Kimora Lee Simmons knows the value of self-confidence. The Smile Train ambassador told why, along with ESSENCE, she devotes her time and resources to the organization coping with clefts during the gala celebrating the 25th anniversary of treatment in Cipriani.

Smile Train supports local physicians with educational and material resources so that they can provide free cleft surgery and comprehensive cleft care to children around the world. They take a holistic approach to care, providing patients with post-operative care and, in some cases, supporting them through multiple surgeries. The event helped raise funds for all surgeries, including 3D printed cleft stimulation kits. They help surgeons perform treble procedures, potentially reducing the risk of certain complications. According to the study, black patients have significantly more complications.

Smile Train announced its 2 millionth free surgery at the event. The news was met with thunderous applause from donors who were willing to lighten their pockets for the cause.

Her daughters, Ming Lee and Aoki Lee, presented her with the Smile Train Goodwill Ambassador Award. In her speech, Lee Simmons described seeing a patient blossom and imitating a model’s walk down the runway after surgery. The patient was planning her future after seeing herself in a brand new light.

“I have Stephanie on my phone when I walk the runway,” Lee Simmons said excitedly.

“Smile Train allows these young people, from infants through adulthood, to reclaim the lives they didn’t even know they could,” she continued. “These people have been transformed by these surgeries. I saw it. I was in the field. I was with their families.”

Lee Simons admitted that while inner beauty is most vital, outer appearance has an undeniable impact on an individual’s experience. “Beauty truly starts from the inside. What is external also matters a lot.”

She stated that her work is ultimately more about what patients think about their appearance than what they give the impression of being like. “There are as many different beauties as there are people.”

“All these things are about giving it our all and doing the best we can for ourselves,” she added. Lee Simmons uses his inner confidence to face life’s challenges.

“Throughout my journey, I tried to say, look, no one is going to support you if you don’t have support,” she said.

She wants women to harness the power of self-confidence and independence, whether or not they are in a partnership or not. “As a woman, I have to stand on my own two feet,” she said. “You cannot depend on a person in your whole life. It doesn’t matter.

Key patients can face the kind of bullying Lee Simmons faced while growing up in Missouri.

She admits that “being faced with judgment from people who don’t know you can be quite painful.”

She advises people to “be resilient, be beautiful, and shine in all your glory, even when they feel stepped on, looked down upon, or oppressed.”

In her 2006 book, she shared advice on the way to use self-confidence to enhance your life. She described it as a lesson to her “thirteen-year-old self.”

Lee Simons has long supported organizations that concentrate on improving people’s lives, including Dress For Success, where she helps incarcerated women construct their wardrobes in preparation for returning to work. “It’s very vital to me to find a way to provide back. I’ve been doing it my whole life, even before I had children,” she said

Host Jeanie Mai joked that she would reasonably see smiles transformed by Smile Train than the ones she often sees in Hollywood. “These smiles are a mix of veneers and lip fillers. I’m ready for smiles that can truly light up this world,” she said after reaching the podium in a peach dress. Jordin Sparks then performed an energetic set that included an appropriate cover of Frank Sinatra’s “When You’re Smiling.” The crowd sang along to her hit, and Sparks encouraged guests to go to the chapel and hearken to DJ Jazzy Jeff, who hosted the afterparty.

Mai wasn’t the just one in a completely satisfied mood.

Lee Simmons joked that her unfiltered personality is an ideal fit for fundraising. “I have a big mouth, so all I can do is beg people for money,” she said, flashing her charming smile.

You can learn more about the Smile Train mission Here.

Shaboozey is carving out his own lane. Building on the success of her appearance on two of Beyoncé’s songs, “SPAGHETTII” and “SWEET HONEY BUCKIIN’,” the Virginia native’s country song “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” became a Top 100 hit on the Billboard 100. The album combines the sounds of hip-hop, country and folk right into a sonic melting pot that could be a microcosm of Shaboozey’s sound as an entire. In the face of his newfound fame, he desires to take his music to the subsequent level while highlighting all of the black talent that the genre of country music has to supply.

