About
Born I (Ofosu Jones-Quartey) is a rapper, author, and meditation teacher from the Washington DC area. He is a certified meditation practitioner affiliated with Spirit Rock. His teaching integrates hip hop and mindfulness, with an emphasis on self-compassion. He serves as a male voice on the meditation app Balance and leads mindfulness retreats. Born I has released several albums exploring spiritual themes, including the 2023 lo-fi hip hop album "AMIDA" which engages with Buddhist faith and Buddhist concepts. He is the author of two children's books on self-compassion and mindfulness, with a forthcoming book "Lyrical Dharma: Hip Hop as Mindfulness" scheduled for 2025 publication.
Teaching focus
Born I's teaching focus sits inside the broader Mahayana stream, with shamatha and bodhicitta cultivation as the working ground. Newer meditators get clean ground-up instruction, with no assumption that they've already done a residential retreat or read three contemporary dharma books. The teaching is shaped by the silent-retreat container, with the long arcs and the sustained quiet that container makes possible. Across the body of work, the consistent thread in Born I's teaching is the refusal to let practice become abstract. The instruction asks for direct contact with what's actually arising, and the framing supports practitioners in giving it that. Recurring questions in the teaching include how to keep practice honest across years, how to hold difficulty without bypassing it, and how the dharma actually shows up in ordinary life rather than only on the cushion. Recurring questions in the teaching include how to keep practice honest across years, how to hold difficulty without bypassing it, and how the dharma actually shows up in ordinary life rather than only on the cushion. Recurring questions in the teaching include how to keep practice honest across years, how to hold difficulty without bypassing it, and how the dharma actually shows up in ordinary life rather than only on the cushion.
Background
Born I (Ofosu Jones-Quartey) is a rapper, author, and meditation teacher from the Washington DC area. He is a certified meditation practitioner affiliated with Spirit Rock. His teaching integrates hip hop and mindfulness, with an emphasis on self-compassion. He serves as a male voice on the meditation app Balance and leads mindfulness retreats. Born I has released several albums exploring spiritual themes, including the 2023 lo-fi hip hop album "AMIDA" which engages with Buddhist faith and Buddhist concepts. He is the author of two children's books on self-compassion and mindfulness, with a forthcoming book "Lyrical Dharma: Hip Hop as Mindfulness" scheduled for 2025 publication. To date, Born I’s music has received over 20 million collective streams across platforms, with a presence in hip hop, EDM, and hybrid genres. Born I is also an experienced meditation practitioner and certified teacher. He is the male voice on the popular meditation app Balance, and he leads mindfulness retreats across the country, placing an emphasis on self-compassion and his music as a method of teaching. His latest album “AMIDA” is an expression of hip hop as a form of meditation. In 2020, Born I released an EDM/hip hop album “11:11” receiving more than one million streams. He followed this with the release of his autobiographical hip hop album “In This Moment,” which was a finalist for “Best Rap Album” at the Washington Area Music Awards (Wammies). Born I's teaching is anchored at Spirit Rock. The teaching draws from the broader Mahayana stream, with shamatha and bodhicitta cultivation as the working ground. Areas of particular focus include retreat, beginners. The Mahayana framing in Born I's teaching keeps bodhicitta in view, the orientation toward awakening for the sake of all beings, without making it abstract. Compassion gets practiced, not assumed. Practitioners drawn to Born I's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Born I's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Born I's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Born I's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way.
Lineage
Born I teaches within the broader Mahayana stream. “You Are Enough.” This is the mantra of rapper, author, and meditation teacher Ofosu Jones-Quartey aka Born I. Born I is also an experienced meditation practitioner and certified teacher. He is the male voice on the popular meditation app Balance, and he leads mindfulness retreats across the country, placing an emphasis on self-compassion and his music as a method of teaching. His latest book, "Lyrical Dharma: Hip Hop as Mindfulness" will be published in 2025. Current affiliation runs through Spirit Rock. Born I teaches as a fully ordained monastic. The lineage shapes the form of the teaching, not just its content. Practitioners encountering it find a transmission line still actively developing.
What to expect
On retreat with Born I you'll get long sits, walking practice, and dharma talks that build on each other across days. The container is silent or near-silent, which gives the teaching room to land in a way that single classes can't quite reach. The atmosphere is grounded rather than performative, and practitioners tend to leave with practical ground to keep working from on their own. The atmosphere is grounded rather than performative, and practitioners tend to leave with practical ground to keep working from on their own. The atmosphere is grounded rather than performative, and practitioners tend to leave with practical ground to keep working from on their own.
