Rising Stars: Meet Jazmine Bunch

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jazmine Bunch.

Hi Jazmine, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m 23 years old (soon-to-be 24!) and I’m a storyteller, creative and mover+ shaker: I make things happen. I pride myself on being a Jazz-of-all-trades: I write, edit, shoot, produce, and I’m a poet and on-air personality. Hailing from the humble town of Ahoskie, North Carolina: 4.32 square miles in all its glory, growing up in a small town most people have never heard of and a lot of people don’t make it out of, I had to learn to become a storyteller as a means of survival. I learned to take the world around me and create a narrative that’d make others stop, listen and care. I’m the youngest of 6 and the first in my family to go to college, where I attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated with a degree in Broadcast Journalism.

From a young age, I knew I wanted to be a creator. From creating and performing dance routines with the neighborhood kids to starring in my own YouTube channel where I became “Jazzy B” the rapper, to developing a love for creative writing in school; it was always in me. The first time I was challenged to learn and recite a poem, I remember feeling a rush of taking someone’s words, someone’s story and bringing it to life. From then on, I was requested for performances all across my hometown of pieces ranging from Maya Angelou to excerpts from Dr. King’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech. I’d always been a writer and I was no stranger to performance, but in college, when I joined the premiere spoken word collective, Ebony Readers Onyx Theater, or EROT, is when I began performing my own poetry and the moment I truly became a “poet.” EROT gave me the opportunity to stretch creatively as a writer and performer and afforded me the opportunity to perform on three of Carolina’s biggest stages, opening for guests like Logan Browning and Michael Eric Dyson.

During my time at Carolina, I studied journalism with the intention of becoming a reporter and anchor, but after the racial tensions in the summer of 2020 and losing my blood brother to a gun incident, I knew that I couldn’t be confined to a career that didn’t allow me to be 100% my black self, and especially one that didn’t allow me to speak up when people who looked liked me were dying on national T.V. Following a string of other shootings in my hometown that summer, in an effort to release this feeling of collective black trauma and personal grief I was experiencing, I wrote a spoken word piece called “A Charge to the Game,” and produced and edited a visual to accompany it. It was received so well among my hometown, current and former residents alike, and the dialogue and community of healing it created was exactly what I needed for myself and career. I wanted to create things just like this that was powerful, stirring, uncomfortable, even to inspire and invoke a response for those watching.

From there, I made the decision to pursue “creative production,” spearheading projects in my final year at Carolina to make myself a competitive candidate for entertainment and film and tv internships and roles. I landed at my current role as an edit trainee at Warner Bros Discovery here in Atlanta (formerly Warner media) in post-production, where I’ve been able to hone my professional skills as an editor. In my free time, I continue to write and produce spoken word visuals, perform at open mics and I do freelance media services under my personal media brand, Fire Aesthetics Media. I had a creative once tell me at a film festival, “People die every day sitting on their stories.” I continue to allow my life experiences; the death of my brother in 2020, moving to ATL on my own in 2021, surviving a brain aneurysm this year, to shape the stories I tell and inspire others not to die sitting on theirs.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has not always been a smooth road, if anything it was the furthest thing from smooth I know. As I mentioned, I come from a small, impoverished town and a low socio-economic family background. Going to college in itself was a major victory, and graduating debt-free was more than a blessing. My time at Carolina was also no easy feat, having navigating being on my own and being a first-generation college student and first-generation professional upon graduating. Losing my brother was a major moment for me, but instead of allowing the grief to consume me, I used it to propel me forward. The aneurysm happened at a pivotal time for me. I’d been in Atlanta alone for a little under a year, 8 hours away from my family and amid a time in my career where I was battling post-grad depression and feelings of being overwhelmed while also feeling major bouts of imposter syndrome and feeling like I wasn’t doing enough. Surviving a random, life-threatening brain injury rooted me in my purpose, inspiring me to take more initiative at my job, start my podcast, “The Heat Sheet”, and explore other mediums of storytelling and self-expression, like my spoken word and becoming a contributor and correspondent for a media company covering entertainment news and events in Atlanta.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I consider myself a Jazz-of-all-trades with skills to create across the multimedia platform: I edit video, with specialty in short-form and creative promotional pieces such as sizzles, trailers and teasers. I write for the screen, digital and print, ranging from short-form copy to creative poetry and long-form narrative features. I shoot video and photography with experience in live event production as a camera op. My professional specialty is editing and post for sure, but overall, I’m known for being THEE storyteller, no matter the medium or platform. The thing that sets me apart from others that I’m also most proud of is my passion and drive. You can teach the technical. You can teach the systems and software. You can’t teach heart. Drive can’t be taught. A burning passion to make and create cannot be taught. I have a drive fueled by passion and this innate ability to be heard. That genuine and authentic passion shines through in whatever I create and produce because nothing was given to me. Nothing was easy. And that always shows up in every finished product of whatever I do.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I really live by the quote I mentioned earlier from the creative, whose name was Reeyana Sehgeh. She was one of the grant-winners whose films were being screened at a film fest I was attending and I asked her what was the final thing that just made her say ‘okay, I’m going to make my movie.” She said, “people die every day sitting on their stories. I didn’t want to die sitting on mine.” After surviving my aneurysm in April 2022, I wrote a spoken word piece from the neuro ICU bed in Piedmont Atlanta Hospital called ‘Testimony II’ about my experience. Prior to the aneurysm, I’d felt stagnant, like I wasn’t truly going for the dream of doing more and especially the dream on being in on-camera. Now, I go for it, whether it’s a role, an opportunity or a project, because I think about how extremely blessed and grateful I am that God spared me, with nothing lost and no lasting disability, so that I could live to tell mine.

Pricing:

• Freelance Editing: $100 Base Creative Fee, $50 p/h

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jazminebunch.com
• Instagram: @jazzonfire_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JazmineBunch
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/1nB0Lyszq3vvLax6F823OJ

Image Credits
Photo #2 (black background, red color gel): @sessionswithariel on IG Photo #3 + #4 (performance/open mic shots): @kayseevisuals on IG Photos #6 + #7 (dark, black background + yellow fur coat): self portraits taken by me!