Confessions Of A Failed Hip Hop Publicist

It's time I throw in the towel. As a freelance publicist who specializes in promoting up and coming rappers, it looks like 2013 will be the end of the road for me. As a 40 year old Hip Hop head who grew up on Afrika Bambaataa, Melle Mel, Run DMC, Public Enemy and Rakim, my mission in life has always been to promote this culture I love. But the game has changed and so have I.

Throughout the 80's, 90's and 2000's, I wore many hats as a talent scout, freelance journalist, publisher, promoter and publicist trying to use my influence to promote rap music with substance. I was so committed to using Hip Hop as a form of empowerment that I even created one of the nation's first full time educational Hip Hop program for middle and high school students. Everyday for five years, I taught six periods of Hip Hop culture education to hundreds of students who never imagined that Hip Hop could be offered as a regular class. It was magic! Lives were changed, students were motivated to better themselves and I became an award winning teacher in the process. California's economic crisis put an end to the magic in 2011 when my program lost its funding...