Stories & Dispatches
Columns, Profiles, and Reviews, in Full
Stories first published on Yahoo! Shine from 2009 to 2012, plus independent features: the Evolution of a Woman column, author and artist profiles, business advice, and local food. Each one opens here in full, with a link to the archived original where there is one.
Stories & Dispatches
Browse the Stories
Profiles, reviews, columns, and on-the-scene coverage first published on Yahoo! Shine, collected here in full.
Where It Began
The Story That Started It
I did not set out to write for Yahoo! I started because a friend needed help.
One night in East Texas, I found a number for Stone Creek Studios, the studio founded by Boyz II Men, in a magazine article. Kowan “Q” Paul answered the phone. We were friends from the year they opened their doors in 1996 until a few days before his passing.
Kowan wrote, produced, and played for artists including but not limited to Janet Jackson, Boyz II Men, Faith Evans, Will Downing, Redman, Ginuwine, Omarion, Marques Houston, and Patti LaBelle. His songs are still heard across the airwaves. When his health kept him from music, the industry he gave so much to left him stranded and alone. He passed on my birthday. I took it as his way of telling me he would be okay, and to always remember him.
I wrote the announcement to help his family bring him home to Peoria. It became my first piece for Yahoo!, and the beginning of everything on this page. I have stayed close to many of his fellow musicians and, most of all, to his brother, whose books I have either published or consulted on as he published his own.
For Q.P.
From Jive Timer
I hear you, homie…