Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah Pours Up New K-Cups In Keurig Collaboration
Killah Koffee k-pods will come in two flavors to initiate the launch.
Wu-Tang Clan’s very own Ghostface Killah is expanding his gourmet coffee brand to K-Cups with Keurig.
Killah Koffee will now be available in single-serve pods for Keurig owners to enjoy at home. The brand, launched in 2021 by the rapper, will also have two of its blends available in the pods. The Supreme Dark Roast and the medium roast, deemed Shaolin Cannoli, will take part in the launch.
Ghostface also announced a sweepstakes to celebrate the new collaboration.
“Yo, this the Killah Koffee and Keurig sweepstakes,” wrote the 54-year-old. “Mad giveaways. We got a custom brewer. We got autographed canvases, we’re giving everything away, and mad Killah Koffee merch. Limited edition on everything. Aight? No doubt.”
The custom brewer comes in the brand’s signature purple with Ghostface’s logo featured on the product’s side.
Moreover, Killah Koffee hosts a wide range of flavors, including vanilla milkshake, marble cake, and chocolate chip mint. While the company is getting a major boost through this new partnership, its owner’s Staten Island roots remain integral to the brand. Their brick-and-mortar store opened in May 2022, while the venture continues to thrive on the internet.
“Killah Koffee is one of the few Black-owned businesses—and the only one owned by a hip-hop artist—on Staten Island,” explained its website. “Ghostface Killah, rapper and member of the Wu-Tang Clan, opened the brick-and-mortar location in West Brighton after a year of successful online sales. The quaint coffee shop brews the finest arabica coffee beans, has a small selection of store-branded merchandise, and is a great stop for a quick hot brew to go while exploring many of the other sites on the island.”
Even if one cannot win the sweepstakes, Killah Koffee still hosts a variety of merch for hip-hop enthusiasts and coffee lovers alike. From mugs, beanies, tumblers, and varsity jackets, all can show their pride in the Black-owned coffee brand.
As for its latest product, the exclusive coffee pods are available on Keurig’s website.
Trump Campaign Drops ‘I’m Not With Her’ Video Of Black Women Against Kamala Harris
Can't get all of them....
Former President Donald Trump released a new video, “I’m Not With Her,” featuring a montage of Black women who claim they won’t be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in November 2024, NBC News reports.
Released on Aug. 28, the video is a new attempt from the Trump-Vance campaign to garner support from Black women voters ahead of the presidential election. More than a dozen women make an appearance, some from key battleground states, expressing their opposition to Harris and claiming the HBCU graduate is out of touch with Black voters. “I and millions of other Black Americans will cast my vote for Donald J. Trump,” voter Bebe Diamond of New York City said in the video.
Trump has his work cut out for him in grabbing the full attention of Black women — the same demographic where 90% voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. Traditionally, Black voters vote on the Democratic ticket. Following the 2024 Democratic National Convention, polls show Harris narrowing in on Trump. According to Axios, Harris has 48% support from survey respondents over Trump’s 47%. She also led by two points — 47% to 45% — on an independent and third-party candidate ballot.
Outside of the one woman from Kalamazoo, Michigan, who suggested her support of Trump comes from the “economic policies our country experienced under his leadership as our 45th president,” the other women didn’t elaborate on why they were not supporting the vice president in her quest for the White House. In a statement regarding the video, the director of the Trump campaign’s Black media, Janiyah Thomas, says the video is a play on how the Democratic Party has looked past Black issues for years. “Black voters have been taken for granted by the Democratic Party for years, but President Trump’s message is resonating at historic levels because he is doing the work and meeting voters where they are,” Thomas said, according to the Chicago Defender.
The Harris campaign clapped back on the comments, saying the numbers paint a different picture as Black women have been mobilizing on historic levels to ensure Harris wins. “Let’s not forget that the electric mobilization efforts that we have seen across the country for the Harris-Walz ticket was led by tens of thousands of Black women who came together less than twenty-four hours after Vice President Harris launched her candidacy — raising seven figures for the new Harris for President campaign,” Harris’ director of Black media, Jasmine Harris, said.
On social media, the video is receiving mixed reviews. MAGA supporters are singing praises of unity, with other Black women who didn’t make the cut wanting to be added. “Add me on that list too,” @peggydodson wrote.
Others called out how a little over 12 women won’t make much of a difference. “Geez, only 12!?! White women for Harris had over 200,000 and 44,000 Black women for Harris,” @dividedwefa11 said.
