Stormzy last month has announced that he will donate 10 million in the next ten years to all black organizations, charities and movements that are committed to fighting racial inequities and legal reforms and supporting Black Empowerment in the UK.
The rapper said in a statement:
The uncomfortable truth that our country continuously fails to recognise and admit is that black people in the UK have been at a constant disadvantage in every aspect of life – simply due to the colour of our skin. I’m lucky enough to be in the position I’m in and I’ve heard people often dismiss the idea of racism existing in Britain by saying, ‘If the country’s so racist how have you become a success?!’ And I reject that with this: I am not the UK’s shining example of what supposedly happens when a black person works hard. There are millions of us. We are not far and few. We have to fight against the odds of a racist system stacked against us and designed for us to fail from before we are even born. Black people have been playing on an uneven field for far too long and this pledge is a continuation in the fight to finally try and even it.
Stormzy’s initiative arose after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the renewed growth of the fight against racism in the USA, UK and everywhere in the world. The rapper encourages others to follow him in this commitment to support the black community.
Stormzy has already done other works for his community in the past,always trying to make a difference in various ways. In 2018 he set up scholarships for the University of Cambridge for students of black ethnic heritage. With his company, Merky, he established Merky Books (in partnership with Penguin Random House), a publishing house to help young emerging writers succeed and emerging in the publishing world.
We all remember his famous performance in 2018, during his participation at the Brit awards, where he criticized the then Prime Minister Theresa May and the Conservative party for not being able to treat the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire, where 72 people died, in a fair and humane way, using a freestyle rap that said:
“Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell? just forgot about Grenfell, you criminals, and you got the cheek to call us savages, you should do some jail time, you should pay some damages, we should burn your house down and see if you can manage this.”
He also appeared on a version of Bridge Over Troubled Water to benefit victims of the disaster.
Stormzy is not the only politically engaged artist, similarly to Dave, he has been one of the spokesman of the problems and difficulties suffered by many young people who are part of the country's ethnic minorities, embracing their causes and supporting organizations fighting for this. Only last month, he actively marched with all the people who sided the organization of Black lives Matter in the English Parliament square in London.
In these few years since his popularity began to grow in 2014, this boy from south east London has proven to be a great and talented artist, but also a great man who can be an example to political personalities and to the whole world.
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