Born Collins Obinna Chibueze, Shaboozey grew up immersed in an eclectic mixture of music that included every little thing from classic hip-hop and R&B to country icons corresponding to Kenny Rogers and Garth Brooks. “My sound comes from this whole melting pot,” he tells ESSENCE. “He comes from Virginia. It’s just Virginia to a T. Honestly, I just wanted to lay the groundwork for other artists in the area to not be confused about what this sound is and should be.” Although his childhood dream was to turn into a novelist, he began experimenting with making music in highschool and shortly joined a collective of local artists – and the remaining, as they are saying, was history.

Now the Nigerian-born singer, songwriter, filmmaker and music producer is preparing to release his debut country album titled The upcoming project focuses on Shaboozey’s incredibly detailed storytelling and soulful vocals. Songs like “Let it burn“, a haunting song about heartbreak”Annabelle” and most recently “Vegas” were met with each critical and industrial acclaim, which raised expectations for the star’s recent work.

“It’s some of the best music I’ve made in a long time,” Shaboozey says of the album. “I’m very excited about the collaboration I’ve had on this film; We introduce them slowly as we speak and they sound amazing. It’s cool to collaborate in this process and have access and talk to some of the people who inspired me to create this project, so I’m really grateful for that.”

With a slate of chart-topping songs, newfound fame, and infinite creativity, Shaboozey has a protracted profession ahead of him – and he desires to take the world with him.

ESSENCE: Your artistry could be very unique. Can you speak about your beginnings in music and what was the primary art form you were exposed to as a baby?

Shaboozey: I believe everyone listens to music, especially at a young age. You are exposed to every little thing, TV, radio, what your parents are playing, just different events, weddings, cooking. So I believe all of us encountered music quite early. It’s probably not the primary day we were born, but in my case, my parents immigrated here from Nigeria. I used to be born in Virginia. My dad, who also went to school in Texas, then moved to Virginia. He was also exposed to country music, in order that got thrown into the combination as well. So it’s hard to reply this query because I believe music has all the time been around me.

In your earlier profession, your sound was more influenced by trap and hip-hop. Now it is a heavier mixture of country, folk-pop and more. When did this transformation in your music occur and what inspired this transformation in your sound?

I believe obviously growing up – I used to be an enormous hip hop fan. If I turned on MTV or turned on , I might see Ja Rule, Chingy, J Kwon and others. That’s why I do know every hit from 1999 to the current – every hip-hop song. In highschool, girls loved Drake and Future, so we began desirous about it. And then I believe sooner or later when it got here to me making music, all of us rapped because that was the thing you probably did. It was sort of what was around, what my friends were playing and every little thing, and within the football locker room, what I mean? You’re not going to pretend to be Garth Brooks simply to get hot.

So I believe playing sports gave me a predisposed must go to the studio. And then I believe after I began desirous about it, I asked myself, “What will set me apart? How can I stand out?” And then I ponder, “What do I want my message to be? Where am I from?” Hip-hop is very important depending on where you come from. You have people like Goodie Mob in Atlanta, Future, etc. You have your people in New York, you have people from the West Coast and the Midwest. So I asked, ” What does this mean for Virginia? Why do I need this where I come from?”

I believe that put me on a mission to see what was around me. What are some features of Virginia which might be unique to this region that usually are not found elsewhere? So I began in search of outdoor things. We have Cabela’s. Many people engage in outdoor activities. We fish, we wish to go to the bay, we go to the paths, to the Shenandoah Valley. We even have the Richmond International Raceway and NASCAR. We got some of these things too. And then there’s also Pharrell, there’s also Missy, there’s also Timbaland, there’s also Patsy Klein, the old country singer. Beyonce put her personal songs on “Sweet Honey Buckin.”

You mentioned Beyoncé in your previous answer. I desired to ask you ways you two got together and what was your experience, recording process like while you made music together with her?

Yeah, after I got here into this place, there wasn’t a number of representation there. Of course you might have Darius Rucker, Jimmy Allen, Mickey Guyton and Charlie Pride, all those people. But it isn’t lots should you compare the variety of hip-hop artists, R&B artists. You go to country music, there’s about 4 or five. As for the brand new ones, again there usually are not lots of them. So I believe after I set out on this journey, I didn’t realize how difficult it might be to realize acceptance there, not only from white people, but in addition from black people and the industry as an entire.

