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Introduction

What an amazing sight. To think that I was here 20 years ago. Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would be standing here today. It means the world to me to have this opportunity.

To President Casey, the administrators and faculty, distinguished guests, and to the graduates, their parents, relatives, and friends — good morning and congratulations to ´ó·¢²ÊƱ’s Class of 2019! As a proud graduate of ´ó·¢²ÊƱ (Class of ’99), I am truly honored to be with you on such a momentous occasion. And I am deeply humbled by the opportunity to deliver the commencement address in the year when ´ó·¢²ÊƱ — one of the finest universities in the world — celebrates its bicentennial anniversary!

I want to first thank Adonal Foyle.* You are a man of class, a dear friend, a scholar, an athlete, and now an author. My children just bought a couple of your books yesterday.

I also want to acknowledge President Casey for your incredible dedication and commitment to this University. On top of that, you’re pretty cool! He was a captain of the Notre Dame swim team, and if I’m not mistaken, still swims, with the ´ó·¢²ÊƱ swim team today. Not bad.

I also want to acknowledge one of my closest mentors, Professor [Harvey] Sindima, for the many hours spent together in your office when I struggled with a lot of truths, and your sage wisdom, your undying patience, and your profound commitment to aiding me in finding my truth, I will be forever grateful. Thank you.

Today, I want to start with a story about my mother, who has often told me that she loves me with every fiber of her being, and there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it. She had me when she was 21 years old; and did so against the wishes of her doctors. They advised that her heart was not strong enough to survive the pregnancy. Mom disagreed. Now, she did not disagree because she somehow forgot about that fateful Easter Sunday when at the tender age of 9, she was rushed to the hospital with a severe case of the rheumatic fever — so severe that she was read her last rites. Nor did she disagree because she failed to remember how, even though she survived the illness, her heart took such a beating in the process and was so weakened that she grew up unable to take PE classes for the remainder of her childhood. No, she disagreed (as she likes to tell me) for one very simple reason — she loved me and she believed in the power of love. And because she believed in that power, in her power to love, I am here.

Graduates, as you begin your journey into what some like to call the real world — and what at times can no doubt appear to be a cruel, dark and ugly world — I want to talk to you today about your greatest power — the power to love, which is to say, the power to light the world with your truth. In love, you will find the courage to turn down all the noise that is outside you in order to hear your inner voice. In love, you will find the strength to follow your heart and intuition when all around you think otherwise.

Love of Philosophy

I fell in love with philosophy my freshman year at ´ó·¢²ÊƱ (1995), not long after I met the late great Professor Joseph Wagner — he was an intellectual giant on campus, and he had a booming heart to match. And as fate would have it, he taught my first-year seminar, What is Real and What is True. The course, which introduced me to the great works of Plato, pushed me to question certain truths I had been raised by my parents to accept without challenge — from truths about God and religion, to truths about my own life’s path.

One of those truths, as determined by my father, was that I was going to be a doctor. Not because he was a doctor, but because he so fervently believed in both the nobility and financial security of the profession, and he wished that when he was coming of age as an inner-city young boy in poverty, someone took the time to push him in that direction. Looking back — and as a father of identical twin boys, Maxwell and Coltrane — I understand where he was coming from; and his unrelenting commitment to my success in many ways developed in me the work ethic and discipline I now see as invaluable tools for any endeavor. Nevertheless, dad pushed — very hard and from a very early age. He pushed so hard and so often, I had little room to entertain any other possibility; that is, until I met Professor Wagner and spent countless, countless hours — many of which dragged into the wee hours of the night — discussing everything I had once taken for granted, down to the very meaning of life.

It took a good two years, during which I actually dropped chemistry and struggled to keep my head above water in courses like biology and vertebrate zoology, before deciding to walk away from pre-med in order to focus on philosophy and political science. My father was disappointed, and he said as much. I still have a vivid recollection of that moment. But as soon as I made the switch, and pursued what I truly loved, I thrived in the classroom. So much so, that during my senior year, Professor Wagner pulled me aside and suggested, much to my disbelief, that I should apply for a Rhodes Scholarship. That moment, which changed my life, would have never occurred had I not followed my heart, and the only reason I was able to do so, was because of the courage I derived from the power of love — in this case, my love of philosophy and Professor Wagner’s love of teaching. Professor Wagner remained a dear friend and mentor long after I graduated from ´ó·¢²ÊƱ — right up until we lost him to cancer in July of 2016. He never got to see me run for Congress, but he lives on in everything I do, and in the lives of so many other students he taught and mentored. I miss him dearly. May God rest his soul.

Love of Hip Hop & Justice

You see, life has taught me that to dream big, you need love. It was my love of hip-hop culture and the pursuit of justice that pushed me to become the rapper AD, the Voice; it didn’t matter that I left family and friends scratching their heads, wondering why a Rhodes Scholar with a Harvard Law degree and mountains of student debt (my parents often reminded me) would move to LA to become a struggling hip hop artist. For five years, I toiled away, sleeping on air mattresses, dining on cup-o-noodles almost daily, and taking on odd-end jobs, from being a parking lot attendant to an apartment janitor, in order to pursue my passion and rap about things like the perils of inequality, violence, and hate. Was I successful? Ce