Chris Webb is a poet, filmmaker and creator whose art has taken him far from Northeast Ohio. He is part of the popular poetry collective Poets in Autumn, and an in-demand director, producer and content creator.
"We had the idea to come together as a six-person collective and start a tour that tour became Poets in Autumn and last year it was the largest spoken word tour in the world," Webb told 3News in a recent interview.
But before he was booking shows across the globe, Webb's story began here in Cleveland.
"I'm from the Glenville area...born and raised and I went to school all around there. I'm a product of the Cleveland public schools. And that took me off to college at the California Institute of the Arts where I trained, and I actually had an opportunity to train for a minute at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Scotland," Webb said.
After years of travel, Webb made it back to the city he loves.
"I always had a passion for this city and the people in the city, specifically in the areas that I come from. I believe that there is so much beauty, so much untapped goodness that we don't focus on or that we don't hear about and doesn't get highlighted. And I wanted to be one of those guys who came back and utilized everything that he learned."
There's no doubt Webb is doing just that. And these days, he's finding plenty of inspiration for his art in his family - as a proud husband and new father.
"I'm all in love and it's actually beautiful to be home to be able to witness it. I believe that it's changed in my heart because it's giving me so much more grounding and it's given me a kind of stability and confidence that I can work from that," he said.
And now, Webb is the creative force behind a new PSA campaign in collaboration with S&P Worklab - a brand new, high tech workspace and production studio in Cleveland. The PSA encourages Ohioans to help "be the change."
"The 'Be The Change' campaign is a direct response to all of the social injustices that are taking place today," explained Briana Phillips, Multi-Media Communications Specialist for S&P Worklab.
"Chris is an amazing poet, he's an amazing artist all around and he's constantly putting out work that uses his voice to speak up against the things that he believes in."
The video features a diverse cross-section of the Northeast Ohio community speaking Webb's words about how we can all come together to unite instead of divide.
"It's bittersweet in the sense that now it seems as if there are more opportunities to speak on race, to speak on injustice, to speak on black existence - more now than ever. But it comes in the wake of such catastrophe and it's it's heartbreaking that it's gotten to this point," said Webb.
But he believes that we all have the power to make a difference.
"That's where we can be the change ,because it doesn't turn it into a giant thing that we can't attack. It turns into our living room, it turns into our place of work, our friends circle, it turns into our family, it turns into when we are out of space and we see injustice and that action sparking within us."