|
April was a busy month for Dr. Ben Chavis and The Hip Hop Summit Action Network. The non-profit organization designed to empower young people connected through Hip Hop music and culture held two large summits last month. The summits focused on political and financial literacy, and used the appeal and influence of Hip Hop artists as a means of motivating young people to do their own further exploration.
Empowerment is not a new field for Dr. Ben Chavis, who sits among the leaders of Hip Hop Summit Action Network. While Russell Simmons’ name often leads press releases, and news stories related to HHSAN, it is the efforts of Chavis as well that continue to make the organization run. A veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, former Robert Kennedy campaign worker, and past leader of the NAACP, Chavis has made it his mission to immerse himself in Hip Hop as a way to connect the youth of today with the struggle of the past. While many see Civil Rights leaders from a generation ago as being out of touch with the needs and expressions of the Hip Hop generation, Chavis hears a different song.
In this Ruby Hornet exclusive interview, conducted a day before the HSAN Financial Empowerment Summit in North Carolina, Dr. Chavis talks about bridging the generational gap, Hip Hop as an empowerment tool, and also shares his take on Nas’ new album. It may shock you to know that perhaps Hip Hop’s biggest supporter just turned 60...
RubyHornet: The reason for this interview is to talk about the financial empowerment summit will be taking place in North Carolina…My first question is, what do you see as financial empowerment? How may that be different than simply having money, or having wealth?
Ben Chavis: The whole purpose of the HSAN, as the world’s largest coalition of Hip Hop artists and recording executives in the form of a non-profit organization, is to empower the youth, economic empowerment, political empowerment, cultural empowerment, community empowerment. We see financial literacy as an essential building block in terms of young people building a firm financial foundation. We did a study some years ago and we found that 18-29 year olds more than often ruin their credit. Once you ruin your credit, it causes a downward spiral in your ability to meet one’s aspirations. Hip Hop culture is about having high aspirations. The question is: how do you fulfill those aspirations? So we define financial empowerment as gaining the necessary information, the necessary facts, and the understanding of how the financial world works, first in the United States and then globally speaking. Hip Hop is not just an American phenomenon, it’s global. You’ve probably heard that a lot of the artists today want to be paid in Euros. That’s part of the consciousness of how things are changing globally, and also financially. But, before you can tackle the world, you have to tackle the block that you live in, your own community, your own living space. We published a book four years ago called “Get Your Money Right Workbook.” This is our fourth year, in 2008, doing the financial literacy Hip Hop summit.
Since 2001 we’ve had over 75 Hip Hop summits in different cities around the United States and in Canada. Some of our summits have been ‘Get Out The Vote’ summits, some have been promoting education, but this is our forth year being focused on financial literacy. The response has been tremendous. We’ve found that there is a hunger and a thirst for this information. Unfortunately, the schools don’t teach young people the basic financial facts that they need to make it. Unfortunately, a lot of young people find out about financial literacy the hard way, after they’ve made some mistakes. So part of our summit is designed to prevent young people from getting into financial hardship, but on the other hand, for those who are already in financial hardship, there is a healing. There is a way to repair your credit. There is a way to repair your economic standing if you’ve had some hardship, which many young people have already experienced by the time they come to the Hip Hop summit.
RubyHornet: Speaking of that trial and error, some of the Hip Hop artists that you’re going to bring in, and that are going to speak, are going to talk about the mistakes they made, and also about the differences between the bling in the videos and reality.
Dr. Ben Chavis: That is correct. Some would say that financial literacy would be a boring subject, but we make it alive, we make it interesting. On the stage you have artists that a lot of young people look up to. The artists give very truthful anecdotes of their own life journey, their own financial journey. Many of the artists have almost gone to the brink of financial disaster, so they’re teaching from their own experience. When a teacher teaches, or when an artist gives a statement about their own reality, it becomes much more relatable because people can relate to the message much more genuinely. To speak on the emails we get after the summit, young people say that the Get Your Money Right Hip Hop summit has helped turn their lives around because we give them information they can use for the rest of their lives. So, it’s not like a performance or a concert where people have a good time then they go on to wait for the next concert. At the Financial Hip Hop Summit, we actually give them information individualized and tailored to the situation of the persons in the audience so they can adapt the information and use it in their own lives.
RubyHornet: As far as using it in their own lives, are there other people speaking like doctors or even teachers, people that don’t come into contact with millions of dollars or aren’t in high wealth positions, but are living a life like the majority of people. They are balancing their money correcting and building wealth that can be passed onto generations, so it shows the kids that it’s not just these big stars that can get financially empowered?
Dr. Ben Chavis: At each of our events we also have financial experts, financial planners…We’re teaching young people for the first time how to invest. They do get the reality, but in all honesty, it takes the presence of the artist so they will want to hear from the professor or want to hear from the financial expert. Keep in mind, without the artist, what the financial experts would say would just roll, it wouldn’t sink in. Before the summit gets underway we actually have a DJ. In Philadelphia we had two DJs on the one’s and two’s, and we cut down the music as a way to get everybody’s attention before we go into the subject matter. It’s a balance of education and entertainment, which we call edutainment.
