Poet, filmmaker, author, rapper, professor and the next Lafayette College commencement speaker, MK Asante ‘04, thinks of different art forms as unique languages.
“I think it’s really about communicating and sharing with people, connecting with people,” Asante said of art. “The more you understand the principles of language, it helps you learn new languages.”
Asante has explored many different “languages” in his career. He started a production studio, co-wrote the official Monday Night Football anthem, hosted two Snapchat original shows, authored five books — including two memoirs — and is a professor at Morgan State University.
Turning observations into obligations, a philosophy he practices in his work, is a theme that may appear in his commencement address, Asante said.
“If there’s something that doesn’t exist that needs to exist, if there’s a way to help people that doesn’t quite exist yet, then it’s our obligation to create those pathways,” he said.
Asante had “lived a life worthy of a book” before matriculating to Lafayette. That book — “Buck: A Memoir” — was released in 2013 and follows Asante as he navigates the “wilds of urban America” and a “self-destructing family.” It became an NAACP Image Award finalist for outstanding literary work.
“Buck” was praised by poet Maya Angelou, who wrote, “Yes, MK Asante, please continue to live, to accept your liberation, to accept how valuable you are to your country and admit that you are very necessary to us all.”
At Lafayette, Asante was a “mean Scrabble player,” inspiring the athletes on his floor to ditch video games for letter tiles.
“They would talk trash and play Scrabble,” he said. “We took it to a whole ‘nother level.”
Asante hit the ground running at Lafayette. Before graduating, he published his first poetry book and started writing his first film, among other entrepreneurial efforts.
“By the time I got to college, I was very committed, serious, focused on what I wanted to do,” he said.
One of these projects — “Focused Digizine” in collaboration with Ben Haaz ‘03 — was a first-of-its-kind video production that gave an inside look into the hip-hop scene. The digital magazine grew into an enterprise, offering internships and independent studies to students while holding offices on Lafayette’s campus and in New York.
Asante believes that Lafayette’s professors challenge ideas and force students to get out of their comfort zone.
“I think what Lafayette taught me is education is not passive,” he said. “You don’t sit down and just download information. It’s an engagement.”
“You’re active,” he continued. “You’re a participant in it.”
Nana Addo Opoku ‘06 — Asante’s college roommate and the son of one of Asante’s Lafayette mentors, religious studies professor Kofi Opoku — called Asante a “once-in-a-generation” type of person.
“He really tapped into something and just basically just ran with it at blazing speed,” he said of Asante in college. “He had found what his calling was and how to exactly craft it.”
Asante is the fifth consecutive Lafayette alum to be named commencement speaker.
College President Nicole Hurd — one of the 11 members on the Presidential Advisory Committee on Commencement — believes Asante is a good fit for this year’s graduating class, who began their time at Lafayette with COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions but exhibited “resilience.”
“I’ve watched you start as sparks, and now you’ve all turned into fireworks,” Hurd said of the current senior class. “I think of MK as a firework.”
English professor Gabrielle Kelenyi, also a member of the committee, believes Asante has a “compelling story.”
“If there’s something that I want students to see, it’s really that that could be me one day on that stage,” Kelenyi said.
Since his time as a Lafayette student, Asante’s mentality towards creating has stayed the same.
“Whatever it is that you want to do, you don’t have to wait,” Asante said. “You can start now.”
