What are your main services/products?: books, dolls, music and merchandise for each brand.

What inspires you? My inspiration came from so much disappointments in my life and wanting to really make a difference in the world.

What are some of your challenges? Some of the challenges have been not having a big budget to really pull off some of the marketing campaigns that are needed to take my products to the next level. Also, In the music industry, unfortunately,  there are many forms of sexual harassment and I refuse to give in to them to further my career.

What skills have you used to pull it all together? I have used social media, taught myself how to be a manufacturer and work with overseas manufacturer to get my product done.  I also research a lot to stay up on trends.

What are some Upcoming Projects?: My new music video titled, “ MUSIC” and my next two children’s books (Zolie and Tuii)

 I was just going through so much with myself with my own self-esteem and nobody was there to lift me up, to give me encouragement to keep on going. I was feeling like a complete failure because what else could I do that would give me the inner joy that music did. I loved writing poetry too, but I never thought about how far being a poet would take me outside of reading my poetry local poetry spots in Dallas,TX.

One day I was sitting on my bed crying, just tired of everything and God gave me my first story for my book, Learning to Love me: Self-esteem for Children”, The first short poetic story was titled, “In all the world there is only one me”, and it was like God was talking to me by the words that were starting to fill my mind. And the words kept coming and coming and I ended up with 5 short stories. The rest is history! I went on to publish my first book in 2006 and then in 2009 with my next book about a little girl named, Zolie Zi.  Since then, I have released two  of Zolie’s books with a 3^rd one coming in December and two more non- Zolie Zi books.

Any success stories you can share from your work?

I have several success stories from Zolie’s book, but one is of this little girl now a tween named, Alani. She was being bullied daily by this little girl in her class who would wait for her during the recess time to call her poofy haired girl. She also had classmates who told her she would go blind because her eyes changed colors from light brown, to hazel and then green.

Alani started to hate going to school and begged her mom to straighten her hair, because she was tired of being called, Poofy haired girl. Her mom went up to the school to talk with the principal and teacher about her daughter being bullied, but it continued, and the trauma was already in Alani’s mind.  Her mom saw Zolie’s book on someone’s page and decided to order it. Long story short, after reading Zolie’s book, Alani wrote me a thank you note, because it changed her life and gave her confidence to face her bullies. Alani is now 16 yrs and is an actress and model. She is also a voice for those who are suffering from bullying..

What do I want my legacy to be? I just want to be known as a benevolent being sent her to bring love to the world through my books, music and humanitarian works…

I want people to remember me as the human who truly loved the children and wanted this generation and the ones to come to remember empathy, compassion and love when dealing with others. I also want to be remembered as someone who loved the planet and encouraged others to pick up the trash and care for the only home planet that we have. I want my music and books to be the energy that people can pull from when they need a dose of inspiration from me.

Find out more about Sonya!

Website: Books: zoliezi.org

Music: reverbnation.com/kosijah

Social Media:

For my books: Facebook, Instagram and twitter: @ZolieZi

For my music: @officialkosijah for all pages