What happens when a man who grew up without his dad in the house turns that into art, and into the father he wants to be for his own son?

AJ sits down with Brooklyn visual artist Dáreece Walker, creator of the Black Fathers Matter series, to talk about Black fatherhood, presence, and the legacy you build one choice at a time.

Dáreece grew up between Colorado and Nebraska, where his dad wasn't in the home and didn't come back into his life until his early teens. He talks about rebuilding that relationship, what he still picked up from his father, and why he decided to raise his son differently. He and AJ also compare growing up in DC and out West with raising kids in New York today.

In this episode:
- Why Dáreece created Black Fathers Matter while working through his relationship with his own father
- Why he draws on cardboard, and what that material says about the Black American experience
- What he learned from his dad's love language, his music, and the small ways he paid attention
- How photographing fathers with their kids changed the way he parents
- Why fatherhood for him is about leadership, presence, and accountability, not control
- The legacy he wants to leave: a foundation his son can build on

Dáreece Walker is a visual artist whose work has been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post. One of his Black Fathers Matter pieces is in the permanent collection of the Yale University Art Gallery.

See more of his work: dareecejwalker.com

Brad Hopkins spent 13 seasons in the NFL, but he’ll tell you he’s a dad first.

Brad sits down with AJ to talk about the father and grandfather who raised him, and why he chose to raise his own kids with trust instead of fear. He gets into staying present through an NFL season, teaching work ethic to kids who never had to struggle, why a good education shouldn’t depend on your zip code, and what it was like when his son followed him into the league. He also tells the story of the day his father apologized to him.

It’s an honest, funny conversation about breaking cycles, earning your kids’ trust, and the legacy you leave by showing up.

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Every man in Kelin Mark Sr.'s family died too young. His grandfather, his uncles, his dad. He knew he was next in line, and he decided it wouldn't be him.

Kelin has spent over 20 years in education and has been the first Black male principal at two different schools. We get into what he took from his father, what kids with present dads walk into school with, why middle school is the time to lock in, and The Dad Difference Playbook: 100 plays a dad can actually run.


📘 The Dad Difference Playbook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953749046?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
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📱 TikTok: @Kelin.Mark

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Before the summer started, the kids sat down with me and we made a promise: we'd come back at the end and talk about it. This is that conversation.

For the first time, it was all of us, every day, the whole summer. No handoffs, no countdown. I said it out loud back in June — I'd love to have everybody live with me all the time — and this summer was the test of whether that was a wish or a plan.

We talk about what stood out and what didn't (teenagers are not generous with details), what they'll actually miss, and the day I took them back to the apartment I grew up in — the alley, the corner store, the checks I was cashing at ten years old. Two generations standing in the same spot, and only one of them can imagine living there.

And we talk about what I noticed: how much they value their independence now, and what it means to be a father to people who don't need you in the room to know you're there.

Presence > Everything.

Daniel's back — and this time he's carrying something different.

Since the last time we talked, he went from splitting custody two weeks on, two weeks off to becoming the primary custodial parent for his twelve-year-old daughter. He held it through a serious accident. He held it through the dance runs, the school schedule, the sixteen-year-old closed door and the headphones.

Then he made the decision to send her back to her mother.

This one goes somewhere neither of us planned. It starts as a custody conversation and turns into something else — why fathers want so badly to be the first call, what's actually underneath that want, and the shame we carry over a family we were never going to get to have.

We also get into the decisions parents make that cost them and benefit their kids, the double standard around who gets to be the primary parent, and what it sounds like when your child tells you a truth you have no answer for.

If you've ever wondered whether letting go can be the more fatherly choice, start here.

The JMBD Foundation is officially a 501(c)(3). AJ breaks down the two programs it launches with — the HBCU Legacy Scholarship and Ari's Angels — and why a microphone was never going to be enough.

Last week we had one half — this week we run it back with the other. Kelly Burgess, co-host of The Better Baby Daddy Club, pulls up and gives us one of the most honest conversations we've ever had on this show.

Ten kids. Three marriages. And a story most men would never tell on record: walking away from five children, choosing what he calls "the easy wrong instead of the hard right" — and the twenty years of trench work it took to repair it. His daughter once told him she saw him as nothing more than a sperm donor. Today, all ten kids and every ex can sit at one table. This episode is the road between those two moments.

We get into: the ripple effect of leaving (it comes back at 13, at 16, at 21, and again when your kids become parents), blending families the right way — crock pot, not blender — navigating access to your own kids through another man, when the weekend visits stop being exciting, what his 85-year-old father taught him about the pilot light that never goes out, and the legacy answer that closes every episode: "I showed up. I answered the bell."

If you've left, if you're thinking about leaving, or if you're doing the work to come back — this one is for you.

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This week we're back with one of my favorite dad pods — John from The Better Baby Daddy Club pulls up, and it gets REAL. His dating rule stopped me cold: if a woman is ready to meet his daughters, she's ready to marry him. No revolving door around the kids. Period.

But that's just one piece. We get into raising daughters as single fathers, why neither of us had a blueprint (shoutout Uncle Phil), turning a war zone co-parenting situation into genuine peace, why chasing a son almost made him miss what he had in his daughters, and the legacy question that closes every episode — his answer might change how you think about your own.

John also breaks down The Bridge Program Inc., his nonprofit fighting the summer slide for youth in Laurel, MD through academics, AI literacy, fitness, and letting kids build real businesses. First week is FREE → thebridgeprograminc.org

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