Straight outta east st. Louis

Tymon Shipp was born in East St. Louis, Illinois. The seventh of eight children, he grew up in a home with a lot of love, but not much money. Government cheese was a blessing and a curse.
Gun violence and other crime were commonplace in his neighborhood, so when his parents separated, Tymon’s mother welcomed the chance to move to Denver. (An older son in the Air Force was stationed there.) Tymon was 11.
Mrs. Shipp and the younger children loved Colorado. A year later, his parents got back together and the family moved to Missouri, then back to Colorado. Tymon attended four high schools in three years before graduating from Gateway High School in Aurora.
He played sports in school, but never thought to try out for a school play. After high school, Tymon was signed by Vannoy Talent Agency in Denver and worked as a model while taking acting classes. He also took classes at two colleges in Denver and one in Texas.
Tymon got his start in acting in the play Martin Luther King Memoirs at the Eulipions Cultural Center in Denver. More stage roles followed, but he knew he needed to be in Los Angeles to continue his acting career.
Like so many actors before him, Tymon packed up his car and hit the road for Hollywood. He had a little more than a hundred dollars to his name. What came next was the usual whirl of auditions, casting calls, and acting workshops.
But acting wasn’t his only available outlet for performing. Tymon’s friends had been coaxing him for years to try stand-up comedy. Storytelling came naturally to him and his childhood and teen years provided endless material.
So he wrote down a few stories and hit the stage at The Comedy Store. It went so well, he kept performing and fine-tuning his material. Neither acting nor comedy brought in much money in the early days so Tymon ditched the temp jobs in favor of something more stable.
He landed that steady job after chatting with a fellow bar patron about the Lakers. The other man happened to be a supervisor with the Los Angeles County Probation Department and got Tymon hired.
Today, Tymon juggles all his roles—including being an uncle to more than 40 nieces and nephews.
Gun violence and other crime were commonplace in his neighborhood, so when his parents separated, Tymon’s mother welcomed the chance to move to Denver. (An older son in the Air Force was stationed there.) Tymon was 11.
Mrs. Shipp and the younger children loved Colorado. A year later, his parents got back together and the family moved to Missouri, then back to Colorado. Tymon attended four high schools in three years before graduating from Gateway High School in Aurora.
He played sports in school, but never thought to try out for a school play. After high school, Tymon was signed by Vannoy Talent Agency in Denver and worked as a model while taking acting classes. He also took classes at two colleges in Denver and one in Texas.
Tymon got his start in acting in the play Martin Luther King Memoirs at the Eulipions Cultural Center in Denver. More stage roles followed, but he knew he needed to be in Los Angeles to continue his acting career.
Like so many actors before him, Tymon packed up his car and hit the road for Hollywood. He had a little more than a hundred dollars to his name. What came next was the usual whirl of auditions, casting calls, and acting workshops.
But acting wasn’t his only available outlet for performing. Tymon’s friends had been coaxing him for years to try stand-up comedy. Storytelling came naturally to him and his childhood and teen years provided endless material.
So he wrote down a few stories and hit the stage at The Comedy Store. It went so well, he kept performing and fine-tuning his material. Neither acting nor comedy brought in much money in the early days so Tymon ditched the temp jobs in favor of something more stable.
He landed that steady job after chatting with a fellow bar patron about the Lakers. The other man happened to be a supervisor with the Los Angeles County Probation Department and got Tymon hired.
Today, Tymon juggles all his roles—including being an uncle to more than 40 nieces and nephews.