When I interview people, it is very rare to come across someone who inspires me, but that is what happened when I interviewed Deion Campbell.
The 27-year-old professional photographer, author and host better known online as King Legend 757 has interviewed many celebrities and influencers on his all new podcast. Although there were many positive things that happened for Campbell in 2020, ultimately this will be one of the most challenging year of his life. The successful photographer had to adapt to a new life after contracting COVID19. After spending a long period of time in the hospital fighting for his life and surviving 12 days on a ventilator machine to keep him alive, he managed to overcome COVID19, unlike tens of thousands of other people around the world.
When he left hospital, he was thankful that he survived, but COVID19 had left its mark. The dreaded virus had caused the young man nerve damage to his right arm which meant he could no longer hold a camera and take the stunning pictures he is known for. Instead of throwing in the towel, and getting down beat, Deion decided he would grab his new life with both hands and now runs The King Legend Talks Podcast available to listeners on the iheartradio app.
King Legend Talks has become a very popular and successful podcast, so we decided to find out more about the Podcast and Deion Campbell, to see what motives him and his life as a professional photographer/influencer.
First of all, please introduce yourself to our readers, and tell us a little bit about yourself? My name is Deion Campbell, and I was born October 28, 1993 in Hampton, Virginia. I have always had the heart of an entrepreneur and started my own photography brand known as King Legend Photography. As a photographer I would become well respected and known online as King Legend 757. I have taken photos of celebrities, weddings, events and I also do videography as well. Besides my career, I am a huge fan of the Philadelphia Eagles and I love to travel.Â
Deion Campbell, you have many bows to your strings, like you are a podcast host of King Legend Talks, Photographer, and an author, wow, where do you get time to sleep? Well believe it or not, before the pandemic I actually had less time on my hand. I was on the go seven days per week and still had to try and balance work with time with family. Due to my encounter with covid-19 my life has changed tremendously because of nerve damage to my right arm. I am currently not taking photos or video until further notice. That’s where I get the time to do stuff now.
Just looking around the room and it is just me and you, social distancing of course, so while there is no one here, tell me something that only your mother knows about you? Something nobody knows about me; I have always wished to have that one childhood friend that grew up with me all the way from diapers to graduating high school. I never had that in my life and thought how cool it must be to have a brother or sister that is actually not family but feel like real family because of how far the timeline dates back to when you first met.
Before we touch on your many accomplishments, and I am dying to talk about your podcast and who you have photographed, is it true you caught COVID19? In short, duh lol. If I hadn’t caught covid-19 I wouldn’t have wrote a book on it.
You went through a very traumatic time with COVID19 back in March, and you ended up on a ventilator in hospital for 12 days, and a total 40 days in hospital, has that experience changed the way you look at life? It forced me to realize that all the dreams in the world don’t matter at all if you are able to be alive to make them come true. Health is wealth and without it, nothing else matters but your faith in God and family.
How does it make you feel seeing the tens of thousands of people around the world claim COVID19 is not real? It irritates me to my core. I understand ideas may be different from a person mind who has not directly had a impact in their live other than the lockdown due to COVID-19, but to say the virus is not real is completely disregarding everyone who had a bad encounter with the virus and almost in a sense, calling us a liar or trying to tell us we are the ones who have been lied to.
Donald Trump claimed he had COVID19, but a lot of people have questioned that and believe it was a political stunt. Even when the doctors on the steps of the hospital where he was treated seemed a bit nervous when talking about him, do you think he had COVID19? I wouldn’t know if it was a political stunt or not because I am not a part of those conversations with the president.
Sadly, with the complications with COVID19 it has caused nerve damage to your right arm, so you can no longer pick up a camera, do you see a future where you can do what you love and continue taking pictures? For the record, I will be taking pictures and video again once my nerve damage cease to exist. I am not giving up hope that one day it will be back to normal, and when that day comes, so will my business. In fact, my arm is healing more each month.Â
Talking of taking pictures, you are a very successful photographer who has taken pictures of lots of celebrities, who is your favourite celebrity that you have photographed and who was the most famous? My favourite celebrity I ever took pictures of was rapper Dave East. That was because he was my first celebrity I ever had the opportunity to snap photos of. I would say the most famous would be DaBaby. He just recently received the #1 New Hip Hop Artist Award
Your friends told you that you had a voice for radio, sorry for laughing, but in the UK if we say you have a face for radio it means you are unlucky in love and you could do with a bit of cosmetic surgery. Looking at you, I’m sure you have no problems with the ladies, so when your friends told you that you had a voice for radio, what were your immediate thoughts? My only thoughts were, I agree with them and I thought it would be cool to do that as a career if it was for the right platform.
