Sunday, July 30, 2006

June/July news and events

Heres a June/July summary of charitable events and contributions in hip hop:

Remy Ma, Green Lantern, and others will help raise money for Upliftment Jamica at the Saddle to the East charity benefit on August 26th. Remy will also be a featured speaker for the Strength of My Sisters Foundation on July 27th.

Eminem is raising money for the Big Proof foundation with t-shirt and poster sales from BigProof4ever.com.

Beanie Sigel contributed three stacks to the Doc Pomus Financial Assistance Program.

Jay-Z donated $30,000 to five New York/ New Jersey area schools. He was also part of the Robin Hood Foundation's annual gala. The money raised from this years event will pay close to half of the construction costs of a $90 million charter high school in New York City,which will be home to a music room named after Hov.

Luda and Snoop particiapted in GM's "King of Bling" car contest.

Joe Budden and Sigel were players in the 2006 "Deal Me In" Spades Tournament. You can check Budden's victory speech here.

David Banner got some much-deserved recognition for his work to help Hurricane Katrina victims last year.

Russell Simmons has a fragrance line coming out later this year; all the procedes will go to charity. The Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation's annual Art For Life Benefit will be held on Saturday, July 29th.

Common, along with Rakim and Rhymefest, took the stage for Marc Ecko's Save the Rhinos benefit concert. He also headlined at an anti-racism concert in London.

Kanye West will be performing at the "Fashion Rocks" charity concert in September. In June he and Nas performed at Cipriani's to raise money for amfAR.

Juvenile and The Youngbloodz will be performing free concerts for U.S soldiers.

Damon Dash was a sponsor of the Kingdome Tournament in Harlem, and gave away sneakers on the inaugural Pro-Keds Day.

The Tupcac Legacy Tour will launch in Los Angeles this fall, with a portion of procedes going to the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts.

Young Jeezy, Slim Thug, Paul Wall, Game, and Big Boi performed as part of Boost Mobile's RockCorps concert tour. Get more info on future concerts here.

Pharrell is in talks to construct a computer center in his Virginia Beach hometown. Hopefully his latest corporate partner Hewlett Packard will be contributing.

D.M.C has started a summer camp for adopted kids.

Big Tigger hosted his second Annual Celebrity Classic in DC. And for Labor Day weekend, he'll be hosting the National Association of Black Bikers' International Bikefest.

Trick Daddy hosted his third Trick Luvs Da Kids Back to School Family Fun Fest on July 29th. Check some pics at Crunk and Disorderly.

Hip Hop Philanthropy Intro


I've started this blog to follow a very overlooked aspect of hip hop: the growing involvement of rap artists in charitable causes. Very often, I hear (underinformed) complaints that artists arent involved in the community, and that "They're making all this money, and doing nothing for the 'hood". Now while I'll admit that most artists shout out brand names more frequently than their charitable foundations, I'll also argue that there are many who consistently demonstrate meaningful examples of grass roots philanthropy. So with that said, in this blog I will:

Publicists, managers and event coordinators can reach me at : urbonicsmedia (at) yahoo.com

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