(From left) Nicholas Powell, co-founding editor of SoulVision magazine; B.K. Fulton; and Queon “Q” Martin, executive vice president of Soulidifly Productions (Photo by Jessica Knox Photography)
As vice president of the mid-Atlantic region for Verizon Communications Inc., B. Keith (B.K.) Fulton led 10,000 employees and a business with $5.5 billion in revenue.
Now, five years into his retirement, Fulton, 54, is leading his own communications brand, Soulidifly Productions, a company he established in 2017 that delivers films, documentaries, books, a digital magazine and a streaming television channel that’s in the works. Soulidifly is an invented name that sounds like the word “solidify,” but also conjures an image of soul or humanity combined with a retro-cool “fly” quality.
“Our brand is about telling meaningful, uplifting stories that are entertaining and beautiful,” Fulton said in his commencement address during the December 2019 graduation ceremony at Norfolk State University. “We’d like to say we bemuse. When we apply the Soulidifly approach to something, we make it beautiful.”
The Hampton Roads native does that work in his Shockoe Slip home office in the middle of the night, in a screening room office next door to his residence, at a production house on Semmes Avenue on Richmond’s South Side, at the In Your Ear post-production studio in Shockoe Bottom and on location at film sets around the country.
Fulton’s corporate, personal and artistic connections have helped him assemble a team that includes veteran actor and producer Tim Reid, as well as Monty Ross, who has produced films with Spike Lee. Cultivating new talent in front of and behind the camera is also important to Fulton, who wants to tell new narratives and untold stories.
On the day that Fulton gave his Norfolk State commencement address, screenwriter and director Wes Miller answered questions at an opening night screening of the Soulidifly film “Hell on the Border” in Los Angeles with the African American Film Critics Association. The Western thriller was important to Fulton to produce because the film tells the story of Bass Reeves, played by David Gyasi. Reeves was the first black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi River. The next day, Miller screened the film in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to an opening weekend audience that included Reeves’ descendants. It’s available for streaming through services including Google Play and Amazon.
“We try to tell multicultural stories that tell about the state of our country, which is not all white or black.” —Wes Miller, screenwriter and director
“People are hungry for these stories,” Miller says. “The most meaningful moment was to see that ‘thank-you’ look in the eye of Bass Reeves’ descendants, ladies in their 80s and 70s, at the screening in Tulsa. They really enjoyed it.”
Miller says that his three-film collaboration with Fulton has allowed him to tell stories on the big and small screens that are not always supported financially because of what Miller calls the disproven and erroneous assertion that projects featuring a leading actor who is black will flop financially.
“We try to tell multicultural stories that tell about the state of our country, which is not all white or black,” Miller says. “B.K. is a successful businessman. If I have ideas, I can bounce them off him. He’s been a success in the competitive business area, including an [intellectual property] attorney. He can be a beacon for us.”
Miller’s other Soulidifly films include “Atone,” a 2019 thriller in which a former female special ops soldier takes down a team of hijackers in a megachurch. In 2018’s “River Runs Red,” an African American who is the son of a judge is killed by police officers. When the courts clear the officers of wrongdoing, the judge must determine whether the courts are the only arbitrators of justice. The cast includes Taye Diggs, George Lopez and John Cusack. The films may be streamed on various sites, and “River Runs Red” also was available in January on Starz.
“Not everyone can work with artistic talent and artistic filmmakers. Temperamental artists can be demanding,” says Ross, Soulidifly president of film and production and a film studies professor at Old Dominion University. “The young filmmakers B.K. is producing, he encourages, and [he] is someone who has confidence in those filmmakers.”
Menelek Lumumba, writer and director for “1 Angry Black Man,” a 2018 film that taps into the current tense political climate and has had several festival and select screenings, feels grateful to Fulton for supporting his first feature.
“What Soulidifly is doing is nurturing voices and telling stories of black people at various stages of our lives,” says Lumumba. “B.K. empowers the artists, the creators and the creative artists.”
In his Norfolk State commencement address, Fulton, a member of the school’s Board of Visitors, said that his path to corporate boardrooms wasn’t a straight arrow. As a student at Virginia Tech in the 1980s, he had a transformative attitude adjustment after contemplating quitting college in the wake of a series of crushingly poor grades. Bombing a human sexual development class was a wake-up call. From the academic probation list, he went to the dean’s list and an engineering degree, inspired by stories of successful African Americans he perused in the library. That attitude shift won him scholarships to graduate school, and later, a spot on the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.
Recent films produced by Soulidifly Productions include 2019’s “Atone” and “Hell on the Border,” and 2018’s “River Runs Red.” (Images courtesy Soulidifly Productions)
Fulton says Soulidify’s vision is to deliver films that “inspire people to appreciate the gifts of life and the importance of working together” as well as expressing the narrative of African Americans’ achievement through stories that uplift.
“If you’re a minority child in this country, even today, the outward and visible signs aren’t always ‘You’re great,’ ” Fulton says during an interview from a row of red recliner chairs in his art-adorned screening room. Too often, he adds, the message is “ ‘You’re going to go to jail. You may get shot.’ These negatives are the expectation. That’s the reality for a lot of kids, especially kids of color. The society at large is giving you messaging that you can’t do it, and it’s got monuments of Confederates in your face every day.”
To counter that narrative, Soulidifly is committed to shifting from a narrative of violence and sorrow to celebrating African American lives.
“B.K.’s skill set is solving problems, so that works really well into the realm of film producer because producing a movie is like disaster management,” says Andy Edmunds, director of the Virginia Film Office.
Edmunds has known Fulton for over 12 years, thanks to his role with Verizon as someone who was instrumental in expediting communication setups for film crews working in Virginia. In his career with Verizon, Fulton also served as president of Verizon Virginia and president of Verizon West Virginia. Prior to Verizon, he was in senior positions with the U.S. Department of Commerce, AOL Time Warner and the National Urban League.
“B.K. has found a niche where he can produce content and can do it at value and get it distributed in a pathway that is profitable,” Edmunds says.
Fulton is drawn to art, books, music and film. He collects, absorbs and creates them. He defines his vision as the ability to turn dreams and ideas into their tangible equivalents. Soulidifly’s SoulVision magazine is a digital publication focusing on positive coverage of the urban community.
Fulton has a series of seven autobiographical picture books, a series titled “Mr. Business: The Adventures of Little BK.” SoulVision.TV, a digital streaming network of movies, TV shows, news and interviews, is set for a launch celebration on Feb. 13 at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. Reid is vice chairman.
In March, Soulidifly expects to launch an app, preshow.co, that lets members go to movies, and IMAX screenings for free after watching an ad. Also this year, Fulton expects to release two novels, “Love’s Insurrection,” historical fiction about faith and love, and “Turn Left: 777 Incidents of Love,” which is based on his relationship with his wife, Jacquelyn E. Stone, a partner with McGuireWoods who also serves as executive vice president and chief legal officer for Soulidifly.
“B.K.’s positive energy encourages others who have talent,” Stone says. “He has brought them into an environment where they can succeed.”
