Today we’d like to introduce you to Kumasi Mack.
Hi Kumasi, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Kumasi Mack, but on the stage and in the community most people know me as Kaizen Kabir.
My journey with poetry didn’t start with applause — it started with heartbreak long before I even knew what heartbreak was. I was 12 when life taught me my first real lesson in loss. For years, my biological father and I built a relationship through phone calls and gifts. I held onto those moments like proof that I mattered to him. But when my mother remarried, the calls just… stopped. No warning. No explanation. Just silence.
At that age, you don’t know how to name abandonment. You just feel it.
I didn’t have anyone to talk to, so I picked up a pen. Writing became the only place I could tell the truth without being interrupted. I wrote because if I didn’t, all that anger and confusion would’ve swallowed me whole. That’s how poetry found me — in the middle of a boy trying to figure out why love suddenly felt like distance.
I finally met my father at 27, and even though we found our way back to each other, the years we lost shaped me in ways I was still learning to understand. In the meantime, I started mentoring youth, hosting open mics, and creating spaces where people could be honest in ways I didn’t know how to be at their age. I’ve always believed community is built from conversation — especially the ones we’re scared to have.
Then 2023 changed everything.
My 14-year-old son, K’mari, drowned — a pain so deep that even words felt small. Six months later, to the exact day, my father passed away too. Losing them both shattered me. It stripped me down to the parts of myself I used to hide. My poetry shifted. My voice cracked more. My truth softened. I stopped trying to be strong all the time and started letting myself feel the things I used to run from.
Out of that brokenness came Purpose Over Pain. Not because I wanted to start something — but because I needed something that would keep me from falling apart. It became a way to honor my son, to heal myself, and to show other people that grief doesn’t have to silence you. It can shape you. It can strengthen you. It can even save someone else.
Today, I’m a poet, a youth mentor, a community activist, and a man still learning himself in real time. I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve questioned my worth, my faith, and my ability to keep going. But I also know this: every time I pick up a mic, every time I speak to a kid, every time someone tells me my story helped them — I feel a little closer to whole.
Everything I do now traces back to that 12-year-old boy who wrote because he had nowhere else to go.
And everything I am now was built on turning my pain into something with purpose.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My story has been anything but easy, and most of the time, I had to grow through things that should’ve broken me.
I dropped out of high school at 17 because life felt too heavy, and I didn’t have the emotional tools to deal with everything I was carrying at home. At 18, I went to Job Corps in Cincinnati trying to rebuild myself, trying to outrun the pressure and the pain of growing up in Muskegon. That’s where I thought I could rewrite my story — make up for the mistakes I made as a kid.
While I was at Job Corps, I made a decision I thought would give my life meaning: I joined the Navy at 18. I went in with pride and the intention of fighting for my country. I wanted to become someone my younger self could finally be proud of.
But instead of honor, I ran into heavy racial discrimination from senior officers. That broke something in me. The stress, the isolation, the trauma — it all pushed me into alcohol and marijuana just to cope. I became addicted in the very place I thought would save me.
I ended up getting discharged because of those addictions. And when I came home, I came home with PTSD, shame, and a dishonorable discharge — something that follows you like a shadow you can’t shake.
Keeping a steady job after that was almost impossible.
Every application felt like a reminder of my mistakes. Employers looked at me like I wasn’t worth the chance. Even when I tried to move forward, my past kept showing up to remind me it was still there.
Then in March 2011, just two weeks after meeting my biological father for the first time, I caught my first felony charge. I was 27 — finally meeting the man I’d waited my whole life for — and two weeks later, my life took another left turn I wasn’t ready for.
A dishonorable discharge on my record.
A drug felony.
PTSD.
And a city that doesn’t make starting over easy.
That combination made steady employment damn near impossible. I spent years feeling like I couldn’t outrun the man I used to be, even though I was trying to be better. Every time I tried to step forward, my past tried to drag me back.
And then came 2023 — the year that broke me all over again.
My 14-year-old son K’mari drowned. Losing him shattered my entire world. At the time, I was going through a divorce — emotionally drained, spiritually exhausted, trying to hold on to the little pieces of myself I still understood.
Four months after losing K’mari, I found out my girlfriend was pregnant. I didn’t even know how to hold grief in one hand and new life in the other.
