5 Facts About Hip Hop Cares Honoree IDK

Born Jason Mills and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland, the hip hop artist generally known as IDK, together with having compiled a formidable catalog in his younger profession, has been probably the most consciously ahead artists in music immediately.

Whereas the 29-year-old has launched two profitable albums, He Actual (2019) and USee4Yourself (2021), IDK has additionally produced for different musicians, made strikes into style and enterprise, and has been instrumental in giving again together with his No Label Acadamey initiative, which is a program began by he and two Harvard graduates to empower and practice Black youth in getting into the business.

As this 12 months’s Hip Hop Cares Honoree, he took time to talk extra on the initiaive throughout this system.

“Its the whole lot from monitization and story and imaginative and prescient, all the way in which to psychological well being,” he saiys. “I feel it simply got here from an concept that I had being with individuals from my neighborhood and the place Im from and realizing how a lot they needed to get into the music enterprise and study. They simply did not have the means or the arrogance.”

Listed below are some information concerning the recipient and simply how deeply immersed he’s in utilizing hip hop for good.

Born in London

21 Savage shouldn’t be the one rapper with British roots. IDK, too, was born within the UK— in Clapham, to be actual.

His Ghanaian father and Sierra Leone-born mom met and conceived him within the English metropolis earlier than he’d finally transfer to the US on the age of two. IDK visits continuously, as he nonetheless has plenty of household on the market.
Which means of “IDK”

gauge on the kind of artist IDK is and the way he’s all the time embodied the essence of the Hip Hop Cares Award is by looking on the which means behind his title.

It’s an acronym for Ignorantly Delivering Data, which speaks to the duality of his upbringing and is a contradiction in and of itself.

“It is principally a part of the important thing rules of what makes me who I’m,” he says in an interview with NPR. “Ignorance and data distinction, two issues that do not go collectively, one thing you need and one thing you want, and placing all of that collectively in a single individual … that is principally what it stems from.”

Mills thought it up whereas incarcerated as a teen, serving time in jail on theft and weapons fees.
Created a Enterprise Program at Harvard

Though solely two studio albums in, IDK has already been discovering methods to present again, and in ways in which haven’t been seen by a rapper.

The “As soon as Upon A Time” rapper partnered with Harvard College on a music enterprise program to show college students the ins and outs of the music business and provides them the instruments to launch their very own careers.

Geared toward Black individuals and folks of coloration, the Associated Press studies how IDK’s No Label Academy placed on a tuition-free, all bills paid program for 10 days on Harvard College’s campus from August 21-31.

“I made a decision to create this program for the aim of letting individuals within the BIPOC group know {that a} job within the arts is much more reasonable than what society makes it appear as of late,” IDK stated in a press release.
Made New Albums To Grow to be A Higher Individual

IDK reinforces these optimistic messages in his music as properly. The artist’s lately launched sophomore album, USEE4YOURSELF, talks of his youth and household historical past, significantly his troublesome relationship together with his mom, who handed away in 2016.

The album additionally touches on his struggles with vulnerability as a Black man.
Has His Personal Label

Moreover, IDK offers again by providing the identical alternatives he was given.

After seven years of self-releasing albums and touring independently, in 2019, he revealed a partnership with Warner Data for his label, Clue.

“I like to take a look at myself as an Akon,” IDK tells Forbes. “I’m gonna have my hits and I’m gonna be a world star, however I’m additionally gonna discover my Woman Gaga and my T-Ache.”