The unidentified social media user continued to highlight that over 200 Republicans formerly working for the Bush, Cheney, and McCain administrations issued support for Harris over the nominee of their own party. “Wow, you found 12 black women to say they’re not voting for Harris. Wow over 200 Bush, Cheney, and McCain administrations just came out and said they are not supporting Trump along with every living president and vice president along with 90% of his own cabinet and even multiple family members and they condemn Trump and warning us of Trump 2.0.,” she said.
“Read that again because I don’t think your 12 people hold a candle to all of the people that know him best.”
Asphalt Paving Systems To Pay $1.25M To Settle EEOC Racism Lawsuit
According to the EEOC’s press release, in addition to paying the EEOC the reported sum, the company will also be required to pay out comprehensive injunctive relief to affected employees.
According to the EEOC, in addition to paying the EEOC the reported sum, the company will also be required to pay out comprehensive injunctive relief to affected employees.
The EEOC’s lawsuit alleges that the company maintained a system of frequent and severe race-based harassment of 12 Black former employers and several Black employees at the company. The lawsuit describes alleged degrading and humiliating circumstances the employees were subjected to, including being called racial slurs like “the n-word,” “monkey,” and “boy.”
Asphalt Paving Systems subjected Black employees to degrading conditions such as being required to work in pouring rain while white workers watched, being forced to relieve themselves outdoors, and being called the “n-word” and “monkey,” the suit charged. https://t.co/f1g04jX95Rpic.twitter.com/WTSniUcuhp
Repeated remarks, jokes, or banter that are crude, raunchy, or derogatory can create a hostile work environment. Management is responsible for proactively creating a culture of civility and respect with the involvement of the highest levels of leadership. https://t.co/xtvnlB6Lotpic.twitter.com/qXH9dw6DG2
In addition to this, Black employees were allegedly forced to work in pouring rain storms, while white employees watched and forced them to use the restroom outside while white employees were allowed to use the facilities inside. The EEOC’s lawsuit also alleges that the work environment the company created was made worse by physically threatening conduct from managers and supervisors. In one instance, a gun was reached for at a worksite. At other worksites, firearms were routinely brought to worksites, generally a violation of most workplace standards, according to GovDocs.
As a result of these actions and its inaction on behalf of the company’s Black employees, APS will also be required to provide special training on race-based discrimination to its managers and human resources personnel, and they will have to appoint a monitor unaffiliated with its organization to review any complaints of racial harassment. This monitor will also regularly report any harassment complaints and steps the company takes to address said reaction to the EEOC.
According to the EEOC’s Charlotte A. Burrows, the case speaks to the continued necessity of the EEOC to monitor racial discrimination in the workplace.
“This case underscores the urgent need for the EEOC’s ongoing efforts to eliminate racism in the construction industry,” Burrows said. “The EEOC will continue to use all its tools—including vigorous enforcement and litigation where necessary—to address these systemic problems and promote safe and inclusive workplaces for all.”
EEOC Regional Attorney Kirsten M. Foslid echoed Burrows’ sentiment in her own statement, “No employee should have to work in an environment that is openly hostile to them because of their race,” Foslid said. “The abhorrent treatment that these workers endured is unacceptable anywhere, but especially in the workplace. The EEOC will continue to work vigorously to protect employees’ right to earn a living without being subjected to discrimination.”
AI Shows Deep-Seated Bias Against African American Vernacular
A new study shows that large language models like ChatGPT have biases, including stereotypes against African American English speakers.
As more research about artificial intelligence explores the inner workings of the technology’s use of human language that has exploded following innovation from OpenAI and other players in the technology space, the anti-Black biases of these tools are being exposed.
According to a paper in Nature, large language models (LLM) like the ones used by Open AI’s ChatGPT program, operate with bias embedded in their programming. In the paper, the authors show that LLMs use dialect prejudice and hold raciolinguistic stereotypes regarding speakers who use African American English, Ars Technica reported.
*ICYMI*: This study showing that large language models (AI) output racist stereotypes about speakers of AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) that connect with overtly negative stereotypes about Black people, even when trained not to do so. https://t.co/ZVTqsWOBoL
According to the paper, “Dialect prejudice has the potential for harmful consequences: language models are more likely to suggest that speakers of AAE be assigned less-prestigious jobs, be convicted of crimes and be sentenced to death.”
