Before They Were Famous

Before becoming a part of the next wave of Afrobeat hitmakers, the artist known as Tems was born Temilade Openiyi on June 11th, 1995 in Lagos, Nigeria. With her father being British Nigerian, Tems and her family moved to London when she was still just a baby. Still, they’d return to Nigeria some four years later where her parents got divorced shortly thereafter. From that point forward, Tems was raised alongside her brother, Tunji, by their mother in the neighborhood in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. On Sunday everyone would attend the same local church and everyone in their community always seemed to know everyone else. With Lagos being such a big city and Tems having a quiet demeanor, she often felt alone in the midst of the sprawling capital and so she began writing poetry as a means to deal with her complicated emotions

Despite most of us having to spend 2020 under lock-and-key, Jamaican dancehall artist Skillibeng spent the majority of last year spreading his name all around the world thanks to some great tracks. Without a doubt, the last year has provided Skillibeng with a string of breakthrough moments, including the release of his single “Brik Pan Brik”, jumping on a remix of Pop Smoke’s “Dior”, and dropping his debut mixtape “The Prodigy” which featured an appearance from his mentor, Popcaan. Today, Skillibeng is arguably more popular than his former idol and he knows he needs to continue working hard to keep it that way. And my man ain’t kidding – that “Prodigy” mixtape I just mentioned, well, it features over 30 tracks because Skillibeng understands that you need to make hay while the sun shines -- a lesson he learned after nearly losing his life in an automobile accident a few years ago.

BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would forge an impressive career for herself as the mastermind behind Game Changer Publishing. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would extend her brand by offering her clients a suite of professional programs designed to help them become their very best. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would have nearly 1K Subscribers on YouTube and 108K followers on Instagram at the time of this recording. One sure fire way to make an impact on the world is to write a best-selling book. Unfortunately, the process of getting that book published can be a dauting experience for darn near anyone, especially if you don’t happen to have the necessary connections in the industry. But that’s where entrepreneur Cris Cawley comes in. Over the past two decades, she’s devoted the bulk of her time to starting her own company known as Game Changer Publishing and along the way she’s helped a whole host of people accomplish the dream of publishing a successful selling book in 90 days or less. Not only that, but she’s also an award-winning coach and consultant who offers her clients guaranteed ways to succeed in growing their brands. But sometimes it can be hard to believe the hype when you don’t know anything about the person promising to change your life around for the better. So, today, we’re going to introduce you to Cris’s story and give you a taste of how she accomplished her remarkable achievements on our newest episode of Before They Were Famous!

Before almost single-handedly winning France the World Cup with a rare hat-trick in the Final match of the tournament, Kylian Mbappe was born on December 20th, 1998 in the city of Paris -- and as the athlete himself once suggested in a children’s book made about his life, from the very beginning, Kylian Mbappe was born into football. In a lot of ways, you could also say that Kylian was born in the right place at the right time. His local football club, AS Bondy, was where his Cameroon-born father, Wilfried, used to coach under-15s and would go on to train more than a dozen top professionals -- but it was his son that Wilfried always had the greatest designs for. Of course, it wasn’t just Kylian’s parents who wanted greatness for him – he wanted it for himself, and from a young age too. At just six years old he learned every line to France’s national anthem while explaining to his teachers at school that he was doing so in preparation for playing in the World Cup. At that same age, he’d also watch interviews of his many heroes, studying how a talent like Cristiano Ronaldo would handle the media and then pretend to hold his own press conferences by posing questions to himself in what would eventually become three languages – his native French, as well as English and Spanish -- the foreign languages he studied at a private Catholic school.