Lil Baby met up with Dr. Dre and music executive Jimmy Iovine to advocate in favor of passing Proposition 28 in California. The bill would ensure arts and music programs are included in the curriculum at every public school with no additional cost to taxpayers.
“A couple schools they got arts and crafts programs, but a majority of schools in the Atlanta public schools that I was in they don’t,” Baby said at a panel on the topic. “They kinda cut from all of those opportunities. For a person like me, who grew up in that, if I had that opportunity I could’ve went way further."
He continued: “I know a lot of people who look up to me for instance, like, ‘I want to be a rapper or I want to be an engineer or I want to make beats.’ It’s like go start. If they had it in the school, I feel like that could be a whole other conversation for what children are doing outside of school. There’s nothing else to do.”
The initiative is expected to bring $1 billion dollars into the arts and music programs by drawing funding from existing record revenues and an existing surplus.
Former Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner explained the proposition to ABC7: "No new taxes. What we're doing is taking existing record revenues, existing surplus and providing it to help kids. The school communities get to decide how to spend it. If they have art and they want to add music, fantastic. If they prefer to have dancing and theater, that's good, too."
Lil Baby was honored with the Quincy Jones Humanitarian Award at Black Music Action Coalition’s second annual Music in Action Awards Gala, earlier this year.
Check out Baby, Dre, and Iovine's panel on Prop. 28 below.
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