HOUSTON – Houston rapper and Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist Chamillionaire paid a visit to Houston Independent School District students Monday to teach them about career opportunities in the tech world.
Chamillionaire, born Hakeem Sariki, exploded onto the Houston rap scene in the early 2000s, but has since spent much of his time as an entrepreneur and tech investor in Los Angeles.
"I was a musician. I still am, but I realize the value in appreciating the tech side of things and that has become my main business,” he said.
Chamillionaire visited Worthing High School with fellow panelists Tuma Basa, head of hip-hop for streaming service, Spotify, Shawn Gee, artist manager and president of Live Nation Urban, and Brittany Lewis, video programming manager at Spotify to discuss entrepreneurship with HISD seniors.
He explained that he frequently sees young people spend time on social media applications like Snapchat and Instagram, and encourages them to think beyond “social media fame” and focus on career opportunities to build similar tools.
"You can learn how to code today. You can build this same thing that you're looking at every day, that you're tweeting on, that you're snappping on, and I feel like that conversation needs to be had," Chamillionaire said.
The rapper has already raised more than $1 million for his own video startup company, according to Business Insider. (Read more here)
"Hopefully we can make (tech) cool so a lot of these kids can understand that they can be the next people to build the next social media products," Chamillionaire said.