Speech (Arrested Development) & Yolanda Thomas (KEYNOTE SPEAKERS)

Grammy Award Winning Artist (Arrested Development) & Relationship Enthusiasts

Speech was born Todd Thomas in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he has been happily married to Yolanda Thomas for 24 years. Speech and Yolanda say that their proudest achievements are their marriage, their two children Jahi and Zoe, and their faith in Jesus, which is their biggest strength & guidance.

Speech and Yolanda met at a post office in Atlanta, Ga., in July of 1991, while Yolanda was working at The Atlanta Journal and Constitution as a computer programmer and Speech and his group, Arrested Development, was signed to a record label.  On their first date Speech shared about the loss of his grandmother to a heart attack and his older and only brother, Terrence Thomas to an asthma attack, all within the same week.  

God used Speech’s lifelong love of music and his pain and sadness to celebrate the lives of those he lost. Speech wrote a song named, Tennessee because it was the last place he saw his brother and grandmother. That song earned he and his group Arrested Development a Grammy award for Best Rap Single (1993) and The Rock and Roll  Hall of Fame named the Arrested Development smash “Tennessee” one of the 500 Songs that shaped Rock and Roll.  The group went on to release other hits, including “Mr. Wendal”, and “People Everyday” garnering them an additional Grammy Award for Best New Artist, two MTV awards, a Soul Train Music Award, and the coveted NAACP Image Award.  Rolling Stone magazine named them Band of The Year (1992), while  VH-1 named them one of the greatest Hip-Hop artists of all time!  Their album “3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 days in the Life of” went on to sell over 4 million albums.

During the world wind of Speech’s career, he and Yolanda dated for 4 1/2 years and married on December 16, 1995.  A year later they were both baptized on December 8, 1996.  Shortly after they were baptized, Yolanda’s parents were baptized, her mom in January 1997, and her dad in June 1997.  In 2005, Speech became an ordained minister with the Churches of Christ.