“Every single person working on generative AI needs to understand this paper;” Holliday also warned that although companies that make LLMs have attempted to address racial bias, “when the bias is covert…that’s something that they have not been able to check for.”
Despite efforts to fix the racial bias in these language models, the bias remains. The paper’s authors say that using human preference alignment to solve the problem of racial bias only serves to hide the racism that these models maintain inside their protocols.
According to the paper, “As the stakes of the decisions entrusted to language models rise, so does the concern that they mirror or even amplify human biases encoded in the data they were trained on, thereby perpetuating discrimination against racialized, gendered and other minoritized social groups.”
The paper goes on to tie together the potential prejudices of these LLM’s against AAE speakers with real-world examples of discrimination. “For example, researchers have previously found that landlords engage in housing discrimination based solely on the auditory profiles of speakers, with voices that sounded Black or Chicano being less likely to secure housing appointments in predominantly white locales than in mostly Black or Mexican American areas,” the report read.
According to the paper, “Our experiments show that these stereotypes are similar to the archaic human stereotypes about African Americans that existed before the civil rights movement, are even more negative than the most negative experimentally recorded human stereotypes about African Americans, and are both qualitatively and quantitatively different from the previously reported overt racial stereotypes in language models, indicating that they are a fundamentally different kind of bias.”
The paper also warned that, like American society becoming less overtly racist, the attitudes embedded in the subprocesses of artificial intelligence programs will allow for anti-Black racism to persist in more acceptable parameters as it relates to artificial intelligence.
The paper’s authors continued, “Worryingly, we also observe that larger language models and language models trained with HF exhibit stronger covert, but weaker overt, prejudice…There is therefore a realistic possibility that the allocational harms caused by dialect prejudice in language models will increase further in the future, perpetuating the racial discrimination experienced by generations of African Americans.”
Washington State Program To Combat Historical Housing Discrimination
Washington housing authorities said the program is an attempt to atone for racist redlining practices.
Washington State recently created its Washington Homeownership Program after passing the Covenant Homeownership Act in 2023. The act was designed to address the discriminatory barriers to homeownership historically faced by Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other people of color.
According to the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, the State of Washington opened the Covenant Homeownership Program in July 2024, giving much-needed assistance to potential homeowners of color. The program offers a no-interest loan that covers both the down payment and closing costs of a home for first-time buyers.
The homeownership program avoids any potential legal challenges by utilizing a “special purpose credit program” to fund it instead of a government agency. This allows funds created through the program to be used for the assistance of disadvantaged groups in accordance with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, a federal law. The Covenant Homeownership Act was funded through an additional recording fee on real-estate transactions, which had raised 18 million by July 2024.
In a press release, Nicole Bascomb-Green, the chair of the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, said that their program is an attempt at atonement for racist redlining practices.
“This is a proud moment for the Commission and for Washington state. Today we make the promise of the Covenant Homeownership Act a reality for homebuyers. Redlining, racist covenants, and other kinds of state-supported discrimination denied thousands of families in Washington the opportunity to own a home and build wealth for their families,” Bascomb-Green added. “This program finally takes a step toward righting those wrongs by creating a new path to homeownership.”
The Black Home Initiative, the Housing Development Consortium, Rep. Jamila Taylor, Sen. John Lovick, and Rep. Frank Chopp all worked collaboratively to advocate for the bill’s passage, which received bi-partisan support to assist potential homebuyers who are from marginalized communities with deep ties to Washington state.
A Household income at or below 100% of the Area Median Income, (AMI) the applicant must be a First-time homebuyer, either the homebuyer or a parent/grandparent/great-grandparent has to have lived in Washington state before April 1968, and the person who lived in Washington before April 1968 is Black, Hispanic, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, Korean or Asian Indian.
According to the Covenant Homeownership Study, “The study team found that since Washington’s inception, housing discrimination and segregation have been embedded in its history. As noted by the legislature, in the Covenant Homeownership Act: ‘Generations of systemic, racist, and discriminatory policies and practices have created barriers to credit and homeownership for Black, Indigenous, and people of color and other historically marginalized communities in Washington.’ The legislation goes on to note that the homeownership rate for Black, Native American, and people of color and other historically marginalized communities…in Washington is 19 percentage points below that of non-Hispanic white households, and that gap is even wider between Black and white households.”
The report continued, “The law also recognizes that mortgages are harder to obtain and more expensive for historically marginalized communities. Our thorough analysis of hundreds of reports, articles, and documents reveals this pervasive discrimination led to decades of missed wealth-building opportunities for marginalized communities and continues to yield racially and ethnically disparate outcomes in housing, credit, education, health, employment, and other areas.”