When I did that, I saw it as a chance because people see that you simply are following your path. So I believe when Beyonce decided to take a risk and express that a part of her artistry, it made sense. When you concentrate on this music, genre and magnificence, my name comes up very often. So truthfully, I believe it made sense. Many fans have requested this. Many of her fans asked within the comments, “Oh, are you recording a country album? If you aren’t getting Shaboozey, this will likely be an issue. So the universe, man, a number of people put their energy into wanting this to occur and manifest – I believe it has come true.

You had a successful profession before, but I do know you are getting more attention now, you are energetic . How has your life and profession modified because you appeared on the album?

Oh yes. He is certainly one of the best artists of all time, an all-time artist. Because I’m black, lots of my relations, especially the ladies in my life, are die-hard fans. She’s having a tough time. So to see your cousin, brother or member of the family on something like this can be a crazy move for me. But it has definitely modified. It had some of the famous projects and implementations of the yr. She was making history. We made history or are making history. And that is a blessing, man. My life has definitely modified, as you’ll expect. People are taking pictures and lots of eyes are on me, many ears are on me, individuals are what I say. If I say I ate turkey bacon this morning, it’d make the news. This is cool. It’s great to have such an enormous platform now, to give you the option to confer with more people and spread my message.

How do you’re feeling in regards to the recent popularity of black artists within the country genre straight away?

I believe this has already been done, but I still think there continues to be lots to do. We are still in its early stages. I still think individuals are listening and tuning in, but I still think there’s a number of work to be done. Even when all is alleged and done, I still don’t think there are that lots of us. There are other artists who have not even been tested, like Buffalo Kin, a black country artist who sings more traditional, classic bluegrass Americana music. Kashus Culpepper, War and Treaty, all these people who find themselves still making music that I actually like, bluegrass Americana. So I need to see more people talking about these guys and what they do, because they’re amazing voices that I believe are still misaligned.

What is fierce love? For 57-year-old Sonya Curry, that is the idea of motherhood. “I was extremely conscious about how I wanted to raise my children,” Curry tells ESSENCE. As the mother of basketball stars Seth and Stephen Curry and content creator Sydel Curry-Lee, “people were always stopping me and telling me how wonderful my kids were.” But writing a parenting book sharing her testimony was never on her mother’s to-do list. But between spending time along with her eight grandchildren, traveling, and filming her latest TV show, Curry one way or the other found the time and inspiration to jot down her first .

When people suggested to her that she should write a book, “I always laughed and assured her that I didn’t feel like I was doing anything extraordinary or beyond what any other parent would do,” the Virginia native says. But “those frequent fan encounters and the small, small voice in my head began to ignite that desire.” In the book, Curry shares never-before-told stories, talking not only about her childhood, but in addition about how she raised her three famous children.

Like writing a book, raising stars was also out of her mind. “Our intention was never to raise our boys to be NBA players, but to build a relationship with God and be good and productive people,” he says. “I also always tried to support their dreams and aspirations.” After giving birth to her oldest child, now four-time NBA champion and MVP Stephen, the busy days of motherhood reminded her how necessary it’s to maintain herself. “I have always worked while raising my children, and I learned firsthand what burning the candle at both ends causes: burnout.”

What about her top self-care priority and sweetness tip? “Sleep is essential,” he warns. Curry also desires to remind latest mothers that self-care doesn’t should be out of reach, even for those who’re continuously pressed for time. “Find time to be alone for at least 30 minutes a day,” she advises. “Sleep when the children sleep.” Curry also emphasizes how necessary it was for her to search out a consistent exercise program, increase her water intake and incessantly mask. But most vital of all are her day by day prayer and meditation sessions.

Now that each one her children had change into adults, she had also change into their mother. “I learned to accept that as my children grew up, my role in their lives had to change,” she says. “There is no instructional manual for parents, so we have to do our best and leave the rest to God.”

As for what’s next for Curry, she’s most excited in regards to the “Fierce Love” retreat, which is “currently in the incubation phase,” she says. The event, which can happen later this 12 months and could have creativity, community, rest and self-reflection at its core, “I hope to create an experience for women of all ages that provides respite from the daily rigors of life.”