Who: Dr. Glenn Toby
Company: Glenn Toby Enterprises
Title: Entrepreneur, music legend, philanthropist
How did you transition from being a homeless kid to being one of the founding pioneers of hip-hop?
My family is originally from Georgia. My mother moved up to New York and continued working and raising all of us kids until she suffered a nervous breakdown and eventually succumbed to mental illness because of homelessness. I became homeless at 8 years old and remained homeless and in the foster care system until our family members helped us get an apartment during my seventh grade school year. After being introduced into mainstream society after being homeless for so many years, music was something that was constant in my life. Nothing seemed constant to me at all but music. I started out making mixtapes and pause tapes with my old-school box. The pause tapes became big in my neighborhood of Queens, New York, and begin to filter into the streets of Brooklyn. At the time I was one of the first singing battle rappers and I would rap real sweet to the ladies. That’s how I acquired my stage name, Mr. Sweety G; because I was a sweetheart. As my name continued to build, I collaborated with artists such as Grand Master Flash and The Furious 5, Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Positive K, Kool Moe Dee of Treacherous 3 and Kurtis Blow, to name a few. As my rap career began to plateau I started managing, developing and writing for up-and-coming artists with my business partner, Charles Bishop. We managed L.L. Cool J for four years, we discovered David Banner and brokered major record deals for R. Kelly and rapper Saigon.
When did you venture from the music industry to the corporate sector?
After working in the music industry as a manager, I fell into sports management where I helped to broker a 60 million-dollar deal for NFL player Asante Samuels and soon after launched my international consulting firm, Glenn Toby Enterprises.
Tell us about the Book Bank Foundation.
I founded the Book Bank Foundation in 1997 as an effort to make a positive impact in our communities by providing homeless children and their families resources for combating illiteracy. Our objective is to promote wellness in our communities for physically, emotionally and spiritually disenfranchised families by providing clothing, food, toys tutoring, alternative education, career development and special projects such as celebrity readings.
What current projects are you working on?
I will be hosting two fun-filled days of events to kick off the official launch of the Book Bank Foundation in Houston. The event will take place at Barnes and Noble located at 7626 Westheimer Rd., on Friday, March 18, 2016, at 7 p.m. followed by a community cleaning initiative on Saturday March 19, 2106, at Japhet Creek on Emile Street at 9 a.m. We will reconvene back at Barnes and Nobles to bring the events to a close with a reading and books signing on Saturday at noon. I have also just completed my first full- length documentary titled S.T.O.P., which is an acronym for “Solutions To Overcoming Poverty.” I traveled all around the world and interviewed people in the richest and poorest countries and each shared their ideas of ending poverty. This year, we will be travelling to different churches, colleges and centers screening the film and hosting open forums to discuss the film.
For more information, visit: https://www.glenntoby.com/Home.html.
