MICHAEL “OMMY” CARABALLO RIVERA

Long before Michael "Ommy" Caraballo built platforms for other creatives, he was one himself.

Born Michael "Hommy" Caraballo Rivera Lllanos Ocasio, Michael's creative journey began in childhood, recreating comic‑book drawings in elementary school before discovering another gift through words. By middle school, friends were coming to him to write poetry. Hip‑hop gave that voice another language. Inspired by the socially conscious storytelling of 2Pac's 1991 2Pacalypse Now album and its main hit song "Brenda's Got a Baby" (the first and only rap song Michael ever memorized), Michael began turning his own observations, struggles and experiences into rhyme.

Those formative years were complicated. Frequent moves from one housing project and community to another left Michael continually searching for belonging. He grew up surrounded by strong religious influences: his family in Puerto Rico were — and remain — Pentecostal, while his father — a former drug addict who found faith and turned to ministry while in prison — became known as "Mike The Saint," an Evangelist preacher and traveling missionary whose ministry took him to places including Mexico, Guatemala and Puerto Rico. At the same time, Michael's surroundings exposed him to instability, political tension, gangs and street culture, and he sometimes looked for the sense of family he was missing in the gangs around him. He also developed an instinct to stand up to bullies, sometimes through fights that brought serious consequences.

In the fifth grade, after another student repeatedly made fun of Michael's last name during lunch, Michael fought him at recess. When Michael's jacket was retrieved afterward, a fishing knife was discovered inside. The incident resulted in Michael being expelled from school for a year and returning to Puerto Rico. There, another confrontation with a much older and larger bully unexpectedly helped steer him toward boxing.

Back in Worcester, Massachusetts, Michael entered the boxing world under renowned longtime trainer and mentor Carlos Garcia, whose program helped develop generations of fighters and champions. Michael trained especially closely under his cousin, Puerto Rican boxer Edwin "Falu" Andino, who was himself training under Garcia and preparing to turn professional.

Some of Michael's most vivid memories from those years come from an old‑school boxing gym hidden upstairs above a pizza restaurant on Main Street in downtown Worcester, approximately one block south of City Hall. Michael remembers walking straight to a door at the back of the restaurant, where stairs led upstairs to the gym — a training space known within the boxing community for the accomplished and visiting fighters who passed through it. Through that world, Michael crossed paths with fighters including Vinny Pazienza and Roy Jones Jr.

Boxing might have become a much larger part of Michael's life. Before Falu could make his professional transition, however, he was shot and killed at a pool hall in Puerto Rico. His death devastated Michael. Falu's funeral procession brought together people from Puerto Rico's boxing, music and rodeo communities, reflecting the many worlds his life had touched. Michael walked away from boxing afterward and never competed in an official bout.

What remained with him was something larger than competition: the discipline of the gym, the influence of strong mentors and firsthand knowledge of how quickly a young person's direction can change depending on the people, circumstances and opportunities surrounding them.

By his teens, Michael was carrying responsibilities most kids his age weren't, and he left traditional high school to work, enrolling instead at Grafton Job Corps. The judge who sentenced him there had grown up on the same streets as Michael's father — the two once ran together before their paths split, one toward the bench, the other toward addiction and prison. While being sentenced to Job Corps, Michael's 9th grade English teacher, community basketball coach, Kermit Sharp — a former CBA player who also worked for the Juvenile Detention System — petitioned the courts to become his legal guardian so he'd have a stable place to focus on the weekends while on leave. Michael graduated at 17 with his GED, a driver's license from completing a Driver's Ed course, and a trade certification in Building and Apartment Maintenance from the Job Corps associated Home Builders Institute.

Although religion was deeply present in Michael's upbringing, he has never considered himself deeply religious. Instead, he developed a philosophy of remaining neutral in both religion and politics and staying open to different perspectives. For Michael, understanding people whose beliefs, experiences or viewpoints differ from his own is essential to learning, finding common ground and developing solutions capable of serving a wider community.

