10 Things To Know Right Now About Hip Hop, Branding, Power, Culture

So much is going on that one can barely keep up! But that's why you have me. Here is my latest on a few insights and a bit of news curation, as it pertains to hip hop culture/youth culture and business. Fasten your seatbelts, here we go!

1) 50 Cent just keeps winning. Sure we were all impressed with what he did at Starz, but now the Fox deal ups the ante. ICYMI, read about the deal here. Yes, I'll be watching pretty much whatever gangsta stories he comes up with. Yes, I do think I was a kingpin in my last life. LOL

2) But this particular deal of 50's was not the most talked about, though. Pharell and Louis Vuitton were mentioned in a ton of outlets globally. The question is, however, can Pharell win like 50 regarding consistency, reach, and expansion? Can he truly scale with Doodle position and tie it into LVMH to make the gig more than a novelty? I'm not completely sure. Let's keep watching.

3) By the way, if you're planning to head to SXSW this year, be sure and catch the Museum of Graffiti's "Art of Hip Hop" pop up this year which will open March 10th.?Also, seems like even though L'il Yachty's album is not getting the critical claim he would like (AI-designed album cover or not), he's also gonna be appearing at SXSW, too, along with others.

4) I'm loving that Rza of Wu-Tang just debuted his first-ever ballet continuing to demonstrate how hip hop is more fluid and creative with each passing year.

5) In new collabo news: Death Row, meet Tik Tok, Tik Tok, meet Death Row. Interesting move here. Cool that they are doing this, but the average age on Tik Tok won't know much about the legendary roster unless they are a true hip hop fan. The way to play this? Have some young people chop it up about the storied label's history, dissect the hits, compare and contrast to today, and THEN you have a winner, folks. AR usage into the "breed of dog that best represents them" is not an emotional connection. *sigh* Let's see how this one goes.

6) Hmmm... on this rebrand. How about this instead: please invest in the next generation and focus on female entrepreneurs instead?

7) Last issue I mentioned a bit about the Super Bowl and Doritos but the company's Triangle Studios focusing on NFT and Web3 expansion is kinda the killer news that somehow didn't seem to be a part of a dot-connect during the expensive commercial. Too bad. At any rate, I'm liking this out-of-box thinking essentially by a snack food. Fingers crossed they actually create something with utility, and use hip hop to do it!

8) Lest anyone ever forget, hip hop has many dimensions and social impact has always been one of them. I absolutely LOVE this latest installment about Fat Joe getting involved with greater transparency about hospital pricing. Do read about this!

9) BTW, and you can get all the deets in my news picks further below, African-Americans are now the fastest-growing demo of podcast listeners. This mixed with hip hop culture is a positively delicious elixir. What are your plans to either support and/or leverage this trend?

*** Quick Note: if you are someone who wants to learn more about this powerful space of youth culture and how you can use it to better connect Gen Z and Millennials and/or become part of the cultural narrative, connect with celebrated recording artists/notables in the space, and/or create brand/content strategy, book me as a speaker at your organization, DM me to discuss further. This is where the power resides.

10) So why did I wait to release the issue a bit this week? Because (drum roll, please) I wanted to share a bit about the fact that I was asked to participate in a very cool fireside chat at the famed ad agency Droga5 on Wall Street yesterday. It was all in celebration of hip hop's 50th anniversary. We talked brands, trends, future, money. I recorded a bit about top take aways. Click the quick 3-minute video below to check it out. I'd like to also add that a key element to consider when developing strategy is to think concentric circles. How will what you are creating sit within the hip hop community and how does that sit within large youth culture/American values and trends, and finally how does all that sit with larger global values and trends? Not easy, but absolutely mandatory if you want to win as a brand collaborating with such a powerful entity as hip hop.

10b) I was recently interviewed on a cool podcast called "Inspiring Nations" where I talked about hip hop, emerging tech, and more. Click here to listen now or bookmark and share! Luv how this woman is doing here thing and helping others to raise their voices!

10c) I was also recently interviewed on "The Trend With Justin A. Williams" talking about... what else? Hip hop, emerging tech, and more. Click here to listen now or bookmark and share. An honor to be included. He's a real pro with a top-rated podcast!

Now, as always, here are my quick news picks for you that demonstrate trends in hip hop expansion, reach, power. Enjoy!