RubyHornet: Is it a goal of yours, or do you see a way to get the youth so excited about these things on their own so that at some point we can have Financial Empowerment summits, or voting summits without the attractiveness of an artist?
Dr. Ben Chavis: It’s a process. The Hip Hop Summit is a step of a very long journey. Our role is to encourage young people to start their own journey. Obviously, when they leave the arena, when they leave the theater, or the various venues that we use, they have to go back into a certain reality. So certainly this is motivational and inspirational. Very often, young people need that. Particularly in America, we live in a society that tends to put young people down, that tends to discount their value, that tends to see young people as something on the sideline of society instead of in the center stage of how society makes its decisions. In other words, too often the interest of young people gets triaged. At HHSAN, we put the interests of young people as the formidable, as the primary concern of way we even have these summits.
RubyHornet: I see what you’re saying, and definitely understand the value of edutainment. I was a teacher for a couple years on the Southside of Chicago and I brought in music a lot, and Hip Hop specifically. I also shared the interviews I’ve done with my students to motivate them. One thing I was very conscious of was the fact that if I brought an artist or their music into class, there was a strong likelihood that the kids in my class would go back and look for their music and search, and really get into their music. I had to be careful that I wasn’t sending them to an artist that had things in their music that I really wouldn’t want my students to listen to. Is their any dialogue between you and the artists you work with about the future messages in their music?
Dr. Ben Chavis: Oh, absolutely. That’s a very good question, and I’m going to give you a very good answer. The artist, while they are on the stage speaking to the audience, the artist also gets something out of this. It’s a transformation process for the artists too. I’ve had a couple of leading artists, A-list artists say to me, ‘hey man, being at the summit [impacted me].’ You have to understand; when an artist is performing on stage they have very little interaction with the audience. They’re performing, then they go onto the next gig. At the Hip Hop Summit there is interaction, there is give and take. A lot of times the questions that come out of the audience are challenging to the artists, and that’s a good thing. The artists have a chance to respond spontaneously without having something scripted. There’s a give and take, a certain call and response.
The point that I’m trying to make is that this also impacts the artist. For example, Jim Jones, I work with him very closely at Dipset. If you look at what Jim Jones raps about, or the makeup of his albums, there’s an evolution of that brother’s consciousness that’s directly related to his involvement in the Hip Hop Summit, same thing with Cassidy. You know, there’s a whole group of artists that are considered conscious artists, and another group considered unconscious artists. I consider all artists to be conscious, they are just conscious about different things. Our role is to not only have the dialogue with the artist, but also to get them to practice what is preached. The people in the community evolve, but also the artistic genius and the talent of the artist is also nurtured and evolving. In a sense, that’s what keeps Hip Hop fresh. Each generation of artists that come are not necessarily trying to do what the previous generation has done. They’re trying to take that baton and take it to the next level of striving forward to make a real difference in the community.
RubyHornet: One thing I’ve noticed is that Hip Hop is at an interesting time because the artists that were there in the beginning, during the big explosion, Run-DMC, LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, EPMD, all these artists for the first time are in full adulthood, and are going into their 30’s and 40’s. As part of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, do you think about how to utilize them entering a higher stage of adulthood?
Dr. Ben Chavis: Oh, we have both old school and new school artists. My man Dougie Fresh co-hosts a lot of the summits. Sometimes we have Rev. Run from Run DMC, MC Lyte, a lot of the female artists still look up to MC Lyte and she’s on board with us, also LL Cool J. We do have vintage artists but we also have Chamillionaire, Flo Rida, Gorilla Zoe, and all the new artists that are coming up. There is a balance.
RubyHornet: Using artists that are at difference places in their careers and in their lives, is that an opportunity to continue to close this gap between the Hip Hop generation and the older Civil Rights generation?
Dr. Ben Chavis: I’m smiling cause the answer is yes. In fact, I have a whole lecture series entitled from ‘Civil Rights To Hip Hop.’ A lot people see the discontinuity, I see the continuity. We’re building a bridge between the Civil Rights generation and the Hip Hop generation. We cannot afford to have a generation gap. We cannot afford to have a cultural gap, or an ideological gap, or a worldview gap. These things have to bridge. Certainly the elders can share wisdom, but you also have to have that fire, you need that energy, you need that spontaneity, you need that surge of interest from the youth. That balance happens at the summit. At the end of the day, the goal is not to repeat the past, but to learn from the past and to make more progress. Each generation should be making more progress than the previous generation. That’s not only from a socio-economic stance, but also in terms of the creative art form. Hip Hop has grown immeasurably over the last 35-40 years, and has not peaked yet as it continues in this global dimension.
