Tyrone Brooks, Jr. Seeking Lt. Governor Democratic Nomination
(APN) ATLANTA – Tyrone Brooks, Jr., the son of former State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta), is running for the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor of Georgia in the May 24, 2022 General Primary Election.
Brooks recently worked for the City of Atlanta’s Office of Equity and prior to that for the City of Atlanta’s Office of Sustainability.
In addition, he has been a rap artist and producer.
In 2015, he ran for his father’s former seat, House District 55, which is currently held by State Rep. Marie Metze (D-Atlanta).
Brooks said he is motivated by “my upbringing, being my father’s son, studying at his feet as a child, studying from Hosea Williams and Jesse Jackson during his Presidential run.”
“What I was witness to, always kind of groomed to public service,” Brooks said.
Brooks revealed to Atlanta Progressive News that he was part of the rap group, SuperB, under the name “SuperTy”. Here is a sample of their music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqv2TeEVJ6U
Brooks graduated high school in 1994 as “Atlanta was starting its music mecca.”
In 1995, he started a production company called Superb Music, Inc.
At the age of seventeen, he had a business with songs on the radio, rappers working for him, and he was selling CDs out of his trunk, he said.
Brooks toured with or opened for such artists as Outkast, Goodie Mob, Master P, and Ludacris, he said.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars was rolling in. For every CD we sold for five dollars, we kept three. That was the deal we created,” Brooks said.
“I was thrust into leadership early in business. I had to learn about taxes and investment and depreciation,” Brooks said.
After his music career, he worked for several years helping people develop business plans.
In 2016, he went to work for the City of Atlanta, starting at the Office of Sustainability (later renamed the Office of Resilience), under then-Director Stephanie Stuckey.
Brooks worked from 2016 to 2018 as a Senior Grant Manager for the Office of Sustainability.
“In the Office of Sustainability, I was able to identify funding for eighteen million dollars for various sustainability projects,” Brooks said.
These projects included installing solar panels on libraries and recreation centers in the City of Atlanta, establishing community gardens in fire stations citywide, and implementing a recycling program in Atlanta Public Schools middle schools for old books and lockers, he said.
From 2018 until earlier this year, Brooks worked for the Office of Equity for then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
There, he ran the My Brother’s Keeper Program, the Youth Entrepreneurship Program, and the Men to Mentors initiative.
“When I look at Georgia and see untapped potential all over Georgia, especially in rural Georgia, we’ve got acres and acres of farmland that could be utilized for healthy eating to eliminate food deserts,” Brooks said.
“It doesn’t always have to be more bad food from Walmart,” Brooks said
“I’d… [like to] see all of our buildings meet a green policy initiative, if you receive any public funds. Air quality in the buildings, the light, how you create natural gas – we have thousands of people working in buildings per day and we have the highest asthma rate. Our public schools as well should meet the same standards,” he said.
“We have to have high fines for dumping in our public rivers… in our public creeks,” he said.
Brooks is one of nine candidates seeking the Democratic nomination.
As previously reported by APN, former U.S. Rep. Kwanza Hall (D-Atlanta) is seeking the nomination.
The other seven candidates are State Rep. Erick Allen (D-Vinings); Charlie Bailey, who ran for Attorney General in 2018; Tony Brown; Jason T. Hayes; State Rep. Derrick L. Jackson (D-Tyrone); R. Malik; and State Rep. Renitta Shannon (D-Decatur). APN will be reaching out to these campaigns shortly.
(END / Copyright Atlanta Progressive News / 2022)