Black Power Matters.
TyAnthony Davis. Sounds like the 'brow of the Los Angeles Lakers Basketball player. Actually it's a teacher who reversed the fortunes of 20 schools in his district performing in the bottom 5%. Founding his own school like NBA LAL legend LeBron James with the promise of Vox Collegiate Junior High. "Your voice is power". Write that on the board like lines ten times. Pharrell said 'You Can Do It Too' on the Neptune's debut solo set 'In My Mind' complete with animated avatar. Can you have it like that? Let's do it. Tyler the Creator could. Doing it and creating his future that's still happening to this day. His honor list longer than a mixtape track one. Founding Honey's Kettle 20 years ago, Vincent and Arlene Williams expanded their family business with their children during this cruel COVID pandemic. Iddris Sandu at 23 has already wrote algorithms for apps like Snapchat, Uber and Instagram...now he's doing several for himself. Despite backlash Beatrice Dixon attribute the success of her feminine product line Honey Pot's to the success of other black women...but that backlash is the only thing that's toxic there. Here in Tokyo, Japan, brothers Arthell and Darnell Isom created the first black owned anime studio. Read that again. 'Insecure' actress Issa Rae began her Hollywood career filming a low budget web series in South L.A. Now on that same block she's building her own empire that's looking for the next star to shine in the city of them and angels.
It's only right now at this point too we take a moment of silence for Nipsey Hussle. And for Kobe Bryant. And for Chadwick Boseman.
Like Skateboard P with no skateboard shops in the hood, Neighbors Skateshop kicked and pushed like Lupe Fiasco. Now they cooooast. Running the city like Diddy, Alrick Augustine has followers like when Tom Hanks just felt like running as 'Forres Gump'. Designer. Rapper. Community activist. What more can you say like Jay-Z (he's here too)? Make sure you put some respect on Six Sev's name. And Chance Infinite. Who took the surname amount of money he earned in the music industry and brought Harun Coffee Shop to his community. Denise Woodward could have given up when 86 investors wouldn't Partake in her cookies of the same name, but the 87th didn't. His name? Shawn Carter AKA Jay-Z. And if you want My Two Cents, check out Chef Alisa's vegan food that's good for the soul, the planet...and our four legged friends. Don't believe us? Why don't you ask one of their regular customers? His name is Barack. Working from home is the norm now, but Angela Richardson took some homemade cleaning supplies and turned them into a product line. Now sadly for something sobering. Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy related complications. What can we do about this? Debbie Allen is looking into it and out for us after her own childbirth experience. Creating a safe space to give birth outside the hospital in the comfort of mother's own homes. As the CEO of Tribe Midwifery. Like the CEO of Miss Bennett Fitness. The CEO's of Black and Mobile. The CEO of Trill Paws Dog Accessories. The CEO of Third Vault Yarns back in London. The first black Valedictorian of Princeton. Now tap your temple to this. Can't make another meme when you're too smart for all that. Broadway star Robert Hartwell dances in front of a plantation were his ancestors were enslaved. It recently went up for sale. 400K, cash. He just bought it. Talk about taking the power back.
Compton Cowboys of California. Hugh Augustine's of Los Angeles. The Simply Wholesome Health Food Markets, dot com. The Soul Food House of Tokyo, Japan. The Nail XPerience of Paris, France. M.I.O. prints of Dublin, Ireland. Caked and Baked of Tel-Aviv, Israel. Umoga Production in Dublin, Ireland. Avila Diana Art of London, England. The Artisan Grower in Aberdeenshire, Scotland (YES!). The Maison Chateau Rouge of Paris, France. All these black businesses owned by all these black entrepreneurs are honoured in the video for Pharrell Williams new single, 'Entrepreneur', whose video means so much more like Childish Gambino's, 'This Is America', but today for a much more positive way. In the same day South Korean pop juggernaut BTS' explosive, 'Dynamite' single broke YouTube records, Pharrell and Jay-Z weren't 'Frontin''. Last week the pair who have changed clothes on more tracks than catwalks released the most beautiful and best the same day we got new albums from King of New York, Nas ('King's Disease') and the Las Vegas heartland strip of The Killers ('Imploding The Mirage') straight out of Sin City. But as the two most famous faces in urban music didn't even appear in their blockbuster collaboration video we all knew it meant more. They let their words and the work of their subjects do the talking. And boy do they sing like a Pharrell's falsetto. The 'Happy' go lucky hit maker who sang for 'Freedom' now leads a chorus in a time we're we need it now more than ever. The worst year of our lives in the new decade of 2020 that began with the tragic loss of Kobe and GiGi and has only yesterday seen the loss of the Black Panther, Jackie Robinson, James Brown and Thurgood Marshall in the amazing actor himself, Chadwick Boseman. A symbol we need right now raising a fist like what should be an Olympic podium and forming a cross like Wakanda Forever, or another King in number 23, taking a knee and paying tribute. Because Black Lives Matter and in a year were COVID-19 is taking even more lives we will keep saying it like all the names the evil disease of racism has took. All until they arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor and people like George Floyd no longer have to die using their last words to say, 'I can't breathe'. Singing for 'Hidden Figures' again like all the 'Marilyn Monroe' and 'Lost Queen's' this 'G I R L' record makers has before. Pharrell gives everyone their moment in one that feels as epic and euphoric as that getting familiar time he showed me and you that he could rap along to OutKast's 'Elevators' for a 'Maybe' freestyle remix by Clinton Sparks before those guitars came back in. Now watch us all react like he and we the first time we were introduced to 'Alaska' and a young N.Y.U student by the name of Maggie. Turning all the pain into all our power, Pharrell sings, "I am black ambition/I am always whisperin'/They keep tellin' me I will not/But my will won't listen," reminding us to "let go" and "risk it all" in call and response chorus if we "want to fly". Chanting, "black man" again and again as Jay-Z adds his two cents and bars, "Serial entrepreneur, we on our own/Stop sittin' around waitin' for folks to throw you a bone/If you can't buy the building at least stock the shelf (Word)/Then keep on stackin' 'til you stockin' for yourself, uh/See, everything you place after black/Is too small a term to completely describe the act/Black nation, black builder, black entrepreneur/You in the presence of Black Excellence and I'm on the board/Lord." God knows you should heed these words and watch this work. If you've got an idea run with it. Because you can do it too and "mister entrepreneur", "you never know what's in store". This is black ambition. Witness...and testify. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
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