Nicole Coleman Mullen (born June 26, 1967) is an award-winning singer, songwriter, and choreographer. She was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. She recorded her first solo album, Don’t Let Me Go, in 1991 with the independent label Frontline Records. Mullen continued her singing-songwriting-choreography career in the 1990s, singing backup for Michael W. Smith and the Newsboys, writing for Jaci Velasquez, and working as a dancer/choreographer with Amy Grant. She also provided backup vocals for the music video at the end of the VeggieTales program, Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space! and the opening of the VeggieTales presentation, Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed. She was signed to Word Records in 1998 by VP of A&R Brent Bourgeois. Her fourth album, Talk About It, was certified gold for sales in excess of 500,000 copies on April 15, 2008.

Mullen established a mentor group for girls called “The Baby Girls Club”. She and her husband, David Mullen, are youth leaders in their local church, tutor inner-city youth, and participate in Kids Across America summer camp( http://kidsacrossamerica.org/) for inner city youth. Mullen is also active with the International Needs Network Ghana, an organization that works to free Trokosi slaves in Ghana.

Mullen is the only black artist to win the Dove Award for Song of the Year.

Nicole & David

I LOVE NCM! I've got most of her albums. However, I've just gotta make a comment about Kids Across America. I worked there for a summer (the summer after my sophomore year in undergrad), and I have NEVER been around more racist people in my life. The cook whom I worked under would make jokes about "chinks" and "pollocks," and I knew when I wasn't present, she probably threw the word "nigger" in there too. I won't even go into how blatantly racist their guidebook was. Most of the employees were conservative Christian white upper-middle class kids who knew nothing about Black folks (since inner-city is just a euphamism they use) and what they learn there will only serve to miseducate them. I finally had to escape that place (for real y'all, this place is in the middle of the forest in Golden, MO...it was truly like an escape. Especially since we weren't allowed to use our cell phones)!

On a lighter note, I met a guy there (one of the head counselors) who I quickly befriended. He was always telling everyone about his girlfriend and how he was trying to earn money to make sure his proposal was perfect, etc, etc, etc. You could tell he was COMPLETELY smitten. When she came to visit him one weekend, he called down to the kitchen for me to come to the main office and meet her. I walk in, see the usual employees and a Black female visitor. He walks in behind me and I go, "I thought you said your gf was here! I was busy!" He points to the Black lady and she fell over laughin because my face BROKE. And yes, I was ignant enough to say, "whaaaaaaaaat! I ain't know she was a SISTA!!!!" The white female employees were up in there looking salty as hell! They got married the next year and they've adopted 2 little Black girls afterwards. Beautiful family!

You should contact Nicole Mullen and let her know about your experience there. I'm sure they're not aware of what goes on there.


That's a great story!

Yeah, I actually thought about that. There were plenty of Black employees who thought that nothing was wrong! So, I kinda thought if I said something, I'd be the only person who thought it was wrong. Oh well.