Bay area native and Hampton University alum Miles Gordon spent his early career years doing something most millennials could only dream of — staying in one field for nearly a decade. Right after college and a senior year internship at the Virginia General Assembly, Gordon started working with Virginia state delegate Jeff Bourne. In 2017, they were able to push through bill HB1911 which banned long-term suspensions for K-12 students.
“We expect children to enter this world at a time they don’t naturally wake up, and sometimes they may be having a bad morning,” says Gordon. “I don’t know about you, but at 32, I have bad mornings.” Gordon and Bourne ensured that students as young as five — most often Black or brown and from lower income and rural communities — were not punished to the extreme for minor infractions. “The last thing you should be able to do, when that child clearly needs more attention, is punish them by depriving them of school and structure,” he adds. “So, we changed that.”
In 2018, Gordon returned to his home state to lead a successful reelection campaign for Oakland, Calif. Mayor Libby Schaaf before heading back east to work at Virginia Commonwealth University, first as director of government and community relations and then as senior director for state government relations. In six years at VCU, Gordon secured $750 million worth of operating and capital funding with the help of a “spectacular team.”
But as of October, Gordon has stepped away from the political world to pursue a full-time career in music. “I’ve never had another job outside of this,” he says of his former job. “I worked every day [for a decade] up until about four weeks ago. Music has stolen my heart.”
Since starting to make music 18 months ago, Gordon has been on a three-state tour with rapper Black Kray and Premo Rice. “It really opened my eyes up for what music could become for me,” he says. You can follow Gordon’s music on Instagram @mggreatman. Look out for some surprises and maybe “a tour announcement coming next year,” he says.
When not in the studio, he’s often spending time with his close-knit, uber-talented family — older brother Eldon Burton received a Style Top 40 award in 2017. Gordon credits his father for raising him and being his “shining light.” He is also the proud secondary guardian of three nieces, one of whom is a straight A high school student and journalist for the school’s newspaper. “I go where called, when called,” Gordon says.
For the foreseeable future, music seems to be calling.
“Not only does music make me happy, it makes other people happy, too – seemingly happier than I’ve ever made anybody with politics,” he laughs.