Those experiences helped shape a conviction that would follow him into adulthood: people need belonging, positive outlets, mentors and a village around them before circumstances make their choices for them.

Music became one of those outlets.

By age 20, Michael had built his own recording studio — a Roland CDX‑1 "Disc Lab" hardware workstation paired with Fruity Loops — and people from his community were booking time to record with him. He developed as a songwriter, recording artist, engineer and promoter. Around age 22, Michael recorded "The Storm," featuring his friend Joseph Brown and Joseph's sister singing the chorus, over a beat created for Michael by music producer Gary Lucas.

When Michael arrived in Miami in 2001, he brought that ambition with him. While bussing tables during one of his first South Beach jobs at Jerry's Famous Deli, Michael found himself serving Fat Joe and personally handed the rapper his demo. He still tells the story with humor, joking that Fat Joe probably tossed it out of his car window afterward.

Michael kept going.

Through Black‑N-Brown Productions and Life Productions, he immersed himself in South Florida's independent entertainment scene as an artist, recording engineer, promoter, songwriter, poet, open‑mic host and talent scout. Around 2005, TTC member JahYut introduced Michael to Pro Tools and brought him into studio work with legendary hip‑hop duo Mobb Deep and artists from Little Haiti's G‑Mob, and Michael became a trusted recording and technical resource. His technical reputation also brought TTC member Monch Bass to call on him to stand by with a spare turntable needle during an Immortal Technique concert at Miami's iconic Churchill's Pub, where TTC member Soulflower introduced him to Immortal Technique personally.

But Michael's instinct was never simply to put himself in the spotlight.

Through Miami‑area showcases at venues such as PopRox, Lost Weekend, Club Blue, The Colony Hotel, Skyline, Jazid and Jade — with the open‑mic events later extending to Hollywood spots including Hollywood Live and Tempo Music Lounge — he created stages for others.

Michael's creative journey also took him onto film and television sets. His screen work includes The Glades, "Beached" episode, and Step Up Revolution, where surviving behind‑the‑scenes material also captures Michael on set with fellow TTC member Miquell "Monch Bass" Sallons.

Sometime after March 2014, a connection through Dr. Khalilah Camacho‑Ali led Michael to visit the home of Rocky Johnson — Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's father — a chance meeting close enough that Michael still has Rocky's phone number saved in his contacts today. Not long after, he found himself in front of the camera on Rocky's son's own show.

Michael additionally worked three separate roles during the Miami production of HBO's Ballers: Club Goer, Mechanic and Business Man. His Club Goer booking included a scene shot at Dream nightclub on South Beach; his Mechanic role became his clearest on‑screen appearance in the series; and as a Business Man, Michael can be seen in the background of a W Hotel scene with Dwayne Johnson.

In The Grid: Rise of the Fellowship, Michael stepped into a speaking role as Manuel Garcia, a Miami community leader running for mayor. Rather than separating acting from his real‑world mission, Michael incorporated Talent4Change into the scene itself, displaying a Talent4Change brochure that received its own on‑screen insert — an early film appearance for the organization he was building.

Yet increasingly, Michael found his most meaningful role in the wings, helping others shine.

He piloted the concept in beta on Talent4Change.Global, growing it from 12 to 34 artists, with The Talent Catalog and Talent4Change appearing in the Hollywood Culture Festival featuring TTC members Keba, Erik Nunez of The Funky Suspects, and Alexander Star and The Golden People, along with Dr. Khalilah Camacho‑Ali — a founding member of Talent4Change — who appeared as a guest speaker on the organization's behalf. He then launched the current platform, which now connects 88 members across talent, resources and fan support.

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• Greater Chicago Newsmakers
• WSVN 7News
• WPLG Local 10
• Miami Herald
• Miami Times
• Miami's Community News

That philosophy expanded beyond entertainment through Talent4Change, The Talent Catalog's social impact arm founded in March 2014, where Michael began deliberately bringing talent, resources and community needs together.

