Hip-Hop Spreads Money Management Skills Through The Hip Hop Summit Action Network
By: Crystal Dickey
Issue date: 11/14/07 Section: Student Life
- Page 1 of 1
| |
| |
| |
|
On Nov. 3, the Hip Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) continued to promote hip-hop's true purpose, empowerment, with their 3rd Annual Financial Empowerment International Tour, making its last stop at Morris Brown College. Denoting hip hop's worldwide influence, children, college students and adults alike gathered to hear hip hop's major players share personal mistakes and stories of money management skills, credit truths, home and car buying tips and guidelines for being financially responsible.
The panel, co-moderated by former 106&Park television personality Free and HSAN CEO/President Dr. Benjamin Chavis, featured some of hip-hop's biggest stars. People like Cassidy, Hurricane Chris, Young Joc, Letoya Luckett, Yung Berg, Dougie Fresh as well as super producers Jermaine Dupri, Sean "The Penn" Garrett, Bryan Michael Cox and DJ Drama came to show support for financial empowerment. Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons, V-103 radio personality Greg Street, Chrysler Financial representative Monique Tate and former Washington Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington were also panelists.
Panelists appeared enthusiastic to educate the equally eager younger generation with both sound and financial advice in light of the housing market crash affecting the jobs, student loans, and the economy as a whole.
LaVar Arrington said, "Anytime you can get in front of the younger generation and try to instill the core values of believing in yourself and understanding that it isn't easy, but you can achieve the things that you set out to achieve, that's really important for me to be a part of something like that. Anytime there's something like that, that people want me to be a part of, I'll be there."
For all the young dreamers, visionaries and aspirers, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons believes that in order to be successful in all endeavors, not only financial, individuals must believe in themselves, work hard, all of the qualities the 71st summit's panelists possess.
"A lot of times you have good ideas, and there are good ones almost always, but it's a question of resilience, hard work, the faith, the dedication. That's where all the odds are [and] point to the fact that they believe, others didn't, and they went to work dedicated and they weren't so fearful of failure and [those who are successful] all have the same story," he said.
"And so we[HSAN] bring them the artists [for people to turn to] and say 'oh look they look like me' and 'what my mother told me, what the preacher told me and what the prophet told me and what everyone is saying is true.' If you work hard and believe in yourself you can make it and artists are an example to a lot of people," Simmons added.
The stars' relevance was seen through the audience being brought to their feet as each panelist was introduced; notably the audience's "hand clap" that rung throughout Morris Brown's gym as Hurricane Chris took his seat. The panelists paused periodically between the discussion to refer to pages in a 92-page "Get Your Money Right" workbook with information about fico scores and credit reports, credit breakdown, budgeting tips, and home and car buying options.
According to Demos, a non-profit economic research group, African American students are more likely to have to have borrowed money for college because their families can't afford to pay for it. They are also more likely to use a credit card, less likely to have a bank account and less likely to have investment than their white counterparts.
Dougie Fresh stated that over 6 billion dollars are made by credit card companies on late fees and interest. African-American students are likely to accept multiple credit card offers without adequate education about interest rates, mortgages, and stocks and bonds, according to JumpStart coalition.
With it being a more challenging to repair shaky credit then it is to build credit knowledgeably, Chrysler Financial representative Monique Tate suggests making money management a daily habit. "You have to be committed and discipline yourself. The first approach to it is to write down everything that you spend and write down everything that you take in. Subtract what you spend away from what you take in and see if that number at the end is positive or negative," she said.
Producer Bryan-Michael Cox confessed that as a producer, artist, or entertainer, one can make money mistakes being fazed by their first big check He insists that creating and building good saving habits will help to secure a financial cushion.
"Towards the middle [in becoming a successful producer] I learned that I just needed to start saving my money and living beneath my means. So I'd get a check for $15,000 and instead of spending the $15,000 I would go head and spend $7,500 and put the other $7,500 in savings.
That's how you start building those habits and it took me a long time to get to that point. And that's why we're here because we want yall to catch it now," he expressed.
Cox added "I've been blessed; I have a trade that allows me to be able to go back in and make some money real quick, not everyone's able to do that. You have to create good habits and that's the bottom line."
Simmons stresses that although there aren't classes in school directed at credit management, students must be proactive through summits such as this as well as being fiscal
"Don't get your credit twisted early, pay attention, it's not something [as simple] as going to school but it's something you have to learn. Learn to manage your money and learn how to manage your credit score [like] what is a credit/ FICO score? How do you work with it? [It's] basic stuff that a lot of the times is overlooked and never taught."
The booklet from the empowerment series is available to downloadable at www.hsan.org.