So, you started a podcast “King Legend Talks”, can you tell me more about the podcast? On the podcast I discuss with celebrity special guest or influencers about their journey to success. We to often see the end result of people we look up to, but don’t know enough about the path they took to separate them from the crowd. What about them mad them unique from everyone else that was doing it? The reason I came up with the question is because I know so many talented people that try hard to pursue their dream but eventually give up because they don’t make it. On my show hopefully we can get the answers that so many people need to know regardless of their walk in life about making their dreams come true.Â
Your podcast “King Legend Talks” has become a huge success, what do you put that down to? I must be doing something right and people are truly benefiting from the show and the content is providing good value to their life.
What celebrities/influencers have you had on your podcast? Fat Joe, JrSportBrief, Mohamed Elzomor, Cupid, Boston Scott and more.
You must do a lot of research when you have celebrities on “King Legend Talks”, but has any celebrity on your show said something that made you think, wow, I never knew that? Fat Joe explained to me how one time he almost passed out from his body overheating from the heat while riding his bike. He told me, in that moment he was on the ground looking up at the clouds thinking to himself, all the money and material things in the world didn’t matter because the only thing that mattered in that moment was his health. Health is wealth, if you don’t have good health, you don’t have nothing.
You want through your podcast to encourage people and motivate them and show them that they can achieve their dreams; do you really think that everyone with the right mindset and tools can achieve their goals? Yes, I believe if you work hard enough and put your mind to it, all your dreams can come true. All success comes with sacrifice, what are you willing to lose to gain what you want? That’s the true question. That could be time with family, it could be money, it could be friends or even family.
If you had the choice to invite any celebrity in the world on your show who would it be and why? I would love to have Jay-Z on the show. Not sure there is one person on this planet who wouldn’t be interested in picking his mind.
For people who want to listen to your podcast, what do they need to do? My podcast is easily available on many platforms, but I only promote iheartradio because it’s a way to track my audience better.
Lets get back to COVID19 again for a minute, you have just written a book about your experience, why did you do that? Honestly, after my encounter with Covid-19 my perspective of the virus had changed. Like, I knew the virus was bad, but I had no clue it was THAT bad. I was used to seeing it blasted on the news and think as long as I stay out of the way, I would be fine. Mentally I asked myself, what are the chances of me catching the virus? I thought, slim to none just like everyone else out still partying having a good time. Whenever a crisis happens in another country, we always think subconsciously that it won’t affect us here in the USA the way it did to them. I was wrong, and I even took minor precautions to prevent myself from catching the virus. If that wasn’t enough to stop me from catching the virus, then the youth was in trouble. Even after I caught the virus, I kept hearing people saying the virus is not real. The world was in need of a wake up call from the perspective of someone who could speak from experience. That was the motivation I needed to write my book Ventilator. I refuse to let people think that I almost died on a ventilator to a fake virus. The virus felt very real to me.
How emotional was it writing your book? There were moments when I was writing where I had to ask myself, do I really want to include that detail? Or is this too much information? I would always bring myself to the conclusion. The whole truth, and nothing other than the truth. No sugar coating the reality of the situation to make it sound good. I also knew people truly respect ones ability to become vulnerable. There are many details in my book where I become completely vulnerable to the reader with my thoughts and emotions.
Your book Ventilator has gained a lot of exposure, is there going to be a follow up? I believe the purpose of the book is being fulfilled and at this time there is no need for a sequel to it. I simply wanted to raise awareness to a virus that has changed my life forever, to enlighten people on the reality of it not being a fake virus.
For more information on the Podcast, check out www.iheart.com/podcast/269-king-legend-talks-73262104/