Talent4Change's first initiative, CHEF and Kids, put that philosophy into practice at home in Miami: it began with two youths recruited from the Overtown Youth Center and two from The Motivational Edge, learning to grow and harvest at the Little Haiti Community Garden before moving into community restaurants to learn to prep, cook and serve — capped by a table‑manners lesson at their graduation. The program later drew on OYC partner schools like Edison Senior High and Jose de Diego Middle School as well, earning Talent4Change a contract to run CHEF and Kids at OYC throughout 2016. Its third initiative, the Do‑Better‑Project, first appeared at The Hive in Wynwood on December 1, 2016, before officially debuting at the Overtown Youth Center's Enrichment Festival on January 21, 2017, where the Miami Times covered its free haircut program and quoted Michael's underlying philosophy directly: "When kids look better, they feel better." That same evening, Talent4Change's second initiative, Elevated Poetry, launched at the CIC MiamiLand Work‑share Launch — CIC Miami's grand‑opening event, which evolved into the ongoing Venture Café Miami series still running at CIC Miami today. Weeks later, working with OYC to pitch a mobile‑workshop concept built around outfitted shipping containers, Talent4Change won the $10,000 top prize at the March 9, 2017 Philanthropy Miami Shark Tank competition — funding that helped grow the Do‑Better‑Project into a sustained program run out of OYC three days a week for nine months. Donations from Miami‑Dade County Commissioners Barbara Jordan and Audrey Edmonson then let Talent4Change retire the shipping containers in favor of the Change Rover, its Mobile Innovation Station, freeing the mobile‑workshop concept to serve any need and extending Talent4Change's reach from Homestead up the coast to Orlando and Fort Myers.

Elevated Poetry's launch original lineup brought together poets Jenson "M.E.N.T.O.R." Cox, Brandon "Brotha Scott" Scott, Tammy Scott and Milina Franke, and the initiative kept building from there — hosting a Who's Got Next Youth Open Mic workshop at the Center for Social Change with Erace The Hate that March, then joining Big Brothers Big Sisters Miami's match day that October, both times with M.E.N.T.O.R., Tammy Scott and Brotha Scott returning. The poets were booked to return again for the Arsht Center's 2017 ArtsLaunch — rescheduled that year to 2019 because of Hurricane Irma — where Talent4Change staged the Change Rover in the parking lot and the consistent Elevated Poetry group, joined by Ismail "The Poet Azeem," performed an improvised poetry flashmob billed as part of the Talent4Change movement to reunite "the village," while Michael worked the Talent4Change table alongside his son Miguel and poet Isaida Ortiz.

Dr. Khalilah Camacho‑Ali became one of Talent4Change's earliest and most important allies. Michael met her at a Toys for Tots fundraiser at Miami Beach's South Beach Boxing gym, and after learning about The Talent Catalog and its newly launched social‑impact arm, she asked Michael to be her promoter and offered to become one of Talent4Change's founding members. In March 2016, she flew to Puerto Rico to join him, along with boxer Hector Camacho Jr. — introduced to Michael separately, and coincidentally on the island at the same time — and Chef Carlos Irizarry of Gastro Arte PR, to help host Talent4Change's first CHEF and Kids (now Seedlings EAT) workshops, where Puerto Rican youth learned about herbs at Hotel El Convento before learning to prepare and serve meals at Mavi restaurant in Old San Juan. Talent4Change and Gastro Arte kept the partnership going for years afterward — including another wave of workshops in 2018 spanning San Juan, Mayagüez and Miami — until the pandemic slowed things down, with hurricane relief work alongside Angie Rose and Julio "Dainamite" Santiago filling the gap after Hurricane Maria.

From its earliest promotional concerts, Talent4Change connected creativity with purpose. TTC member Keba performed at Talent4Change's first promotional concert, the "Para La Perla" showcase at The Embassy in Miami on February 25, 2015, and returned for its second event, For the Love of Poetry at Bardot that August 19 — timed to Michael's own birthday celebration — hosted by Adrian "Lovebook" Carter. She later performed at The Talent Catalog's first major outdoor concert at Young Circle in Hollywood, where TTC brought together performers including TTC members Alexander Star & The Golden People and Dr. Khalilah Camacho‑Ali, alongside Bottles Belafonte and 4Mankind (4MK)/SpreadLove Gang.

