Tia “Mz. Konnoisseur” Hamilton (CEO of State vs. Us Magazine)

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“Four walls may hold your body, but it does not have to keep your mind.”

Her energy was intense, and right away you could tell this woman meant business. This was not my first time speaking with Tia Hamilton. We had featured her on our sister station MyTCNTV Network a few years back, and I was instantly captivated by her confident and vibrant energy the moment I first spoke with her.

Her energy matches the physical manifestation of an African Queen. There is just something about her in-your-face looks, bleach-blond hair, curvaceous body, contagious smile, and throaty laughter. It is the type of energy that draws attention without her having to ask for it. It is hard to imagine that the woman I was speaking to had once been charged with kidnapping and attempted murder. It was even harder to visualize that she had run an interstate drug ring.

It is the relationship that she had with the streets, and that she has with her past that inspires her to advocate for people caught up in the system. In no way does she try to hide from her past. If anything, it is her history with gang life and incarceration that has helped her become the business mogul she currently is.

Writing under the moniker “Mz.Konnoisseur,” Tia Hamilton is the founder of State v. Us, which was nominated in 2018 & 2019 for the Titan Arts Award for Magazine of the Year, and won the 2019 Publisher of the Year (Middle River, MD).

“This magazine is exactly what we need right now! It tells the stories that the evening news doesn’t tell from the voices of the people that lived through it. Giving us a peek on the inside of the walls and those on the inside a peek out. State Vs Us is what we have been missing!” Tasha (State V. US Subscriber)

The magazine provides a unique visual outlet highlighting: high profile cases, wrongful convictions, and corruption that is running rampant in the United States of America. It also showcases success stories of individuals who have made it out of prison, and completely changed their lives around. The stories provide real life examples of how to handle encounters with the law, it offers: financial, real estate, and legal advice, as well as highlighting the best in entertainment.

Tia has worked hard to secure distribution in both correctional facilities. She takes pride in her product, and she does this for the incarcerated audience. Each edition of State V. Us has a glossy, full-colour cover, and it is printed on thick, coated pages. Each volume features the successes of formerly incarcerated individuals, backstories behind popular cases, and opinion pieces on subjects important to the black community. You will find articles about mental health illnesses, images of beautiful, bodacious, and tantalizing black women (a deviation from the conventional beauty standards), and community stories that are meant to motivate and inspire.

State V. Us has definitely been a labour of love for Tia, and during my talk with her, I was able to learn more about what motivates her, what pisses her off, and why she does what she does fearlessly.

“I was born ready,” Tia began. “Energized ready to go. I was always active, involved and doing things. I was always able to lead my team. I was always a leader. I grew up in a life of crime, and so it came natural to me. I had family members doing it so getting into the lifestyle was not hard.

I became the woman of the block. I was a drug dealer, and I was successful at it. It got so good that at one point, I was running a county. I was moving units, thank God, I didn’t get caught doing that.

God always wheeled me back in, and I knew that God truly had my back after my kidnapping, and attempted murder charges. I said Lord, help me through this and I will do right.”

Tia decided to walk away from the street life after an attempted murder charge against her was dropped in 2007. Her story is one of self-defence, but because he was hospitalized, she caught the charge. Before the case went to trial, Tia tells me that she prayed to God, and asked him to help her.

“I promised God, ‘if you get me out of here, I won’t sell no more drugs. I will act right and get my life together. Fourteen years later, I am doing exactly what I promised God I was going to do. The promise that I made to him I kept.’”

“To me, it was the same grind, different product.”

It was time for Tia to show people different ways of becoming successful. “I speak 100%. I challenge people to check me. Don’t run your month if you don’t know what you are talking about. With the respect I had in the streets, I didn’t have a problem making this change in my life. People respected my decision. They respected my hustle.”

On December 15^th, 2019, just before the entire world changed, Tia opened Urban Reads Bookstore located at 3008 Greenmount Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland. She opened it because other bookstores wouldn’t put her magazine in their stores. So, Tia and her parents combined their funds to found Urban Reads. It features a collection of works by formerly and currently incarcerated people.

“I created a space for black authors to sell our books in the black community. When I first wanted to open the store, my application was denied because the mall owners said I was too political. That didn’t stop me. I found a space, and now we sell CBD products, Sea Moss and children’s books.”

I was curious about how COVID-19 had affected the magazine and the business.

“COVID-19 has not been hard for me,” Tia remarks. “COVID-19 can’t fight. Nothing is going to pull up and stop me; nothing that can’t look me in the eye. I can’t stop now. There are people who are counting on me. Blacks in America are overrepresented in the prison system, and this system has broken down the strongest men.

Some of the stories I hear hurt my heart. There are women in some prisons who can’t even get sanitary napkins during their time of the month. I even heard of a story where an elderly woman was sick and they left her on the ground in her cell for four hours. You can’t tell me that it is okay to do this to people.

We, as a people, have a lot of things we have to work on. We have to educate ourselves on what our rights and freedoms are, and we have to take it to the streets. We have to fight for the rights of those who are unable to do so. I won’t stop doing this. Never!”