By Kahu Ekalani

Stacy Spikes was born and raised in Texas. After graduating high school, he was supposed to go to college but instead joined a band and moved to Los Angeles. In L.A he got a job at Motown Records working in the marketing department, then by the time he was 21 he was managing  Boyz II Men, Queen Latifah, and Eddie Murphy. Later he managed Stevie Wonder as well. 

He went on to work as the Vice President of Marketing at Sony, Miramax and Focus Features. In 1997 after noticing the lack of diversity represented in film and being told by Sundance film festival in response to his concern with the lack of diversity being showcased that “if it was good we would show it” Stacy founded The Urbanworld Film Festival, one of the largest internationally competitive festivals representing diversity in film. Urban World is held in New York City annually.

Link to my full report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P3PqUz5ZUimhB3fTIxyiKNuq8KDZxmxOHPUpv7CBm-g/edit?usp=sharing