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A few years ago, Dr. Ronnie Taylor decided to tell the story of his life.
He knew that the transition from Mormon to felon to paramedic to occupational therapist and finally to assistant professor in the occupational therapy doctoral program at Western Oregon University was a complicated story.
“A lot of these things are kind of uncomfortable,” Taylor said. “When you put beautiful music under them, it creates a special mood.”
Under the stage name Dr. PDX, Taylor released the autobiographical album “That One Black Kid”, his third rap album, in July.
He said the album was, in his view, the most honest telling of his story.
Growing up as a minority in Utah
Taylor was born in Cincinnati. After his parents divorced when he was five, his mother joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they moved to Salt Lake City in 1982.
Until 1978, blacks were largely banned from joining this religion.
Taylor and his mother moved into the home of one of the missionaries who had converted them. The problem, however, was that the missionary had not told his family beforehand that they were black, which caused tension, Taylor said. He said that when his mother was at work, he was not allowed in the house.
“There were arguments,” Taylor said. “And eventually they kicked us out or my mother decided to move out.”
For a while, Taylor and his mother lived in their car before finding their own apartment.
Taylor became part of the church and participated in every activity possible. He made close friends. And he had bitter enemies. At almost every activity, he was the only black child.
“People reacted really strongly to me,” he said.
He described being bullied by other boys to the point that he started carrying a knife and even brandished it a few times. He said the bullying escalated and he got a gun and took it to school.
While Taylor was playing an impromptu basketball game in high school, he was surrounded by a group of eight boys, so he pulled out his gun.
The story of this incident and the subsequent newspaper report about it ended his high school education.
Fraud leads to prison sentences
Taylor took several jobs and eventually worked at a 7-Eleven that his mother managed. While at work, he realized he could print money orders for any amount.
He hired friends to cash in the loot. He stole thousands of dollars a day and spent them just as quickly on cars, furniture and vacations.
“That was too much money for a child,” Taylor said.
Taylor said he ran the scam for four years until one of his partners was arrested for the robbery of a 10-year-old. That partner turned him in, but police couldn’t catch him with evidence and he wasn’t charged.
Not long after, he said, he was out with a black friend and three white women. They were stopped by the police, something that happened to him regularly. He got into an argument with a police officer, but again, no charges were filed.
A man also accused him of breaking into his home. Taylor said he did not commit that crime.
But then he got greedy, he says. He cashed a few bad checks for $300 to buy extravagant furniture. When he was caught, prosecutors brought all kinds of charges against him.
“They charged me with 20 felonies,” Taylor said. “You’re 19, you don’t have a lawyer, you have no idea what’s going on.”
He said he agreed to plead guilty to two counts of cashing the bad checks and was sentenced to probation and later served a prison sentence for probation violations.
“I served about a year in prison,” Taylor said.
This crime haunted his record for decades before it was finally erased.
After a school bus accident, he saves lives as a paramedic
Eventually Taylor moved to New England. He worked in various jobs, including at a microchip factory. He married and had a son, Elijah.
On Elijah’s first day of kindergarten, the school bus he was riding in had an accident. No children were hurt, but when Taylor saw the paramedics at work, he decided he wanted that job.
His first marriage broke up and he was laid off, so he attended the Community College of Rhode Island and completed his training as an emergency medical technician in 2006.
He spent the next six years working in the field, first in Boston and then in Washington, D.C. He enjoyed the work and was good at it, but one night he had to make an emergency call to treat a man who had been shot.
The man, who Taylor said was high at the time, told him his abdomen was burning. Taylor replied that he had been shot.
“That was the day I thought, ‘I have to do something different. I don’t feel sorry for you,'” Taylor said. “It’s time to shift into a higher gear.”
He considered pursuing one of several medical careers, but when he learned of an occupational therapist who had helped his father, Taylor decided that this was the career he wanted to pursue.
Taylor received his bachelor’s degree from George Washington University in 2012 and moved to Oregon in 2013. He had to complete two more years of required courses to be accepted into the occupational therapy doctoral program at Pacific University. He graduated from Forest Grove School in 2019, 11 years after choosing this career path.
Taylor’s focus in occupational therapy is working as a hand therapist. He worked at ArmWorks Hand Therapy, first in Gresham and then in Clackamas.
He said he loves the job, but due to demand, his workload has doubled in recent years, which has taken the fun out of the job.
“I love treating people,” Taylor said. “I love being an expert at what I do. But I don’t like being completely overwhelmed.”
His former professor at Pacific University, Sean Roush, recruited him to help teach at Western Oregon University and establish the occupational therapy doctoral program at the downtown Salem campus, where he has been working since late December.
His current responsibilities include recruiting faculty, developing curricula and hosting guest lectures. The program is scheduled to launch in the fall.
Telling the story of his life through music
Taylor’s mother had a huge record collection. At the age of 15, he began writing rhymes.
He released his first album, “Lazerus,” in 2004. His second, “Life Love Epic,” was released in 2008 under the stage name Laz.
Taylor toured extensively, sold many CDs, and performed at the New York International Music Festival.
“I realized I didn’t really want to be in the record business,” Taylor said.
While at Pacific University, Taylor wrote and recorded a song for Roush’s class and realized how much he missed writing music.
He recorded “That One Black Kid” in the summer of 2022 and 2023. He admits that the recording process was exhausting. It wasn’t just the physical part of recording, but the songs about his life were so raw that it was emotionally exhausting to perform them.
And his perspective today is different than when he last recorded it, as he is married to his wife, Kerala, for 19 years and has three children, Elijah, Zadie and Malik.
Taylor released the album digitally in July. He plans to have 100 vinyl records made and sell them as signed collector’s editions for $1,000 each. Taylor does not know if he will perform any concerts to promote the album.
He finds writing therapeutic, similar to the way he helps other people physically. His mother once wrote a book about her life and he wanted to tell his story in his own way.
“I even told myself that if I couldn’t do it before I was 50, I wouldn’t do it,” said Taylor, 47.
If you have an idea for someone we should profile in this series, please email Statesman Journal Editor-in-Chief Cherrill Crosby at [email protected].
Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Reach him at [email protected]
