Private Proposition · For stic and Afya Ibomu · RBG Fit Club
From Jide' Fresh · In Fly We Trust · Cincinnati, Ohio
A new work. Built together, from the ground up.
Peace, stic and Afya.
My name is Jide' Fresh. I am an artist and author in Cincinnati, and I build books that people complete with their own hands.
I am writing to propose a new project, one that does not exist in your catalog or mine. Not an addition to anything you have made. A book the two of us build together from the first conversation: you writing original teachings for it, me creating original art for it, and the two of us shaping what it becomes.
Before the idea, you should know where I am coming from. It is personal, and it is on this page below.
I am not asking for a yes. I am asking for twenty minutes to hear your honest read.
This page is private. It was made for your house only, it is not linked anywhere on my site, and nothing here will ever be announced or published by me. No collaboration exists. This is a proposition, offered with respect.
Why this is personal
I have been with dead prez since 1999. I spent ten years organizing and protesting for the liberation of African people, and the early work helped form my whole political perspective. It was bigger than hip hop to me even then. It was instruction.
The Workout albums and Coach NYM's records were the music I trained to. They pushed me to lose 75 pounds and get my health right before a hit and run nearly took me out in 2018. When the rehab started, two broken legs, a torn ACL, a destroyed shoulder, those records were in my ears again while I relearned how to walk.
I am not a passive listener and I am not writing as a fan. I lived this. The holistic health mentality you teach helped heal me more than once, and I built my own body of work on the other side of it.
The idea
An original coloring, reflection and regimen book on living free and disciplined.
Here is how it works. You write new teachings for this book, in your voice, created for these pages. I create new art for it and build the reflection prompts and regimen pages around a shared arc we shape together. The reader works in the book daily: coloring it, writing in it, tracking their days in it, until the practice becomes a habit they own.
It closes with a 30 day tracker, one day colored at a time.
Shared ground
Two frameworks, built separately, standing in the same place.
| The 5 Principles (stic) | Where it lives in M.E.S.H. (Jide' Fresh) |
|---|---|
| Knowledge | Mental: know yourself, study, unlearn |
| Nutrition | Health: food as fuel and as culture |
| Exercise | Health: movement as freedom |
| Rest | Emotional: recovery, stillness, repair |
| Consistency | Social: nobody keeps a regimen alone |
Your principles are the proof of your philosophy. M.E.S.H. is the proof of mine. This project is where they meet, and what gets built there belongs to neither catalog yet.
“Stic is the people’s champ of holistic wellness in Hip Hop.”
— Erykah Badu, on The 5 Principles
How the book takes shape
A starting sketch, offered to build on together. Reshape it, replace it, argue with it. That is what it is for.
Opening: Two Wake-Up Calls. Your gout story and my accident story. Two bodies that forced a decision, told straight, in our own words.
Know Yourself. Roots, study, unlearning. Who taught you, what you carry, what you put down. Its anchor spread is Roots: a great tree, its roots carrying blank ribbons for ancestors and teachers, its branches carrying open shapes for what the reader is growing toward.
Feed the Fire Right. Food as fuel and as culture. What goes in decides what can come out.
Move Like You Mean It. Movement as freedom. The body as the first territory of self determination.
Rest Is Part of the Fight. Recovery, stillness, sleep. The discipline nobody photographs.
Stay the Course Together. Consistency and community. The book closes on the 30 day tracker, because a regimen kept alone dies alone. Its anchor spread is Regimen: a 30 day path of stepping stones through a city at dawn, one stone colored per day, per promise kept.
On naming: no title is proposed on this page. Naming the book is co-author work, and it happens in the building, together.
On Afya: there is a door open for your voice on the food theme, if you ever want it. RBG Fit Club is a family institution and this proposition treats it as one. The door is noted here once, and never presumed again.
The book itself, in plain terms
Format. A large format paperback workbook, 8.5 by 11 inches, made to be colored and written in every day, and built to survive being carried around.
Length. In the range of 130 to 160 pages. The final count follows the arc we build together.
Inside it. Your original teachings, full page coloring art, reflection prompts, regimen pages, and the closing 30 day tracker.
Production. Produced and distributed through In Fly We Trust, the independent operation behind my catalog and its 10,000 books sold, with copies moving through both of our shops, events and rooms. No outside publisher has to approve this book for it to exist.
Who is making this proposition
My name Jide' is Yoruba for resurrection, and I earned it the hard way. In 2018 a car hit me on my bike and left. My daughter encouraged me to make postcards during the long rebuild. We sold them outside the Reds stadium on opening day, seventy dollars, and a publishing house grew from that table.
Since then I have sold 10,000 books across my catalog, most of them face to face, in rooms, at events, on the street, with no machine behind me. I write and illustrate coloring books, reflection books and growth books for adults, teens and young readers. I run author visits and creative wellness workshops in schools, and everything I publish runs through M.E.S.H.: Mental, Emotional, Social, Health.
From the catalog: Weed and Zen, Hustle and Motivate, Bad and Bushido, Scribble and Scrawl, Jits and Jots, Capes and Come-Ups.
My story in four minutes, made for residency juries originally. It will tell you faster than text can whether I am who this page says I am.
How we work, if this moves
Co-authors on the cover. Both names, equal weight.
You approve every page that carries your words or your name. Nothing with your voice in it ships without your eyes on it.
Ownership stays with the creators. Terms get talked through openly before anything is produced. No corporate publisher is required for this book to exist, and nobody is pitched around behind you.
A pilot chapter comes first: one full chapter section, built together. If it does not move you, we shake hands and it ends there, clean, with everything each of us made still ours.
The book lives where our people already gather: your shop, your events, your speaking and teaching rooms, and my schools, workshops and community rooms on this side.
The ask
Twenty minutes.
A conversation, at whatever time fits your schedule, to walk the idea and the arc and hear your honest read. A conversation first. The decision comes after, with real work in front of you.
Replies reach my team inbox. Temilade Rios works with me on partnerships and will coordinate scheduling, and anything you send comes straight to me.
Prepared October 2026 · Jide' Fresh · In Fly We Trust · Cincinnati, Ohio
Private and unlisted. Please keep this link inside your team.
[email protected] · inflywetrust.com