Christopher Wallace. Tupac Shakur. Marshall Mathers. Sway Calloway. These are just a few names that have shaped the background of hip-hop culture.

On Thursday night, Calloway came to Syracuse University for the event “The Many Hats of Sway,” hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists, which took place in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Calloway provided SU students with his own professional advice. He stressed the importance of being disciplined with your interview preparation, being objective and avoiding bias while reporting and staying progressive minded to adjust to change. He also encouraged attendees to know their value and self-worth in order to create mutually beneficial and respectful business relationships.

Calloway got his professional start as a rapper and break-dancer in the early 1990’s coming out of Oakland, California. Calloway joined MTV as a correspondent in 2000 and has since been able to interview some of the music biggest stars such as Kanye West , 50 Cent and Jay Z both for MTV and on his Sirius XM radio show Sway in the Morning, according to the International Movie Database.

Calloway began the event by allowing the crowd to use the popular line dubbed by Kanye West, “You ain’t got the answers, Sway!”

Soon after the crowd got this off their chest, Calloway asked, “What kind of journalist do you want to be?” After many audience members shared their responses, the focus of the event shifted to his story.

Growing up in Oakland, California, Calloway’s mother did her best to keep her son off the streets by convincing him to play AAU basketball and run track and field. He said these types of activities provided small victories for him and his family while he was growing up. But Calloway believes that hip-hop played an instrumental part of his life, as rapping provided an outlet for him to become successful.

“If it wasn’t for hip-hop culture, I would not be here today,” Calloway said.

Calloway committed himself to learning everything about the industry when he attended San Francisco State University. There, he learned about the law, distribution, marketing and mechanics of the music business. He stressed the importance of mastering every aspect of your craft.

Once he educated himself, everything else soon began to fall into place for Calloway. He used his hip-hop influence to start his own radio show, the “Wake Up Show,” where he and his partner DJ King Tech shifted the platform of radio. Rather than conforming to the radio’s norms of pop music, Calloway played music from groups like N.W.A, Public Enemy, Tupac, Nas, Notorious B.I.G., Eminem and the Fugees.

As his career progressed, Calloway continued to break barriers. When Speedy Mormon, the man who conducted the main interview with Calloway, asked, “Is there a person out there that you haven’t interviewed yet that you would like to?” Calloway could not think of a response.

“Talking to somebody about their past and seeing how they came about gives you a game plan for where you need to go. You might not get all the answers, but you might hear something that’s going to trigger something that’s going to make you work this way or put you on a different path in order to get to something else,” said Wayne Stanley Smith III, a senior advertising major and president of the NABJ chapter at Syracuse University.

The atmosphere of the crowd proved to be one of reverence and praise for a man that excels at what he does.

“This was a great opportunity to connect with people and it broadened my interest in the entertainment field,” said Nardos Zecarias, an undeclared freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Calloway left the crowd with words of advice for future journalists — to create your own seat and to be truly passionate about what you do.

Said Calloway: “Treat your craft as truly special, learn every aspect of everything. The canvas is blank and the grounds are fertile. There is nothing we can’t do.”

Published on November 14, 2014 at 12:31 pm

Contact Ian: ijromake@syr.edu