(upbeat music) - What's going on you guys?

This is your boy Jarrell from Nomarama ♪ Hey!

♪ (upbeat music) ♪Ow!

♪ Creator and owner of the company brand Nomarama, N-O-M-A-R-A-M-A, it's a mouthful.

It's supposed to be though, like Nom, Nom, Nom, Nom.

(chuckling) I'm a creator, artist, designer, proud father of two.

Welcome to my home.

(upbeat music) (upbeat hiphop music) Nomarama is more explained as a brand.

Just showcasing a vibe of local love.

Normally when I'm catching content, I like to just shadow the professionals.

What I do is just capture what they got going on to then showcase that on social medias.

I want all of it, Janeza.

- [Janeza] You know it.

- All of it.

The purpose of Nomarama is to give people a platform, to really showcase the hardworking individuals that we have here.

Local businesses are all about community.

People who live within that community open their businesses where they live.

And I try to encourage people to patronize and support those businesses more so than the big box chains, because at the end of the day a small local business is someone's dream.

So we are buying into someone's dream.

So whatever they're making, promoting curating in this space, it's my job to come in and in essence capture all of that, to then deliver it as photos, videos reels that they can then use to post on their social media accounts.

I moved here in 2006.

A lot of my friends were complaining about the area being boring or there was nothing to do as far as entertainment, food or whatever.

People were looking at LA and New York and they were always dogging and talking trash about the 757.

But like I said, moving here, I found a different vibe that I didn't have where I grew up and I recognized there are seven different cities here, right?

If you can't find something in seven different cities to do, it's not so much the area that is the problem.

It's probably you.

Right now I've got two shows.

One of them is with the city of Norfolk, called City With Bite.

The concept is just showcasing the city of Norfolk as a food destination that it really is.

So with City with Bite, I walk around the area and just showcase those restaurants for who they are and the amazing things they do.

And I've always had aspirations to have my own show.

I was a big Food Network, Travel Channel kind of guy, where I would always watch stuff like Samantha Brown traveling in the world and I thought, "Wow, like you can do that for work?

"I gotta be able to do that one day."

And I love showcasing and being able to tell people's stories and it just snowballed from there.

I did events.

I was doing kitchen takeovers and then producing my own show on like YouTube for example.

So we're working directly with the city or indirectly with the city.

They finally recognized what I was doing and they approached me and said, 'Hey we have an idea that we wanna see 'if you're on board with.'

Thus City With Bite was was born.

All right, what are we working on, Lennon?

What are you building?

- My pants for my Skid costume.

- So we are working on a costume that he created himself.

I didn't think I was gonna be a homeschool dad, like ever.

looking back on it, the idea was like, man, that's a lot of work, you know?

But then Covid hit.

My son...

I love my kids, love my kids, but I could never understand he was always getting kicked outta daycare.

And I had never heard of kids getting kicked outta daycare.

I was like, what?

This is Lennon- (Both laughing) My nine year old.

He has Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD.

Which I think we all do to a certain degree, especially with technology the way it is now.

Him getting kicked out was like a another reminder of the kind of kid I was in school, you know?

ISS, detention all the time.

So, do you like being homeschooled?

- Yeah.

- Yeah?

Cause you get to be more comfortable.

I have all the respect for school staff who really wanna be there and teach kids, but I just don't like the one size shoe fits all, institutionalized way of teaching.

My son is my only pupil.

I can a hundred percent focus on the things that he loves to do and things he has hard times working on.

He loves a piano, he loves to draw, he loves being outside like I love being outside.

Being in a typical traditional school setting you don't get those kinds of things.

My dad had a small business and he took me with him to work all the time.

To jump to now where I'm at and I take my son to work.

Daddy has a photo shoot, come on buddy, let's go.

You know, get your journal, get your flashcards.

We'll work on stuff on the way.

I'm gonna be over here.

You can see me still.

I'm right next to you, but like, get your worksheets done.

I'll check them in in our breaks.

Again, with homeschooling, everything is education.

Going into work with Daddy is school.

My hope and my goal is that it'll broaden his horizons or his ideas of what he can do for himself.

We tend to glaze over our own personal endeavors, our personal aspirations because we lack the self-confidence to do it for self.

But for me, I got beat down so many times and laid off so many times, I was like, enough is enough, man.

I didn't want to repeat a process and him to look at me and think that that's okay.

I took my own initiative and did for self, and again, it was very scary.

I had no money, you know, for the first few months.

And that's, it's important to recognize, like we gonna struggle, we gonna bootstrap, we're gonna be we smart about it, but like I believe in this.

You have to believe in it.

My favorite food?

Man, that's a loaded question.

(Jarrell chuckling) Any kind of food that someone is willing to make me.

If someone's gonna go out about their busy day to stop what they're doing to make me an item from their culture, from where they're from and wanna share that with me is like, yo I don't care what it is, I'm going to eat it.

(upbeat music) They want you to be part of their life, part of their culture, their society.

Like, this is what we do.

Here's a level of it for you to taste it.

(upbeat music) - It's on point.

- If it looks delicious and smells delicious and you're putting the effort and time to make it for me, bring it on.

If you hear the name Nomarama, just know that I'm all about local love.

Doesn't matter what you do.

Doesn't matter where you're from.

If you're about positivity, peace and love, I'm all for it, you know?

And you're creating for yourself, creating for others.

The biggest thing is just to continue to be creating.

No matter what it is.

(upbeat music)