We were strangers meeting in a small lounge in Washington Heights. My first open mic, It was a huge moment for me. & this is where I had the pleasure of meeting Divino DeNegro, a man that holds many titles & does more for the community that all of us only dream of doing.

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A man of many words (as you might notice from our lengthy feature), but his words are ones you should listen to. I take notes whenever I see Divino doing something new for the community. Only hoping to one day do half the things he does!

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Sit back & take a look at the man of many names & many talents…

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Tell us in a short paragraph what it is that defines Divino. Maybe I could just throw a list of things here. Knowledge, Hip-Hop, Afro-Dominicano, reflective, understanding, major dreamer, a natural romantic, about unity & the finding of the original or natural self and the expansion of that self. And a dose of procrastination in a major battle against it lol. And a hunger to see the best example of humanity possible.

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When did you decide to become an activist of your community? Honestly, I don’t know. As a kid, I was always sensitive to the suffering of people. I remember being in JHS at Salome Urena I.S. 218 and coming across this book that put the propagandized generalizations of MLK & Malcolm X against each other (I can’t remember the name of the book). But, I remember walking out of that book thinking, MLK’s cool, but Malcolm’s that dude! Then there’s Rap music. It got me into wanting to know about history, government, society and all that. Drug dealers would school me on police and law and advised me to NOT sell drugs, because they believed I could do better. I would also see fiends in my lobby defecating, having sex, shooting needles, smoking crack and all that, where my friends and I would play. Or they would be behind the staircases on the first floor in my hallway. We would run past them down these stairs that were next to the back of that same staircase. There was a little window next to it and we’d run down into the alley behind all the buildings and play, and we would find needles and crack vials. In different alleys you might even find bodies, literally. My mother even told me about drive-bys on my block when I was outside that spat bullets that could’ve hit me or anyone, while I was learning my G-Strut (the name of my walk). The crack wave had this going on all over NYC and that’s where education began.

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Rumor has it you’re known to have Diddy style & change your name often, why is that? & what is your real name? Haha. I have changed my name quite a few times. It’s reflective of the state of my self and what I was understanding and what I wanted to project of myself at the time. I had plenty of names, like Lucky and others, but in 1999 I started studying Supreme Mathematics and the knowledge of self through the teachings of The Nation of God & Earth aka 5%. The Gods & Earths formed in 1963 in Harlem by Clarence 13X Smith aka Father Allah (or just The Father) who was a minister/teacher in Temple 7 in the Nation of Islam under Malcolm X. In the NOI you’ll acquire a name like X, Muhammad, Shabazz, or a few others, representative of the disconnect that we have with our original cultures and people due to slavery & colonization. But through the NGE you’ll take on the names of either Earth (women) or Allah (men) as to claim the highest title & responsibility (key element that some forget) as a realization of who and/or what the true self is. The primary teaching is that the Original man is God, symbolized by the Sun and the Original woman is the Goddess or Earth. This promotes the accepting of self as the master of one’s own living blueprint, and the duty to present that option for others to learn, in the event that knowing thy self is as important to them as it may be my own self. Of course this is under every individual’s own personal interpretation and judgment, if they practice these ideals or not. I’m merely speaking for myself and how I understand it to be right.

What are your plans for the future, what events, ventures are you
planning to take? The future’s always on my mind, but I am focusing on making The WHAT? Show and it’s team behind it, a little bigger and more organized. One of the immediate things is that The WHAT? is going to be more involved in communal initiatives that help youth primarily in the department of the entertaining arts and also the development of their character and mentorship as well. I’m very sensitive to the realities that young boys and girls go through.

In 5 years what do you see yourself doing & what will become of Divino & his movement? Stable, that’s first lol. I do want to live off what I do. That’s just being real. I’m making strides to go back to school, so in 5 years, I’ll be much closer to finishing that mission, have at least 1 book published and have opened up at least one company by then, if not 2. In The Heights, of course.

What should people know about you that they might not already know? The main element of who I am is love. That’s what motivates me to be better and want better for others. I’m very passionate about that and it’s an element that is involved in everything I do. Love isn’t a thing captured, nor logically graspable, it’s simply in you and living to be expressed. It’s the most natural thing ever. All this competition among humans and these defense mechanisms had to be constructed with the retardation or perversion of love. Meaning love had to be misunderstood to create this type of environment. Love was here before all that, and will always be here. So with a little ambition & Love, there’s so much that we can improve about ourselves and collective eventually. I’m a dreamer, so I understand that to be true, and here to make my life sum up to be a testament of that statement.