Utah High School Allows White Students In Blackface To Win Spirit Prize
The school district has dealt with racism issues in the past, say parents
Parents of the Pine View High School community in Utah have condemned the awarding of a spirit prize to two white students wearing blackface.
According to Essence, the students donned the racist attire during the Utah school’s “blackout” football game on Aug. 23. However, instead of reprimanding them, the school celebrated the students for the effort. Photos of the students went viral on social media, leading to the backlash.
After calling attention to the insensitivity of the act, some parents told local news outlets about the blackface. Edward Wright, a Black parent whose daughter is a senior at the high school, stated that claiming ignorance does not resolve the issue.
“You could have tapped these young men on the shoulder, whispered in their ear and let these young men know the significance of this,” said Wright to 2KUTV. “We all make mistakes, but in this age of social media and always being connected, there’s just no way people didn’t know. I’m a firm believer that ignorance is not an excuse. You do it in the moment the issue arises. You don’t wait. I feel like this was a missed opportunity to educate.”
Wright noted that racism is prevalent throughout Pine View and shared that some of his 11 children have faced discrimination in the Washington County School System. According to Data USA, white people make up over 82% of the area’s population.
Wright added, “I have other children that attend the schools here and they’ve been called the n-word. We’ve had to go talk to principals about issues at school.”
Witnessing the instances of racism, other parents have created programs to educate students and faculty about how racism perpetuates. Stacy Fletcher, a former parent in the district, also withdrew her child from the local schools after years of racist bullying.
“This is when we step forward and lean into it. What about that was harmful? How can I educate myself about Black face? Don’t ask a Black person to educate you on Black face. You can Google it if you don’t understand. It is important to educate yourself,” said Fletcher on this matter.
Moreover, Steve Dunham of the Washington County School district admitted that they must do better to prevent these instances.
“Whenever an instance like this comes up, it immediately shows us where we are weak and where we can do better,” Dunham said. “We are going to step in and try to reinforce some things with all of our full-time educators, all of our part time educators and all of our staff, so we can feel like we’ve done the very best we can.”
Black-Owned Restaurant Brings Chinese Takeout To West Philly
The restaurant provides a Black American twist on classic Chinese dishes.
Black Dragon is not your typical Chinese takeout spot. The Black-owned restaurant in West Philadelphia blends two cuisines and communities for a unique culinary experience.
Officially opened on Aug. 29, Black Dragon caters to all customers, while serving up something different in the area. At Black Dragon, one can eat “General Roscoe’s” sweet and spicy chicken instead of the traditional “General Tso’s.” With egg rolls filled with collard greens and oxtail on the menu, the restaurant provides a spin on classic Chinese dishes.
However, the takeout food spot still pays homage to both heritages. It also hosts a traditional takeout look, but with a more vibrant aesthetic. Moreover, the restaurant is filling a void of homegrown eateries shrinking throughout the city.
Its website explains, “The idea for Black Dragon Takeout originated with Chef Kurt Evans, who observed a troubling trend: local Chinese takeout restaurants were closing down, particularly in Black American communities. The second-generation Chinese Americans were no longer taking over these family businesses, leading to a significant gap in food deserts where residents have relied on these establishments for quick, hot meals for decades.”
Despite the elevated experience, Black Dragon stays true to its roots. According to Eater, no reservations are needed to dine in, with the affordable eats ranging from $6 to $26. Kurt Evans, with a successful history of restaurant ownership, hopes to change the city’s culinary landscape for the better.
Black Dragon aims to be a “transformative force” in West Philadelphia, focusing on hiring locally and offering second chances to formerly incarcerated individuals.
“By reclaiming spaces once occupied by Chinese takeout restaurants, we aim to rebuild and enhance our communities,” the website continued. “We strive to create a welcoming environment where customers can enjoy high-quality meals without the traditional barriers of Plexiglas windows. Our goal is to foster trust and build lasting relationships with our customers, ensuring that everyone feels valued and connected.”
Now, locals and visitors alike can “enter the dragon” and experience unique meals with a familiar taste.
Racist Bus Stop Signs In Denver Spark Outrage, City Leaders Condemn Hate At Rally
One sign read, 'Blacks must sit at the back of the bus. Kamala’s migrants sit in the front.'
