Some celebrities do their charitable work out in the open. Others, like Nelly, do it a bit more quietly.
“It’s about making a change, not making an impression.”- Nelly
Mike Brown Scholarship
In the wake of the Mike Brown shooting and Ferguson protests, many in the black community called for black celebrities to speak out against the injustices shown to their own people. Some celebrities rose to the occasion, using social media and TV news outlets like CNN.
Following these events, the media criticized Nelly because he did not visit the city right away. Although, when he did eventually arrive in Ferguson, he announced the Mike Brown scholarship.
The scholarship was not merely a sentimental act to honor the slain college student but a part of a strategic plan to help bring change to the Ferguson community in the most effective way he believes he can. He saw education as a solution that could invoke real change. Nelly explained:
I try to do it through education because that’s the only way we’re going to get it. The only way we’re going to get this is to elevate. We have to get the kids to go out of these communities. Graduate. Get the knowledge. Come back to the community, and then they can run it because they understand the people and understand the severity of the situation.
He has sent two students to college on scholarships every year for the past 10 years! The rapper clarifies that sometimes it’s better to do things quietly.
Nelly said:
It’s not about the hoo-ha, it’s about the silent assassins. It’s the ones that move behind the scenes that get things done. The guy that’s screaming on television, he’s the diversion. I’m not a diversion. I’m going to get it done.
ex’Treme Institute
The Mike Brown scholarship isn’t the only act of altruism Nelly has done. The rap star from St. Louis, Missouri has been helping run the ex’Treme Institute by Nelly, a program designed to help students get business, entertainment and beat making educations. But Nelly, unlike many entertainers, prefers to loan his resources and ideas to the institute, not his image.
Carl Nappa, the school’s executive director, and an accomplished recording engineer said that he saw Nelly’s institute as the perfect way to prepare artists for the entertainment industry. As Nappa sees it, a student with a degree from the ex’Treme Institute will enter today’s market, where artists also need to be entrepreneurs, versed in every aspect of the music business, with many advantages. He will have high confidence, music-industry connections, and a CD of material that he recorded, the program’s capstone project.
The school opened in late 2011 and since then has continued to grow.
Other Charitable Black Celebrities
J. Cole attended a young female fan’s graduation, after promising to attend if she got into a four-year university and he even agreed to pay her tuition. Also, a young Compton athlete said that R&B star Tyrese Gibson had invested $50,000 into his future, sending him to Morehouse College. LeBron James announced a new mentoring program that could send up to 1,000 kids in the Akron, Ohio school system to college for free as long as they complete his six-year program.
The trend of influential black celebrities supporting America’s black youth to attain a college education puts the power into the hands of the young, who, armed with knowledge will shape communities, laws, and policies to ensure that black lives matter.
