West Philly rapper Dappa Samuels traded an accounting job for a neighborhood day care

What happened

In October 2023, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Anthony “Dappa” Samuels, a Philly rapper who by day is “Mr. Anthony,” owner of Young With Options Academic Center in West Philadelphia. The paper noted he has shared stages with Fabolous, and has also performed with Machine Gun Kelly and Ty Dolla $ign. According to the Inquirer, Samuels quit an accounting job in 2017 and, encouraged by a mentor, began operating the center that year out of a rowhouse at 53rd and Market Streets. A Facebook post shared his story again this week.

The Inquirer reported that most of the children come from low-income West Philly families, and that Samuels and assistant director Dinnelle Jordan organize classes in poetry and music. Acting is on the schedule as well, and a dance studio was added in 2023. “My overall vision was to have a creative arts program or creative art school,” Samuels told the paper. He also told the Inquirer that growing up in Strawberry Mansion, he seldom saw Black men with legitimate businesses, especially in child care. 6abc Philadelphia, which profiled him later that month, likewise reported that he left his job in 2017 to start the center.

Parent Janelle Walls told the Inquirer she had brought her daughter there since age 1, in part because Samuels supported her family when she could not afford the fees. “He isn’t at the school preaching positive behavior to the kids and then going into the studio and pushing a different message,” Walls said. According to the Inquirer, Samuels has steered his lyrics away from street life because his students and their parents listen. “I have to stay solid,” he told the paper, adding that he hopes to open more centers. The Inquirer did not report enrollment figures.

Our reflection

Start with the parents. A mother in West Philly cannot work a shift unless someone she trusts is holding her child, and for a stretch Walls could not pay that someone. No care, no shift. No shift, no rent. Then there were the boys in Strawberry Mansion who rarely saw a Black man running a legitimate business, let alone one built around small children. A boy cannot aim at what he has never seen.

It cost Samuels something to change that. He walked away from a steady accounting check. He let a room of preschoolers edit his verses, in an industry where street stories sell. Plenty of people would call that a bad career move. I call it a man settling who his real audience is.

When parents brought their little ones to Jesus, the disciples tried to wave them off, and Mark says Jesus was indignant. He took the children in his arms and blessed them (Mark 10:13 to 16). The men closest to him treated children as an interruption to the real ministry. Jesus treated them as the picture of the kingdom. Nap cots and a fee waived for a struggling mom count in his eyes. Think of the Samaritan, too: he stopped on the road, and then he paid the innkeeper and promised to cover whatever more it cost (Luke 10:35). Nobody preaches on the bill. Covering a family’s tuition so a mother can keep her job is the bill.

Now the uncomfortable part, for me first. Walls praised him for being the same man in the classroom and the studio. Most of us keep two versions: the one the kids see and the one on the phone at midnight. Jesus said what defiles a person comes from inside (Mark 7:20 to 23), and a divided life leaks eventually. Samuels said he can’t snap out because he has to stay solid. That is accountability received as a gift. Self control is fruit of the Spirit, and it tends to grow in people who let someone they love watch them. I won’t crown him. I will pray for him and for those families, and let the years speak.

Look at how this began: a mentor said go, and he opened one rowhouse. A girl who walked in at 1 was still there at 7. Neighborhoods change that way, through one building and the same faces for a long time. It is the conviction behind our juvenile intervention and fatherhood work at We The Revolt. Reach young people before a record exists, then stay with them.

If your church’s classrooms sit empty Monday through Friday, or you are a man who never thought a toddler room needed you, start there. Call the day care on your block and ask the director what they are short on this month. The steps below will help.

Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.

Mark 10:14

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, “At night, he’s laying down verses. By day, rapper Anthony ‘Dappa’ Samuels runs a day care in West Philly”