And then — two months later — exactly six months to the day after K’mari passed…
my father died.
That double loss changed everything about me. It changed how I breathe, how I write, how I walk, how I love, how I show up.
I battled depression.
I battled guilt.
I battled PTSD.
I battled the feeling of failing my kids and failing myself.
I battled the world’s expectations and my own darkness at the same time.
But somewhere in that pain, something shifted.
My voice deepened.
My poetry became more honest.
My purpose sharpened.
And that’s how Purpose Over Pain was born — not as a slogan, but as a lifeline. A way to honor my son. A way to keep myself alive. A way to help others who are drowning silently the same way I once was.
Today, I’m a poet, youth mentor, community activist, and founder. But I’m also still human — still healing, still learning, still standing on a road that was never smooth, but always real.
Every struggle shaped me.
Every setback taught me.
Every loss transformed me.
And all of it — the trauma, the mistakes, the grief, the failures, the rebuilding — is the reason I show up for my community the way I do today.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I wear a lot of hats, but at the core of everything I do, I’m a storyteller and a servant to my community. I’m a poet, a youth mentor, a community activist, and the founder of Purpose Over Pain — a movement that was born from the deepest loss I’ve ever experienced.
My work is rooted in vulnerability, healing, and truth.
I specialize in using poetry and storytelling to open up conversations people usually run from — grief, mental health, identity, trauma, fatherhood, and everything we’re taught to keep quiet. Whether I’m hosting open mics, running youth workshops, talking to kids in schools, or advocating for water safety, I’m trying to create spaces where people feel safe enough to be honest.
I think I’m most known for the way I speak from the heart without trying to sound perfect. My poetry isn’t about being polished — it’s about being real. People tell me they connect to my work because I say the things they’ve lived but never knew how to put into words.
What I’m most proud of is Purpose Over Pain. It started as a way to survive losing my son K’mari, and it has turned into a platform that helps others find healing, community, and support. I’m proud of the youth I mentor, the lives that have been impacted, the conversations that have opened up, and the safe spaces that didn’t exist before. I’m proud that my son’s name continues to live through the work I do.
What sets me apart is that I don’t speak from theory — I speak from experience.
Everything I talk about, I’ve lived through:
• dropping out of school
• joining the Navy at 18
• dealing with racial discrimination
• battling addiction and PTSD
• coming home with a dishonorable discharge
• struggling to find work
• receiving a felony
• rebuilding my life
• going through divorce
• losing my son
• losing my father
• and still choosing to show up for my community
My work is built on real pain, real growth, and real purpose. I don’t try to inspire people by pretending to be strong — I inspire them by being honest about where I’ve been and what it took to get here.
My gift isn’t just poetry — it’s turning my life into a language that helps other people breathe.
What matters most to you?
What matters most to me is healing — mine, my family’s, my community’s, and the healing of the kids coming up behind us. Because for most of my life, I didn’t know what healing looked like. I just knew what survival felt like.
When you grow up with abandonment, when you drop out of school young, when you join the Navy trying to change your life and end up with PTSD and addiction… healing becomes something you spend years searching for without even knowing it.
And after losing my son K’mari and then my father six months later, healing became the thing that either had to happen — or I wasn’t going to make it.
What matters most to me now is:
• being present for my children
• being honest about my struggles
• creating spaces where people don’t feel alone
• showing up for the youth who remind me of my younger self
• turning my pain into something that actually helps somebody else
Purpose matters to me.
Growth matters to me.
Truth matters to me.
And community matters to me — real community, not the performative kind.
Because I know how it feels to think nobody sees you.
I know how it feels to carry grief with no language for it.
I know how it feels when life breaks you open and doesn’t ask for permission.
I know how it feels to be written off because of your past.
And I know how it feels to rebuild yourself from nothing.
That’s why healing is the center of everything I do — poetry, mentoring, water safety, Purpose Over Pain, hosting open mics, all of it. I’m trying to put back into the world what I needed when I didn’t have it.
Healing matters most to me because without it, purpose doesn’t survive.
And without purpose, I wouldn’t be here today.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: k_mack231
- Facebook: Kaizen Kabir
- Other: [email protected]
