2022_09_New_Jersey_Monthly

POLITICS
me to make it out. You prayed for me
to do better. You prayed for me not to
fall victim. You prayed for me to not
become a statistic. So now, don’t shoot
me down when those prayers have been
answered just because of a career that I
took money out of my pocket to help the
people with. I didn’t only go platinum
for myself. I went platinum for Newark.
I went platinum for the people, so I can
take those same dollars and put them
right back into the community. And
there’s receipts to all of that.
Do you hope this victory motivates
other hip-hop artists to run for office?
Most definitely. I wanna reignite the
spark that Tupac started.... I pray that
I spark a whole generation, and I know
I’m already doing it. That’s what this is
for. People gotta understand, hip-hop is
not just music. Hip-hop is a culture, and
as of right now, hip-hop is the pop culture....
In my 50 years of living, whatever
the pop culture was, it always moved
society forward.... It’s about movement.
The naysayers, they hate movement.
They hate to hear a march coming. They
hate to hear the stomping of the feet.
They want you to be stagnant.... Hip-hop
is that movement.
Getting into ideas you ran on, your
nonprofit, 211 Community Impact,
does a lot for kids. Newark’s youth
were a focus of your campaign. How
are you looking to invest in them as a
public official?
Well, the core of my campaign was getting
the people to change their mindset.
No matter what legislation we create, if
we don’t change the mindset of the people,
if we don’t get the people to believe
in themselves and understand that they
really have the power, I don’t care what
we build or develop…. But if children are
truly the future, like Newarker Whitney
Houston said, then we have to focus on
them first.
You also mentioned revitalizing the
West Ward and improving quality of
life. How do you do that?
It takes communication and comprehension,
having an understanding. It
takes getting with the business owners,
talking about what we’re doing
around your workspace. What does
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SEPTEMBER 2022 NEW JERSEY MONTHLY 37