Michael's ability to move between entertainment and community service continued to create unusual collaborations. Colin Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp sought Talent4Change out personally for its first Miami event, as a trusted partner who wouldn't turn it into a press circus; Talent4Change helped recruit more than 400 young people for that camp and later supported outreach for Miami Dolphins player Kenny Stills' first Miami Still Growing Summit. Michael and Talent4Change also supplied positive talent — including HumanSoul and TTC members Prodigal Son and Chellie G — for Trick Daddy's Trick Luvs Da Kids Toy Drive.

Michael's own pilot programs led directly to a relationship with Miami's Circle of Brotherhood, a nonprofit founded to bring Black men together to solve community problems through mentorship, youth development and violence prevention. After running early versions of what are now Seedlings EAT (originally CHEF and Kids) and Stylist Boost (originally the Do‑Better‑Project) at the Overtown Youth Center, where Circle of Brotherhood organizers Lyle and Al Muhammad were closely involved, Michael was welcomed into the organization and has been a member since September 24, 2016. It was through that relationship, and Minister Anthony Durden specifically, that the Change Rover transformed into a #BeforeYouShoot Interview Station outside Miami's historic Lyric Theater on October 13, 2019, when the film screened there as a 2019 Urban Film Festival Official Selection. Talent4Change sponsored the screening promotion for filmmaker M. Denise Simmons' award‑winning documentary Before You Shoot, and Circle of Brotherhood has since housed the Change Rover at its headquarters, putting it to work through its Peacemakers community violence‑intervention program — including delivering diapers to its Pompano Beach chapter for distribution in that community. Michael has also shown up with fellow COB members to stand in for fathers who couldn't be there on Bring Your Parent to School Day. Months later, Adrian Carter — the same promoter behind Talent4Change's early Bardot poetry event — invited Michael to join the "Protect Your Community" panel at his Empower MEN Conference at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Feb. 22–23, 2020, which opened with a screening of Simmons' film. Michael shared the panel with fellow speakers Anthony Durden and Daniel Williams, moderated by Horace Buddoo.

Michael's pandemic‑era international TTC Bars N Beats Challenge drew a win from Milwaukee's Marquis "Sose" Gilbert, who researched the platform afterward, funded his own trip to volunteer, and became Talent4Change's activations lead for initiatives like Stylist Boost.

The clearest expressions of Michael's philosophy today are witnessed through T4C initiatives.

Talent4Change initiatives provide free confidence‑building services and necessities to youth and adults in need, including people experiencing homelessness. Support can include grooming services, clothing, backpacks, and a variety of social impact workshops, but Michael believes the human interaction can be just as important as the item or service being provided. Participating professionals have an opportunity to become mentors, allowing young people to learn from the people serving them while developing confidence, relationships and exposure to different skills and career paths. A Talent4Change Stylist Boost workshop, sponsored by Beautiful People Management, provided free haircuts at the annual "Christmas on 15th Ave." event on several occasions, with TTC artists Achileez, Yeshy and Lil Yellow performing on the event stage. Most recently, Michael counseled Lil Yellow ahead of an Ignite The Culture talent competition — presenting him with the opportunity that led to Lil Yellow winning the competition and signing his first autograph.

Underlying T4C initiatives is a principle rooted deeply in Michael's own experience: support should not be reserved only for young people who are already succeeding. Michael believes that a person struggling academically, socially or personally may be precisely the person who most needs a boost in confidence, a positive interaction and someone willing to recognize potential that circumstances may be hiding.

Actor Robert LaSardo reinforced that philosophy in a testimonial recorded inside Talent4Change's Change Rover, speaking about the importance of initiatives such as Stylist Boost and the need for strong men and mentors in young people's lives.

