Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Malik Rayshon has found a way to incorporate all of his interests into youth-centered community work. Growing up, he experienced first hand how flawed the education system is. The journey from being a mentee to becoming a mentor led him to discover the potential that he knew he had, but didn’t know how to utilize. At only 23 years old, Rayshon is already a strong force in his community. Whether it’s through youth mentorship, cultural advocacy or music making, he finds a way to make sure that his actions are intentional, productive and make the world a better place. Trey Slyapich, a close friend of Rayshon, shares that “Malik has always been very passionate about music and about helping communities,” which is very clear when looking at his work.
With Oregon having a 2% Black population and Portland having a 5.8% population, Black teachers in Portland Public Schools make up less than 1%, according to the district. As a result, Black students often face extremely different schooling experiences compared to their non-Black (specifically white) counterparts. Inevitably, the disparities lead to Black students struggling in school. The mentorship that Rayshon provides to youth in his community is important because he’s one more Black person that youth can look up to. As a youth mentor who is also Black, Rayshon offers a familial face to Black youth who don’t feel represented and supported at their schools. His lived experiences have made him into the person he is today, and the youth of Portland thrive when there are people like Rayshon in their lives.
How do you know that you’re in a field that you’re passionate about?
I know because it never gets old. It’s always exciting, even in the most mundane moments. A caregiving job, for example, would be much more meaningful than working at Papa Murphy’s. What really guides me in my work is thinking, “what is it that I needed the most?” like, growing up, or really, at any stage of my life — even right now. For example, Black male role models or an artist/mentor kind of thing. I think about things like that, and then try to put myself in those types of positions or create those positions. That way there’s never a question of, “am I doing the thing that my child self would be excited about?”
Is there a specific instance you remember where you knew you were in the right field?
I guess it was getting my first youth development job at the Boys and Girls Club. I was fresh off of Papa Murphy’s, which I hated because it wasn’t meaningful. I love pizza, especially Papa Murphy’s, but the environment was weird. I didn’t feel like it was a very safe environment for a lot of different reasons. First and foremost, I should say this — community service and care-type stuff, that is sort of a family business. Every adult woman in my family is a foster parent or has been at some point, or worked in different parts of DHS and stuff. So, going from Papa Murphy’s to the Boys and Girls Club, I wasn’t really that conscious of that connection, when I got the job. I had an “aha!” moment where I was like, “oh, my God, I’m in the family business right now.” That was awesome. It doesn’t pay well, but it feels good.
Do you have any favorite memories that have come out of your work?
Yes. There was a kiddo at the Boys and Girls Club who had the right amount of needs for no teachers to ever want to even engage with him. And when they engaged with him, it was all very negative — he’s getting stuff taken away, he’s getting told he can’t go to recess, he’s getting his parents called on him every time he acts out, so I recognized the pattern in that. I was fortunate enough to be in an after school position within a school, so I actually got to see a lot of what the kids had to go through in that space. So with this kid — I’ll give him a fake name, Brian — I was able to start sitting down with Brian because he fortunately became a part of the Boys and Girls Club. Because I have my background in music, and I know that hip-hop in Black culture is just a really sort of universal way for a lot of us to connect with each other, I was just talking to him about music and not trying to ask him about his life or like, “why are you struggling?” None of that — I was just trying to connect with him as a person. He ended up coming to my homeroom even though he wasn’t in my homeroom’s grade, just so that he could come hang out with me and talk about hip-hop, freestyle and make beats on the table and stuff. That moment was really awesome for me because I don’t think he’s ever really enjoyed himself in that building. I don’t think they’ve ever allowed him to learn how to do that. It was so significant because my youth work and my music work have always been very separate, and I don’t want that to be the case. So, that was the first moment that I had ever had both energies in that one space.
Is the work you’re doing now something that younger you would have appreciated?
Yeah, when I was in my freshman and sophomore year of high school I was doing really, really bad. Not because I wasn’t able to succeed, I just didn’t care, and no one was making me care. No one was trying and I felt that. So, I fell into partying and skipping school and just doing a whole lot of stuff that I didn’t need to do, which led to me getting expelled. When I ended up at a new high school, the vibe was completely different. I felt like the adults in the building wanted to see me succeed. They didn’t want to get me in trouble. They wanted me to pass their class, but more than anything, they wanted me to be able to pass the class mentally and emotionally. That was a new thing that I had never experienced before, and while being in that space, they helped me build my resume and helped me get my first job. Shortly after I had started at Boys and Girls Club, I was kind of just looking back at the chain of events, I guess, from me being expelled to getting into a new school and getting into the workforce, specifically the youth workforce. I think back to all of the support that I got in that school, and I recognize that I naturally have a lot of the skills that those same adults who supported me had. So yeah, I just see that and what it has done for me, so I kind of want to be that for someone else.
Where would you like to be career wise in five years?
I am trying to stay present and appreciative of where I am at with my work because I am a very big idea person and I kind of get lost in the sauce sometimes when I’m thinking of how big my dreams are. With that being said, in five years, I really want there to be no divide between my music and my youth work. What I need to be doing is teaching kids how to be artists. Like, babysitting and supporting them in school, whatever, that’s cool, I can do that. That’s important to me. But, I know that it will never feel as fulfilling compared to if I were to, you know, teach a 12-year-old how to make an album or teach, you know, teach this seven-year-old how to cope with their feelings through songwriting. That’s the stuff that I really need to be doing. It might be closer than five years. Who knows? It might be 10 years? I don’t know, but that’s what I need.
Who has inspired you in your work?
It’s mostly me driven, but I will say, I’m heavily guided by legendary historical hip-hop artist and educator, KRS-ONE. He’s sort of known as the godfather of hip-hop, and he’s all about sharing the skills with the kids and teaching them how to have agency over their lives through music. I don’t watch him closely, but I see what he does, and I see the impact that it can have. I mean, I see the impact that it’s had on me.
What advice would you give your younger self?
I would tell myself, “partying isn’t worth it. You are capable of a lot of things that a lot of people you’re sharing space with are not going to allow themselves to be capable of. You are blessed and highly favored, and you need to act like it.” That’s the short version, but I would just be my creative mentor, you know. I’d be my spirit guide because I knew I was talented, I knew I could do cool things, but I didn’t understand why or how that could be important for other people. So, I would just try to convey that more than anything.
Is there anything else you want to share?
I always have something to share. I guess for me, anyone that I interact with in any space, I just want to encourage them to, as cliche as this sounds, to really be their best self fully and truly. I think that’s something that a lot of us, especially as Black and Brown folk, are really trained to not ever do. I mean, I just want to see everyone love their life, and hopefully, by me loving my life as much as I do so openly, and encouraging other people to do so, I can make some sort of change.
Since I didn’t have time to walk around Eugene to find an interview subject, I posted in two Facebook groups I was in (one based in Eugene and the other in Portland), and Malik was the first available person who responded to my post. Our interview was over the phone due to distance and COVID. Ironically enough, he had attended the high school I graduated from but since he got expelled and I transferred in my last year, we never met each other. From his social media posts, I saw that he worked with youth and had a music background, so I tried my best to come up with questions that would allow him to talk about those things. For more information on Malik, feel free to email me at beyasu@uoregon.edu.
