common

Common (and Rhymefest, apparently) recently held a press conference to announce that his Common Ground Foundation has linked up with Kanye West’s Donda’s House to create 20,000 jobs for the youth in the city of Chicago. Statistics from the Chicago Urban League revealed that a whopping 92% of all Black male teens are currently unemployed. From Poppinlines:

Common is hopeful that The Chicago Youth Jobs Collaborative and its jobs will provide black youth with enough opportunity to detour them from a life of crime.

“Obviously, one of the biggest reasons our kids are going through what they’re going through is because of poverty. I was doing an event in the neighborhood and there were some kids from Englewood and I said, ‘Man, what do y’all really need? What’s gonna stop this?’ And they were like, ‘We need money. Man, if we could work.’ They want a chance,” said rapper Common.

And these won’t just be temporary jobs….

“It’s one thing to provide summer jobs for these kids, but we’re trying to provide year-round jobs,” said Andrea Zopp, CEO of the Chicago Urban League. “We’ve had hearings and the kids have told us that they need jobs year-round.”

The initiative will also launch a musical festival, the AAHH! FEST, that will act as a yearly fundraiser to raise money for the jobs and other programs. It will be held September 20-21 at 6300 S. Hayes Drive, behind the Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park. No word yet on the line-up for the festival but the organizers are hoping to pull a few big names from the Chi.

A small-but-committed group of writers, bloggers and videographers that (mostly) exist and function all over the D.C. Metro area.