Gala

Although this 3x NAACP Image Award winning actor offers over three decades of commitment to the arts with over fifty film credits and more than a dozen lead roles in network/cable television series, he considers himself a community and youth advocate first.

Born in the South Bronx and raised in Harlem, it was his debut in the 1993 Disney classic Cool Runnings and his performance as NYPD Detective J.C. Williams in the groundbreaking nineties police drama, New York Undercover, that catapulted Malik into the fabric of American culture.

A serial entrepreneur, he is the founder and CEO of Yoba Development, a diversified portfolio company specializing in real estate, education, and media. As a mission-driven firm, they are committed to building human capacity through education and media while simultaneously pursuing sustainable, affordable and market rate mixed-use development projects in transitioning neighborhoods. Yoba Development has active real estate projects in New York, Baltimore, Augusta GA, Chicago and Charleston.

In 2022, Malik received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Livingstone College. In 2023, he co-founded Yoba Global Solutions a federal contracting business with several of his family members where he serves as Head of Business Development and in 2024 was named to the Advisory Board for Sub- Saharan Africa for US EXIM Bank .

IN THE BEGINNING…

At the age of thirteen Yoba was a member of The Metropolitan Opera Children’s Theater Guild and at age sixteen he worked with The Negro Ensemble Company. His stage credits include The Atlantic Theater Company’s The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner, The New Group’s production of Everything’s Turning Into Beautiful with Daphne Rubin Vega and The Delaware Theater Company’s The Piano Lesson.

At fifteen, Yoba was shot by a stranger and left for dead. He had already realized he had a passion and gift for moving others and raising consciousness, but that near death experience solidified his belief in personal and social responsibility; spurring him toward a life of service, creativity, volunteerism, community activism and entrepreneurship.

THE EDUCATOR + PUBLIC SPEAKER

For over three decades Dr. Yoba has been a well sought after inspirational/keynote speaker and host and has presented hundreds of keynotes and workshops to Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, prisons, colleges, universities, high schools, churches and community organizations that focus on various topics ranging from real estate, community and economic development, mental health, diversity, equity and inclusion, leadership, team building, crime prevention and mass incarceration reform.

As a teenager, he made it his life’s mission to use the arts and his voice as his weapons of choice. Yoba was a youth development specialist at the City Kids Foundation from the ages 19 to 24 where he designed and facilitated workshops on leadership, diversity and inclusion, organizational leadership, community organizing, conflict resolution and self- esteem building. Here he was trained on how to use performing and visual arts to educate , create community and promote social change. Yoba and his team served NYC public high schools via the AIDP (Attendance Improvement Dropout Prevention) program where they assessed students, faculty and parents’ needs to improve the quality of the students’ academic experience which resulted in improved attendance, higher test scores and graduation rates.

At 23, he was named Vice President of the City Kids Foundation and served from 1991-1993. For his dedication to youth, Yoba has been recognized by or worked with US Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, The Congress of the United States, The Mayor of New York City, NYPD, UNICEF, McDonald’s Black Achievers, Hale House, The Ethiopian Children’s Fund, African American Mayors Association, The Congressional Black Caucus and more. Over the years Yoba has worked with tens of thousands of young people across America and around the globe. From Yale to Rikers Island High School and the Spofford Detention Center in New York to students at Johannesburg Secondary School in South Africa to young people in Toronto, Jamaica, Korea, Brazil, Ethiopia and Belize Central America.

MUSIC

Before his acting career took off, Yoba was actively pursuing a career in music and was co-musical director for the Jim Henson Productions/ABC produced Saturday morning show CityKids. A published writer with ASCAP, he also wrote the theme song for the Jamaican bobsled team in the Disney classic, Cool Runnings. The native New Yorker has also performed as a musical artist at both Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden and internationally. He continues to write and perform and is slowly recording his long overdue album.

FILM

A working actor ever since he made his debut, his film credits include: The Good Nurse, Copland, Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? and Why Did I Get Married Too?, Smoke, Blue in the Face, Soul Food, Ride, Bad Dad Rehab, Criminal and Betty and Coretta where he says he had the “great honor” of portraying Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. opposite Angela Basset. International productions include the Danish film, Oh Happy Day, the BBC film Turks and Caicos directed by David Hare and Take Point, a Korean action film for CJ Entertainment which was released worldwide in 2018.

