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"The Me Nobody Knows" was an Obie Award winning, Tony Award nominated musical, that debuted on Broadway in 1970. The music was composed by Gary William Friedman and the lyrics were written by Will Holt.

It was inspired by the anthologized writings of nearly 200 New York City students, aged 7 through 18. Stephen M. Joseph, a teacher, edited the collection, which was subtitled "Children's Voices From the Ghetto."

In his introduction, written in 1968, Mr. Joseph explained how youngsters had written openly about their feelings (loneliness, mostly) and their neighborhoods (ridden with "dirt, drugs and violence"). According to Mr. Joseph, they wrote "for keeps" and "like it is."

At odds with a squalid setting and a cynical, materialistic view of the world, themes of hope and renewal emerged. To guarantee uplift, samples from the students' work were interwoven with soft rock music by Gary William Friedman and commercially laundered lyrics by Will Holt.

Critics were generally impressed by the vitality, passion, honesty and powers of observation shown by the young writers, as they painted a moving but sometimes ugly picture of inner city life, and the score spurned hit records by The Staple Singers ("This World") and The Fifth Dimension ("Light Sings").

Young Irene Cara was a member of the original cast.

"The Me Nobody Knows" is also the creative moniker used by a contemporary artist whos work has been compared to Romare Bearden, Jean Michel Basquiat, and Picasso. His mixed medium paintings have been exhibited throughout the country since about the mid 1980's. An invitation for one of the artists earlier exhibitions described his feelings that for every young Black man shown in the media commiting crimes, there were countless more, like "me", talented and contributing to the strong fabric of their communities that nobody knows."

The influences of both Basquiat and Picasso are evident in many of his creations, yet TMNK has bodly fashioned his own distinct creative voice. Like Picasso, TMNK is an artist that has refused to allow his creative genius to be boxed into predefined categories. He's a painter. A tattoo artist. A Music producer. An animator. A director. A sculptor. A poet. An Activist. An Author.