Baqi Abdush-Shaheed

Baqi Abdush-Shaheed was born in Washington DC, the fourth of five children born to Shirley (Sabriyah Abdush- Shaheed) Sidberry Jones and Lloyd Dudley (Hamaam Abdush-Shaheed) Jones. The family moved to the Lower East Side in New York City after his father's brutal death. In His youth Baqi studied acting at the black owned HoneyChild Modeling Agency under Jim Hill. Later he studied at the Actor's Theater Workshop under Thurman Scott and Jean Korn. Baqi attending the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts, where he studied the fine arts. This is also where he began his rap career with the group Sight Beyond Light. In SBL he went by the stage name A.B. Do Well. The group had a few singles in the New York underground scene, but saw success in collaborating with British Big Beat band the Dub Pistols. This pairing led to songs like Official Chemical and Six Billion Way To Live getting placements in films and video games. After the group disbanded Baqi was working at a movie trailer market research company where he met Chris Bergoch and later worked on the films Take Out and Prince of Broadway directed by Sean Baker. He found his way to John Culhane through the audition process and worked with him on Radio Free Blissville. A while later he did some work as an extra on various independent films and television shows like Madam Secretary. Baqi is pursuing his music and is now going by the stage name Chuck Spears. His debut album in 2016, Unbalanced is available on iTunes and he recently released the single These Hands in the summer of 2018.