TELEVISION

Series regular roles include Empire, Designated Survivor First Wives Club, Alphas, Defying Gravity, Bull, Trinity, Kingpin, Raines and Thief. He has had recurring roles on Revolution, Arrested Development, Girlfriends, Single Ladies and has appeared in numerous guest-starring roles including Justified, Blue Bloods, Limitless, The Good Wife, Person of Interest, Law and Order and Nikita. He also appeared in Jordan Peele’s TBS’ comedy with Tracey Morgan The Last OG as well as the drama series Seven Seconds on Netflix, God Friended Me for CBS. He also hosted TV One’s documentary crime series Justice By Any Other Means.

THE BUSINESS OF YOBA

An entrepreneur from the day he started a paper route in Harlem at the age of eight that he ran until sixteen years old. He opened his first restaurant Soul Cafe in NYC’s Times Square in 1996. In 2003 he established, The Malik Yoba National Theatre (MYNT) Company to create, acquire, produce and distribute content for the urban theatre market. He has cowritten two successful touring musicals for stage, What’s on The Hearts of Men and Acoustic Chocolate, which have been adapted for screen.

In 2006 Yoba became a published author when he co-wrote a book with his sister Akoshia Yoba, titled “Please Return My Phone Call! Preventing the Demise of Personal and Professional Relationships,” a handbook for business and interpersonal relationships that challenges the thought processes of students,

individuals, business owners and billion-dollar corporations as it pertains to interpersonal communication, integrity, accountability, leadership, and proper follow through. Yoba has travelled extensively facilitating workshops based on the book for clients that include, Edward Jones, BNY Mellon, Citrix, Columbia University Film School, Yale University and Morgan’s Hotel Group.

In 2010 Yoba began creating and producing branded digital content for a web series, ShopTalk for Gillette, which he wrote, directed, and starred in and successfully launched on BET.com. This led to a distribution deal with AOL and his continual work in branded entertainment and marketing, where he went on to write, produce and/or direct content for companies including the fashion brand NESH NYC, The American Cancer Society, The United Negro College Fund and AARP, to name a few. Finding this work exciting and creatively satisfying that in 2013 he co-founded a content, brand strategy and marketing firm, iconic32 that used pop culture with a focus on CSR platforms to promote social good for their clients. His responsibilities included business development, strategy, commercial writing /directing and event production.

In 2011 the title “Professor” was added to his list of accomplishments as Yoba completed his first semester teaching a course he developed called “The Working Actor” at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus. In 2017, after a ten-year apprenticeship/partnership as an investor with NYC based La Cite Development, he established Yoba Development and has been able to combine his passions for education, media and real estate with the ground breaking educational docu-series The Real Estate Mixtape, Volume 1: I Build NY, that follows Malik and his cohort of young people aged 18 to 38, as he navigates is first commercial real estate development deal in NYC. In 2023 Yoba Development launched the first ever real estate development curriculum for high school students with is’s ‘I Build NY” program and established a partnership with Pratt Institute School of Architecture. Yoba travels nationally and internationally screening the docuseries at real estate conferences, schools, churches, and community events establishing partnerships for education programs in various cities and deal flow for development opportunities. The company’s slogan “Builder of People, Places and Things” exemplifies Yoba’s life and business philosophy.

PHILANTHROPY

Yoba sits on numerous boards including The Center for Social Innovation, a coworking space for social impact entrepreneurs in NYC and The Boston Arts Academy Foundation (BAA), which supports Boston’s only visual and performing arts public high school. This not for profit provides a diverse student body, the means or the tools they wouldn’t normally have to lead them towards a successful academic college experience and/or professional career, while also teaching them to be actively engaged members of their communities.

PIECES OF A DREAM

In February 2019, Yoba premiered his one man show, Harlem to Hollywood at New York’s famed Apollo Theater. The musical autobiography had been a dream project for 12 years. Co-written and directed by Broadway veteran Kevin Ramsey, the show features Yoba’s original music and provides the audience with an all-access pass to his journey as he flexes deep character muscles and flows between twenty different personas.

In 1994, the New York Times Magazine declared that Malik Yoba would be “An artist who will most likely influence American culture in the next thirty years…” and that has clearly held true.