K’bana Blaq looks to inspire with personal story
It was almost two years ago that K’bana Blaq flew to Germany to do a handful of Prince tribute shows — but the entertainer from Hampton still feels the impact of that trip.
That’s what motivated him to write “Before Success: The Beginning With No Ending,” a concise but highly personal memoir that he is now hoping will inspire kids and students around the region.
“Being away from everyone and everything you know forces you to listen to your inner voice more clearly,” Blaq said. “When we’re around people all the time, we allow it to fill up spaces in our life where we’re meant to be alone.
I’m a very busy person, connected to a lot, and during that time I was in Germany, I just felt so alive and fresh and honest.
“Then I came home, and I felt the box again, the walls. We have to release something, and I had so much joy and newfound understanding, but once I got home I was trying to suppress it again. I had to get it out.”
So he started writing. What emerged was an emotional revelation in which he acknowledged his homosexuality and de- scribed a childhood and adolescence in which he learned to call upon his religious faith and the unwavering support of his mother to deal with the bullying he endured.
Today Blaq is a vocalist for the funk group The Fuzz Band. He is a solo artist, songwriter, actor, director, writer, photographer, model and more. He grew up on the Peninsula and says he uses a stage name to protect his own privacy and that of his family.
But as a child in a military family, moving from town to town, he was a