RubyHornet: Last week you were in Philadelphia for the vote summit, and we had a reporter there as well. I wanted to get your idea from a historical perspective. Being someone that has lived through so many times of change in America, is there any time that comes to mind that compares to the current political climate, and energy of this election or in terms of importance for the future course of our country?
Dr. Ben Chavis: Yes. I think that there are some similarities and dissimilarities. The similarities are that young people, similar to 40 and 50 years ago in the 1960’s, are setting the consciousness talk. If you think about the calls for change and the call for transformation in America, where is that call really coming from? Who is really responding to that call? Primarily young people. As you know, Hip Hop transcends race. Hip Hop transcends socio-economic circumstances. So while our country is still caught somewhat in the contradictions of racial discrimination and the contradictions of class stratification, Hip Hop has a transcended view. Young people today have a broader vision, similar to the way 40 or 50 years ago young persons in the Civil Rights community kept pushing Dr. King and others to take very progressive view.
The dissimilarity is the economic situation. The weight of poverty is much heavier today than 40 or 50 years ago. People are born into circumstances, and have to contend with circumstances. Sometimes you have to choose whether you are going to have food on the table or have something to wear, or a house to live in vs. something to ride in. Those contradictions are much sharper. And so that is why to some extent the entrepreneurial experience, young people wanting to go into business for themselves, has returned. That’s a similar thing. I think that I’m encouraged because as a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, and as someone fully emerged in the Hip Hop generation, I see the connection between the two. In fact, I would say, and some of my colleagues would get upset, but I’m going to say it, I think the Hip Hop generation has done more to contribute to the improvement of race relations than all of what was done 40 or 50 years ago. In other words, we’re building on that foundation, we don’t have to go back and do those same things. You have to keep pushing forward. The more we push forward to build on the success of the past and build new successes, I think the opportunities are going to return and more opportunities are going to open up for people to have all types of empowerment that we didn’t even dream about.
There’s one more difference, the internet. Keep in mind that during the Civil Rights Movement there was no such thing as the Internet. There was no such thing as digital connectivity, or social networking, or utilizing technology to build relationships and to have a communication system. Today, because of the advances in technology, young people not only have a sense of oneness and connection, they are able to build networks much more powerful than we were some time ago. All these factors give rise to the powerful spear of influence that Hip Hop culture has. There are a lot of player haters on Hip Hop. I’m one of the biggest defenders of Hip Hop, not that it’s always right. But if you weigh in and balance the tremendous potential that Hip Hop has ushered in as far as giving young people an opportunity not only to get themselves out of poverty, but to create a new world and a new vision where all of humanity can be celebrated without anyone being put down because of race or gender, or any other factors, to me that bodes well.
RubyHornet: In terms of race relations, I do know that Nas put out a new song from his album with the controversial title and all, I’m wondering if you heard the new song that came out.
Dr. Ben Chavis: I know Nas. Nas and I plan to take a tour together. We’re going to discuss the historical evolution of the term N***er.
RubyHornet: Do you feel this is a good thing? A lot of people are putting him down.
Dr. Ben Chavis: Nas is a poet. The role of a poet is to disturb the consciousness of people who have become complacent. That’s what Nas is doing with the title of his album, and the title of this single that he’s released. It is to disturb people’s complacency, and I think he’s going to accomplish that. I think he’s going to get a lot of criticism, and people are going to jump on his case without asking, ‘what is this brother trying to achieve? Why would he be so bold?’
Nas is a very intelligent brother. And you look at where his parents come from and his social upbringing and how he sees the world, so for him to make a decision to go into a stage of production and promotion around an album like that has some clear intentionality to it. I think it’s going to create a lot of dialogue. I think people will have a better understanding not only of how young people think and act, but also how the world needs to come to grips with some of these terms. Not just the terms, but the social conditions in which the terms are presented need to be challenged. 
RubyHornet: Can you speak briefly on the Hip Hop Research and Education Fund? And how can someone get involved or learn more about it?
Dr. Ben Chavis: I’ll tell you like this. The people who are oppressed have be careful how they use the dictionary of the oppressor. We have to do our own primary research, we need our own primary understanding. If Hip Hop is evolving it needs it’s own research, it’s own think tank, it’s own definitive institutions that help defend and define and get much more in the cognitive end of understanding what is Hip Hop and what Hip Hop is not, and move it forward. You have a lot of schools and academic institutions teaching Hip Hop. There’s a brother named Dr. James Peterson who has a PhD in Hip Hop at the University of Pennsylvania. The whole academic side and research side is very important. I know from my own experience, I was one of the people who helped start the environmental justice movement. Before we could even claim any right to protest environmental racism, we had to define it. Once we defined it we had to do our research to prove that it exists. Similarly, the HHREF is going to be that primary research and public education vehicle on behalf of Hip Hop culture.
To find out more about the Hip Hop Summit Action Network or the Hip Hop Research and Education Fund, please visit www.HSAN.org. |
