“My mom went to Spelman for about two years and she pledged AKA, and she just started educating me more about HBCUs and I kind of just did my own research,” Leach told me in an interview. He said his research on the country’s 107 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) led him to Howard, the only school he applied to.
“In hindsight it was kind of scary,” he said.
At Howard Leach was a Broadcast Journalism, and also had a minor in economics, and he had his eyes on excelling during his time at Howard from the very beginning, too.
He even had an opportunity to work with Bloomberg Business. Leach also became a member of clubs and or organizations on the campus. Student Government, Kappa Alpha Psi, and a few others but it wasn’t until his time on the Homecoming Steering Committee that he switched gears and got into the entertainment realm of journalism.
“That’s when I started learning the ins and outs of the business and I began hosting events as well,” he said.
Since then, Leach has taken the necessary tools to carve out his own lane in the field.
Now a man on a mission in the entertainment industry, Leach has interviewed the likes of Kevin Hart, Mary J. Blige, and Queen Latifah amongst many more household names, having experience interviewing top celebrities for new movies already in his young career. Though Leach doesn’t believe that the journey is a quick one, “It doesn’t happen overnight; you really have to put in your 10,00 hours,” he said.
“You can look at Ryan Seacrest and Terrence J, but everybody’s path is different,” Leach said. “You don’t want to have that crab in a barrel mentality so you just have to do your own thing.” The secret to his success is, that there is no secret.
There are no calculated formulas that got leach to his position. In his trek to become a successful entertainment journalist, Leach says there’s no set path to getting there.
In a world where there are so few African-American journalists, Leach admits that he’s saddened by it. “It’s kind of disappointing sometimes,” he said. “I mean I’m happy for myself but you can’t celebrate with your people sometimes.”
“Sometimes when I go into these interviews, if I’m not the only black journalist there, I’m definitely the youngest. It’s still a feeling that I’m working out so I don’t really have an answer for it but it’s something that I want to use my platform to continue growing just to show other people that they can do it.”
While he agrees that there should be more African-American representation, he also believes that blacks shouldn’t pigeonhole themselves either. A piece of advice from comedian Kevin Hart has stuck with him for quite some time, “While I was interviewing Kevin Hart, he said something along the lines of you know take the black category off of yourself,” Leach said. “Don’t pigeon hole yourself like that…you’re good at your craft, then be good at your craft, they’re going to see your color regardless.”
“I never want my color to be a burden, because I see it as a beautiful thing, so it’s it something that’s going to propel me no matter what I do.”