On Aug. 30, Denver residents as well as the Attorney General of Colorado, Phil Weiser, gathered around a bus stop pole that had just hosted racist signs targeting Vice President Kamala Harris and migrants a day before for a rally against intolerance.
According to The Denver Post, Denver City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis posted a photo of the signs that had been screwed into the pole on the bus stop. The signs carried messages of racial hatred, one read, “Blacks must sit at the back of the bus. Kamala’s migrants sit in the front.”
Another warned of “Kamala’s illegals” and contained images of people running, presumably a representation of immigrants crossing the border illegally.
Spotted in Denver, Colorado: signs that reference Jim Crow laws. Hateful' anti-Black and immigrant signs also referencing Kamala Harris posted on Colorado bus stops—this is America in 2024. pic.twitter.com/BurIvLaSUa
Attorney General Weiser spoke out at the rally, calling for Denver residents and Coloradans to remember that there is no place for hatred in a civil society.
“Out of many, we are one,” Weiser said. “We are one Denver, we are one Colorado, we are one America…There is no place for hate in Colorado.”
Denver resident MiDian Shofner told the Post that the signs were reprehensible. “The signs that were posted were absolutely atrocious,” The 43-year-old Shofner said. “It was full of racism, it was full of dehumanization, and I wanted to stand in a space where we could collectively and strongly say that we don’t accept this.”
Shofner continued, expressing that the vitriol the signs communicated was being normalized in her Denver community. “I say that it’s normalized because I wasn’t shocked,” Shofner said. “I wasn’t shocked that this happened, but I was disgusted…These bus stops are used by our children to get to school. There are children that saw those signs yesterday.”
Shofner also said that she wanted more from the elected officials than they gave at the rally, saying that there should be more the community can do than attend a rally.
“I’m not saying that this was not a beautiful showing of community, this was absolutely beautiful and amazing,” Shofner said. “Having the community come together and stand is right, and we have to be able to have something to do beyond that.”
Denver City Councilwomen Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez and Lewis worked with the Denver police and transportation officials to have the signs removed and organized the rally to give the community a voice and a space to push back on the racist ideology the signs promoted.
Lewis told the Post that the signs presented a challenge to Denver and the country at large. “History, unfortunately, continues to repeat itself,” Lewis said. “We need to take a serious pause as a nation and ask if this is who we are, if this is who we want to be, or if we are going to come together to do the necessary work to eradicate this kind of hatred.”
Colorado State Rep. Leslie Herod encouraged the crowd not to let the hateful acts of a few divide them, echoing Vice President Harris’s ‘We Will Not Go Back’ campaign tagline. “We will not go back,” Herod said. “We will not let them divide us. This is who we are — we stand together every single day, including today and moving forward.”
Civil Rights Attorney Ben Crump To Represent Former MetroHealth CEO In Discrimination Lawsuit
Steed claims she was fired by the board of MetroHealth while she took a medical leave of absence.
Renowned civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump has joined the legal defense team representing former MetroHealth CEO Dr. Airica Steed in her discrimination lawsuit against her former company. Steed filed the lawsuit shortly after being fired by the healthcare company in August.
According to WKYC, the Sherman Boseman Legal Group and its leader, F. Allen Boseman, Jr., had already agreed to represent Steed, and Crump represents an additional resource at Steed’s disposal.
Steed was fired by the board of MetroHealth while she took a medical leave of absence; they said their decision was based on fundamental disagreements over Steed’s priorities and the standards they required of a CEO.
According to Steed’s representation, including Crump, she found out she was fired via the media after Steed “commenced a comprehensive investigation into deeply troubling ethical issues raised by several employees and after she submitted an internal complaint for gender and race discrimination.”
Steed’s representation continued, “Dr. Steed exemplifies the very best in leadership, having not only met but exceeded the rigorous expectations set for her in a year filled with challenges. Her dismissal raises serious concerns about the standards to which Black women leaders are held in comparison to their counterparts and highlights a pattern of behavior at MetroHealth that deserves intense scrutiny that will be examined closely by our combined legal teams.”
According to Signal Cleveland, the removal of Steed is the second time in as many years that MetroHealth has had a CEO resign or be removed from their post. Steed was hired in 2022 and was supposed to succeed Dr. Akram Boutros, upon his retirement, but her timeline was accelerated after Boutros was fired in November 2022 for allegedly giving himself $2 million in improper bonuses.