The Change Rover extended Michael's vision into a mobile community and media platform capable of bringing programming, resources and engagement directly into neighborhoods. In Ohio, it has twice transformed into a mobile WOBC 91.5FM radio station for the station's annual Block Party in Oberlin, with a third year already in preparation, and it has served as a mobile DJ booth and speaker stage at El Centro de Servicios Sociales' annual block party in Lorain — an event that has featured Puerto Rican muralist Héctor PR's "78 Pueblos y Una Bandera" flag project — with the Change Rover set to return for the next one. Closer to home, Talent4Change sponsored the historic 9 Mile Music Festival at Virginia Key Beach Park on March 11, 2017 — headlined that year by Julian Marley, DMX, Capleton, Sizzla, Charly Black and Kreesha Turner — using the Change Rover to load and deliver canned goods that concertgoers donated to Curley's House Food Bank for discounted tickets, then returning the following year as a mobile DJ booth with DJ Ephniko to set the tone for the line waiting to get in. That relationship came full circle in August 2026, when Kaya Fest — the festival's Marley‑family successor — brought Michael to its first‑ever edition outside Miami, in Toronto, as a VIP guest of festival executive Wendy Morgan. Talent4Change has partnered with many organizations throughout Florida, Puerto Rico and Ohio to provide needed services. In Puerto Rico, Talent4Change's "Para Nuestra Gente" initiative organized hurricane relief and workshops with partners including Angie Rose and her Unstoppable Foundation, Julio Santiago's Strong Grip, Chef Rafy Rod with Fundacion El Plato Caliente, Luis Andino with Puerto Rico Tours, Chef Carlos Irizarry with Gastro Arte PR, and the Puerto Rico Relief Committee. Michael's work has received coverage through outlets including WSVN 7News, WPLG Local 10, the Miami Herald and Greater Chicago Newsmakers, documenting a journey in which entertainment, entrepreneurship and community service increasingly became interconnected rather than separate pursuits.

Those crossings could arrive in unexpected places. Working a furniture‑rental job with his friend McKinley Pierre — booked to supply furniture for a Stephen Marley earth‑strong celebration at Momma Marley's South Florida home — Michael was invited to stay after setup, close enough to see Bob Marley's old VW buggy parked in the driveway, watch Stephen Marley celebrate with family and friends, hug Momma Marley and thank her for the welcome, and trade a nod with Ky‑Mani Marley in passing. It was there that a stranger named Kevens stopped him, introduced himself, and offered advice that stayed with him for years: "Little brother, I know it can be easy to get lost in excitement, but no matter what, make sure to keep your composure." Years later, when Kevens reached out on LinkedIn promoting a new song, Michael reminded him of that day and the advice that had guided him ever since — and Kevens' reply brought it full circle: "That sounds like something I would do and say," he said, revealing that he was the one who had gotten McKinley the gig at the Marleys' in the first place.

Throughout that journey, Michael's path has crossed an extraordinary range of artists, entertainers, athletes and cultural figures. But celebrity proximity was never the objective. What mattered more was what could happen through those relationships — a young artist getting a stage, a community organization finding talent, a child meeting a mentor, an overlooked creative finding an audience or one connection creating an opportunity for someone else.

Today, the many strands of Michael's life are converging through The Talent Catalog and The Talent Catalog Radio Show on WOBC 91.5 FM, Oberlin College & Community Radio, where music discovery, artist interviews, broadcasting, education and youth development come together. Michael is building a structured college course and internship program connecting college students and high‑school interns to learn alongside working creatives — another version of the mentorship, access and village that played such an important role in his own journey.

Looking across Michael's life, the titles have changed — writer, recording artist, engineer, promoter, open‑mic host, talent scout, actor, entrepreneur, community leader, radio host and platform builder — but the role underneath them has remained remarkably consistent:

See the potential. Create access. Make the connection. Strengthen the village.

The child who spent years searching for a village ultimately grew up to build one.

For Michael, The Talent Catalog is more than a business or technology platform. It is the culmination of a lifetime spent recognizing stars in people — often before the rest of the world sees them — and creating spaces where those stars can shine together.