College was a great experience for me, but I failed to fully walk in my truth.

For the majority of my life, I thought I despised writing. I’d overhear my friends having to write 20–30 page papers about topics that had no interest to me, while I thought studying for exams was a better tradeoff. What I realized is that I had yet to discover my love for writing on topics that actually interested me, Hip Hop and Economics. One may ask, why are these topics interesting and how were you able to combine both of them together? Let’s get into it.

We need to talk about how black people contributed so much to a genre that they hardly get to profit off of.

I’ve always had an affinity to Hip-Hop even though I was not “traditionally” exposed to the genre by my parents (first-generation Nigerian-American), the radio and the “streets” were the biggest distributors back in the day *laughs in 21-year old*. Even before I had a clue what Hip-Hop was, from a young age, I understood the power and value that music had. For example, if I got in trouble when I was younger and it resulted in me crying, once music came on, I immediately became quiet and tried to focus on the melodies and the lyrics being spewed.

Ok.. you liked music, but how did you really get into Hip-Hop?

Long story short, I would say I didn’t really get into recorded music until I was in the 7th grade (12 years old, played instruments from the 3rd grade). At that time, the way I would get my hands on music would be through the radio, Datpiff, hearing what my peers played and bootlegging albums as they leaked (don’t ask me how I knew how to do this at 12, lol).

We need to talk about how other people who don’t come from the origins and cultural background of hip-hop have been able to use “copy and paste” tactics to boost their agenda. *cough* Miley Cyrus *cough*

Two artists that I really championed were Kid Cudi and Lupe Fiasco. Here’s why they stood out to me.

Kid Cudi

1. Cudi’s story resonated with me. (Individuality and the power of being different)
2. Rap was very “lyrical” but Cudi found a way to fuse melodies with his raps, something that he helped pioneer alongside the likes of Kanye West and a few others.
3. Cudi’s biggest influence is André 3000.

Lupe Fiasco

1. Even though I was young, at that time, I knew Lupe was a top 5 MC. We can have this debate later.
2. Lupe actually rapped about current events and things people hardly covered.
3. Lupe was himself. He did things that a “typical” rapper did not do. (Skateboarded, watched Anime, etc).

Now, I’ll go into detail about the points I made about each artist in a different article, but I know I have a problem going off on tangents (to the people who personally know me), so I am trying to stay focused here. Where was I at again? Oh… yeah. Hip-Hop and Economics. Now that I talked about Hip-Hop, let’s talk about my exposure to economics and how it grew to be my favorite subject over time.

Economics is known as “the branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth.”

What does that even mean????!!!!!

To put that into layman’s terms, it is a social science that studies the behavior of individuals as it relates to wealth. To break it down a bit more, Economists are pretty much “glorified historians” who use history to interpolate and predict the future (to understand the present, you have to know the past). Now, if we look at Hip-Hop, a genre that is less than 45 years old, now being the biggest musical genre in the world, there’s a lot to analyze. What is there to analyze? I’m glad you asked..

1. We need to talk about how black people contributed so much to a genre that they hardly get to profit off of.
2. We need to talk about how Hip-Hop has evolved to be bigger than just music, to the point where lifestyle brands have amassed billions.
3. We need to talk about how other people who don’t come from the origins and cultural background of hip-hop have been able to use “copy and paste” tactics to boost their agenda. *cough* Miley Cyrus *cough*
4. We need to understand that we as a community dictate a culture that is worth billions.
5. Last, but not the least we need to understand how we can preserve our culture and take control so that we can amass generational wealth for our families several years down the line if climate change already doesn’t take us out. (I’m joking and being serious at the same time)

Anyways, this is a quick synopsis of the angle that I am trying to take with the future articles that I publish. Through this journey, I’ll give a warm introduction, let you understand the world where I come from and really break down Hip-Hop from understanding HOW the music industry really works by the numbers on the board (shoutout to Pusha). Be prepared to learn something new everyday, understand the foundations of financial literacy and understand the history of an industry that I deem as inefficient.

It’s ya boy Vicraw. I’ve been out of the mix, I’ve been in the cut and I am finally here to say, “What’s Up?”