According to a statement released by MetroHealth Board of Trustees E. Henry Walker M.D., “It has become clear that the Board and Dr. Steed fundamentally disagree about the priorities and performance standards needed from our CEO for MetroHealth to fulfill its mission. We believe Dr. Steed’s performance is not meeting the needs of MetroHealth. As a result, we have lost confidence in her ability to lead the organization going forward and believe it would not be in the best interest of the System for her to continue in her position. Therefore, we are exercising our right to terminate her at-will contract.”
“Steed’s dismissal raises serious concerns about the standards to which Black women leaders are held in comparison to their counterparts and highlights a pattern of behavior at MetroHealth that deserves intense scrutiny that will be examined closely by our combined legal teams,” Crump said in the press release.
According to Signal Cleveland and WKYC, the last performance review for Steed at MetroHealth issued in March 2024 gave no indication that the company was displeased with her work; in their review she either met or exceeded expectations as it related to “mission strategy, financial management, quality safety and experience, and community and external relations.”
Steed did, however, partially meet expectations for “collaboration and building relationships with physicians,”and was below expectations for “effective leadership of the management team” and “relationship with the board and chair.”
As Signal Cleveland reported, Steed’s comments on her review indicated she believed she needed more time to build rapport with the health system.
“Overall, I strongly believe that the relationship with the collective board has been favorable, however, there has not been adequate time in this first year given so many roadblocks and barriers on building a strong and trusting rapport, which I am confident will develop with time.”
Steed continued, “I have not felt fully empowered to make management decisions that falls within the purview of the CEO, including necessary changes to the Executive Leadership team structure that impedes and effective Board/CEO relationship while also functioning in a perpetual state of ‘walking on eggshells’ and feeling ‘guilty until proven innocent’.”
She also described intimidation and character assassination pointed in her direction from her predecessor.
“I also want to put on the record that while I have had to endure some pretty challenging circumstances, including social media harassment/bullying/intimidation/character assassination by my predecessor, in no uncertain terms have I ever disparaged or represented the Board of Trustees in a negative light and I have zero control over baseless and unsubstantiated gossip. I have been on record of praising the Board of Trustees and will continue to do so in the manner in which I represent MetroHealth.”
The Cleveland branch of the NAACP also weighed in on the treatment of Steed, referring to the firing of Steed as a “public corporate lynching” in a statement.
“We, the members of the NAACP, express our deepest concern for the public corporate lynching of Dr. Airica Steed, who has been an invaluable leader at MetroHealth Hospital. Over the course of her short tenure, Dr. Steed’s exemplary leadership has demonstrated a commitment to excellence, and a vision that has greatly benefited the Northeast, OH region.”
The statement continued, “We believe the decision to terminate Dr. Steed does not reflect the true value of her contributions to the community. The public approach the Board of Trustees took is disgraceful and unacceptable. The fact that Dr. Steed came to Cleveland to restore prominence to MetroHealth after their public scandal, only to be terminated without cause while on FMLA. is an indictment on MetroHealth.”
Master P ‘Bout It’: New Orleans Native Named ‘Entertainment Ambassador’ Of Super Bowl LIX
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced Master P's new appointment.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has announced that Master P will take on the role of “entertainment ambassador” ahead of Super Bowl LIX.
Cantrell announced that the New Orleans native will help connect the city to the world as they host football’s biggest night in February. Master P, whose real name is Percy Robert Miller Sr., will serve the city as one of its legendary figures. According to NOLA, his affiliation with the event aims to provide new opportunities.
“He’s deserving of all the love, all the praise, for demonstrating the resiliency of this community and that there’s no limit to accomplishing great things for the city of New Orleans,” said Cantrell during a news conference on Aug. 30.
These endeavors include a “Hollywood South Collaborative,” which will teach entertainment business skills and offer mentorship to residents. Despite growing up in the projects of New Orleans’ Third Ward, Master P earned his success through his No Limits records label. He later grew as a multifaceted businessman beyond music and entertainment.
For Master P, giving back to his hometown remains a top priority in this new role.
“We are doing this through film, television, and entertainment,” the 54-year-old said. “But we are also doing this through business because I want people to see what I was able to grow. I grew up in the projects in New Orleans and was able to change my life and educate myself. Get out there to see more. And I want more for the city of New Orleans.”
To kick off his new role, Master P will also join the NOLA Insight Podcast. Through the platform, he will meet with entertainment influencers to share their journey and insight to the local community.
All the programming will come to a head during Super Bowl LIX at the city’s Caesars Superdome on Feb. 9, 2025.
