Rhyon Brown - Rising Star Award

Singer, actress, dancer and philanthropist, Rhyon Brown began her career as a young actress in the Amazing Grace Conservatory where she honed her skills by performing in an array of musicals including Little Shop of Horrors, Grease, Oliver, Dream Girls and The Wiz. Her sound education and passion for the arts secured her a position in the world’s number one film school, the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where she majored in Film and Production. There she refined her skills behind the camera and was selected to write and direct the music video for a song she penned for Columbia Records artist, RaVaughn. Following her graduation, she returned to the front of the camera and began merging acting and music. In one of her most challenging roles to date, she portrayed Michel’le in the Lifetime biopic Surviving Compton while simultaneously completing an album and a self-penned short film that would introduce her music project Pretty Girl to the world. She has also been featured in 50 Cent’s semi-autobiographical film, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, BET’s hip-hop anthology series Tales and numerous hit television series.

At the core of Rhyon’s being is the desire to impact the lives of the young people. She has joined forces with both the Compton and Los Angeles Unified School Districts to bring a new outlook to the students through The Pretty Girl Project. The vision of The Pretty Girl Project is to create an environment in which students are capable of expressing a greater appreciation and respect for the differences they possess. They will learn to embrace the “pretty” (i.e., the gifts and talents) that lies within them and realize that although their “pretty” may be very different than that of others, it is uniquely theirs and no less important.