Today we’d like to introduce you to Bam Woods.
Hi Bam, 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?
Rauheem al-Shakur, professionally known as Bam Woods, is a multi-faceted creative from Beecher, Michigan whose artistic expression spans photography, writing, filmmaking, and imaginative storytelling. As a photographer, author, screenwriter, playwright, and emerging filmmaker, I use my work to explore identity, culture, and the limitless possibilities of creative expression.
Through Glori House, I am dedicated to protecting creative autonomy, preserving ownership for artists, and cultivating expressive freedom for marginalized voices. My passion for storytelling extends into film, where I study Media Arts through Central Michigan University and Lansing Community College while pursuing a minor in Fictional Writing. My creative mission is to bring Afrofuturism to the forefront of science fiction by creating expansive worlds and dynamic characters rooted in African and Afro-Indigenous American experiences.
Photography has become a powerful form of storytelling for me, allowing myself to capture authentic moments of connection, presence, and truth. I believe each image preserves a moment that can never be recreated a reflection of the subject as they truly are.
As 2x author, screenwriter, and playwright, I continue to build worlds through words and visuals, using creativity as a vessel to inspire, empower, and create space for voices that deserve to be seen and heard.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road has been the furthest from smooth. Not only that, but it bends and winds in ways that make the path or even the destination a journey of uncertainty. I’m fortunate enough to have co-creatives and friends that give me small assurances along the way and provide perspectives that call for gratitude at the end of the day. Despite what the journey looks like, I’ve kept moving forward with specific intention in mind rather than an achievement. That for me, I feel has been the catalyst for my latest successes.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I founded Glori House to one day serve as a safe haven for creatives– the ones folks refused to believe in or support, the under-resourced and those whose voices are least often heard. Without revealing too much, I want Glori House to be an essential hub for creativity not just for Flint, MI but artists across the globe. I intend to build a network of team-first minded individuals who just so happen to be trailblazers in their own right.
Firstly, literature is of the upmost importance to me. I want to bring about a renaissance of love for literacy while protecting the creative assets of artists.
Equally as important is the work I have begun as a photographer. I pride myself on minimalist shoots. Being able to capture natural faces, in organic environments with little to no technical assistance is gratifying beyond belief. I hope to allow the world to see images as I see them in real time, through print and feeling captivated by a perspective other than their own. When I eventually begin to represent talent, I would want them to feel at home at all times, protected by their agency and represented with dignity.
Glori House will have an assortment of focuses but it is my wish to have just as diverse a team willing to push the needle and innovate a whole new era of creativity in our way above all others.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Don’t give up. There will be hard times. There will be moments that feel like failure. Remember though, failure is only when you’ve chosen to concede to the pressure of what it is you’re chasing. There will be doubters, naysayers and those who simply won’t support you. Stay in tune with your highest self and believe until even if only one other person does.
Many talk about the faith of a mustard seed, but speak little of the belief from one person and its impact.
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