Polyphonic Studios, The GroovaLottos bass player, Chuck V. is a master engineer with whom The ZYG 808 (GroovaLottos drummer and WAMPTRONICA’s principle DJ) studied and is now a rising engineer. The GroovaLottos also serve as the core session players for client’s projects. Since the pandemic hit just as we were opening, we ended up with a lot of in-house music productions; thus leading to the creation of a label that we could use to release all of this music and Poly-Groove Records was born.
We also received a grant from Mass Development in 2023 to create a STUDIO MOBILE, where we have purchased and are currently modifying a camper into a mobile, 36-track recording studio and sound system. One of our popular activities is called “STUDIOKE” where people select a song and sing it like in Karaoke, but get a personal recording of the performance to take home.
Currently, I’m co-producing the debut album for WAMPTRONICA, called “The SESSION” and helping put their tour together, and I just completed production on my solo album, THUNDERCHILD which will be out as a CD and on Bandcamp in June 2024 for Black Music Month. Some of the songs, “A Party at the Crossroads”, “Always Right There” and “Awakened by a Noon Day Sun” are out on streaming platforms already. I also have music out by The GroovaLottos and Wamptronica.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1) Tenacity – Everything that I’m really good at now, I was really bad at when I started out. 2) Critical Thinking – Observation, experiences, and analysis have saved my career and life on numerous occasions. I tend to be pretty good at figuring things out. I’m also good at explaining them to others once I’ve figured it out.
3) Creativity – I have mastered several forms of self-expression: music, storytelling, and media production (film, graphics, etc.)
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
There are actually three books that I recommend to my students, and if they were really close, they would get them as a graduation gift: The PRINCE, by Nicholo Machiavelli
The Art of War, by Sun TZU
How To Win Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
Contact Info:
- Website: http://daphunkeeprofessor.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/mwalim
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/mwalim7
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwalim/
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/mwalim
- SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/polygrooverecords
- Other: http://polyphonicstudios.com http://thegroovalottos.com http://linktr.ee/wamptronica
Image Credits
Polyphonic Studios, LLC
