Brandon Rainey

Brandon Rainey is a writer, director, national speaker, and arts education specialist. Following graduation from Morehouse College, his career started in education as a Theater & English teacher. Those early years in education led to winning awards from Center Theater Group, Chase Bank students winning 1st place in city-wide theater competitions & Inner-City Barack Obama Award. Following that he served as the Artistic Director of a Charter School serving 15 schools and would later turn a passion project into a 501c3 non-profit (CBG Arts) where he currently is the Executive Director serving various schools in LAUSD & the City of Inglewood.

Artistically Rainey's work has been on a plethora of community and professional stages. One of the greatest highlights was directing the Opening Act of the Michael Jackson Tribute that also featured Quincy Jones, The Jackson Family, Justin Bieber & Debbie Allen. After the death of George Floyd, his most recent play "Hello America" was called upon to do a virtual reading at the Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute.

As a speaker, he has traveled nationally using his gifts and talents to educate, encourage and empower over 60,000 youth and educators with Sandy Hook Promise as their Training Manager. His Ted X Talk “Lifeguard on Duty” is currently on YouTube and he is constantly called on as a motivational speaker and guest facilitator.

Justin "Tik Tak" Walker, one half of the SoufWest music group, is a mogul in the making. In the start of his music career, he filled the role as lead singer of boy band “ANEW” signed to Epic by Max Gousse. With a constantly changing industry the group had a short run however Justin’s determination did not allow him to give up, he instead changed gears and shifted his focus to his first passion: song writing. Fast forward, Grammy award winner and mentor Kirk Franklin introduces him to BET TV Producers which in turn landed him a lead role on BET’S hit show Baldwin Hills. Around the same time Justin became a BMI Award recipient due to his notable songwriting on girl group Danity Kane’s Platinum hit single, “Damaged”.

Justin continued his eager pursuit to actualize his dreams and as a result, he has worked with heavy artists including Ciara, Mario, Pleasure P, Chris Brown, 2 Chainz, Fetty Wap, Eric Bellinger, K Michelle and PartyNextDoor just to name a few. Justin is now Grammy Nominated with the team for his work on Eric Bellinger's Grammy Nominated album “New Light”. His talent has also led to several video appearances with staple artists such as Jada Kiss, J-Lo, Ja Rule, and the late Aaliyah. Extensive travel coupled with the exposure of working with a large variety of artists has allowed Justin to expand his knowledge and skill set as a songwriter and producer

Outside of his music career, Justin has lent his talents towards making an impact in the nonprofit world concerning arts education, mental health & Gun violence. As a trainer with Sandy Hook Promise, he has traveled nationally training and speaking to thousands of young people, school staff & local law enforcement on youth empowerment, gun violence and suicide prevention. As a co-founder of CBG Arts, he taught music classes for the City of Inglewood and produced productions giving inner city youth and young adults an outlet to use their gifts.