Stacia Thompson, Ed.D. is a Milwaukee treasure and self-proclaimed 90’s music aficionado. This fact alone makes her an exemplary guest for this edition of Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.

Born and raised in Racine, Wisconsin, and deeply connected to her hometown, she came of age in the ‘golden era’ of music: the 90s. She graduated from Saint Louis University, and luckily for us, she returned back to Wisconsin to work in higher education. Currently, she is the executive director of the Sherman Phoenix Foundation, the non-profit arm of Milwaukee’s premier hub for entrepreneurs. The Sherman Phoenix holds more than 25 small black-owned businesses and is an incubator program for those businesses to maintain, grow and flourish.

As always with YTT, we dig deep into how music has always accompanied Thompson through the amazing journey that lead her to Milwaukee. With hip hop turning 50 this year, it was only right for Thompson drop some BARS on us. She talked with HYFIN's Anthony Foster about breakdancing, finger waves, the bobs and weaves of getting her doctorate, the always influential Ms. Lauryn Hill and why using your platform is sometimes bigger than the music itself.