Yahoo Finance Presents: Rapper and Entrepreneur Master P

In this episode of Yahoo Finance Presents, Rapper and Entrepreneur Master P joins Yahoo Finance's Sibile Marcellus to discuss the social unrest within the US as well as the importance of financial education and understanding within the African American community.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SIBILE MARCELLUS: I'm Sibile Marcellus. Welcome to "Yahoo Finance Presents." In this episode, I sit down with Percy Miller, also known as Master P. Master P is a music mogul, entrepreneur philanthropist and activist. Master P, it's great to have you on.

MASTER P: I'm glad to be here.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: As a result of the protests following the death of George Floyd, city officials in places like New York City and Minneapolis are looking at their budgets and considering reallocating funds away from their police departments. Is the problem with police having too much money in their departments?

MASTER P: Well, I mean, it's an issue. But at the same time, it's about having good police. And I tell people all the time, there's good cops. And there's bad cops. I think that they need to sort out the officers that are not right. And I feel like-- and reward the ones that are doing right.

Give them incentives to the ones that are doing right, the ones that don't have reports in their records, that they're doing this negligent, like what's going on. And I think that's the only way we've going to fix this problem, is we've got to weed out the bad people and start doing real background checks. And then, they should be-- if an officer commit a crime, he should be treated like a criminal.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: You've said that you've been a victim of police brutality, and that you could have been George Floyd a long time ago. So what happened?

MASTER P: Well, I was coming from college. And I came back to my community. And I guess this guy thought I was somebody else. And we just went to beating me. And it's like I couldn't do nothing. Because he had a gun. He had a weapon. And I'm thinking to myself-- but the difference was with George Floyd, it was a white cop that stopped him. That was his partner that said, what are you doing to this guy? So you don't have people like that all the time.

So that's why I say there's good cops and there's bad cops. But for us to change this equality-- that's what I call it, economic empowerment-- and also this injustice, it's going to be to buying our block back. Economic empowerment is the only way we're going to be able to do it. I tell people that we've got to buy back these grocery stores. We have to put money back into the African-American and Latino communities.

And only way to do that is through ownership and teaching our people about these small business loans and opening up our own products, also educating our people. We created a program. It's called Boss Up Stock, to teach our people buy stock and buying the products that we buy every day, knowing learning how to buy into those products.

Also, educating our people on African-American products. So you look at us. We have wrapped noodles. We have wrapped snacks. So when you look Aunt Jemima and you look at Uncle Ben, we don't all those products. We never did.

So I'm educating people to where-- when look at Uncle Ben product, he's a model from the 1940 they got paid $50. We need to understand that. We're not going to be able to put money back in our community, because we don't own those brands. Our grandparents been having us buy those products, because they thinking it's people that look like us.

So I started Uncle P's Rice. So you're going to know who Uncle P is. And you're going to be able to put money back into the community and also teach our people about buying our blocks back. So I think educating our people to things like that is going to change the game.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Absolutely. And in your view, how has racism impacted the economic outcomes of black Americans? Because black workers are earning about $0.82 for every $1.00 that their white counterpart is paid.

MASTER P: That's why there needs to be diversity. The diversity needs to start from there. Because when we hit the pockets, when we hit the money, hit the wealth-- if you look at how many African-American owned public stock trading companies, it's only five. I mean, we're outnumbered.

When you talk about business in America owned by African-Americans, it's 1%. That has to change. When you talk about in the television and film world, it's only 3% to 5%. So when we talk about injustice, in order for us to change that, we have to be a part of the financial side, the money side. We have to show people that we are creating these products and brands. But we don't own them.

Because we think in being that entertainer or an athlete-- now, I tell people all the time. Product outweighs talent. So we have to put money back into us. Even though as you know, I tell you all the time.

Start your business. I think this is a great time, what we're going into right now. Because not only us protesting. It's whites, blacks, the unity that you're seeing out there. So I think that we done sparked a plug with George Floyd's death. But now, us coming together, I feel we're stronger together. And I think that other races are starting to recognize that we are being victimized as African-Americans. And I think that's where that change is coming.

So now, we have to do that financially. I feel like we have to get a part of that game too, so we can create jobs and opportunities. That's what our companies and brands is about. We created this company called PG Foods.

So we want to be able to be just as big as Gordon Foods, which is a billion dollar business. And it creates products for the Latin Americans. But I think that now, with people look like us, to be a part of that diversity, going to the Walmarts, going to the Targets, going to the Save-A-Lots, 7-Elevens, where we're able to put product in there and be able to put product on the shelf, so we can give out people opportunity and ownership and also give back to the community, to educate our people, give them the blueprint.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: And you talk about black Americans buying back their communities. Now, home ownership is a key step in building wealth. But moving forward, how can people own their homes? What are the steps? What are the concrete elements? What should they pursue? What should they do?

MASTER P: Well, the first step is to going out there, thinking, having the vision that you can do it. So you can see people like us that need more owners, like people thinking, being entrepreneurs, thinking outside of the box. Because 17% of America is unemployed. So now we're unemployed. Let's start thinking like bosses. That's what our Boss Up Stock app is all about.

Think like a boss now. We don't have the time. So now, educate yourself. You could go online. Buy some small property. I can tell people all the time, buy something small and figure out how to do it, even in our community.

So imagine if we own some of those grocery stores. So we are the making the phone calls to the police state. Because we know everybody in the communities. Oh, that's Uncle Larry. Leave him alone. He'll be all right-- instead of just panicking.

So we know our communities. And we'll be able to put the right proper protection of people with badges in those communities. Because now, we own the block. That's why I said, it's time to stop burning down the block and buy the block. So our whole movement is buy our blocks back.

And I think learning real estate, understanding stock, educating our people to that, opening up programs to show people that look like us-- and when I come from the hip-hop, they didn't think that we could do something like this. Are we even thinking outside of the box?

It's a lot of great people. My partner started in the food business a long time ago from Philadelphia, James Lindsay, to where we're thinking outside the box. We need more people thinking like that, that we can create and own our own products and our own brands and buy our own real estate.

Because the black dollar-- we're spending a trillion dollars. And we're not owning nothing back. Even investing in stock, we need to start thinking like that, financial literacy. We need more programs. So I feel like that's the start for this, educating our people.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Yeah, and you say it's important to think outside of the box. Because when it comes to the big banks, black Americans who want to get loans to start a business, many of them struggle to get those loans greenlighted. So how does one overcome institutions and those kinds of barriers?

MASTER P: What we're fighting for right now, we've got to do it on a financial level and start fighting for those rights on the financial side and start showing people that we have people whatever thinking outside the box, coming up with great ideas.

Just like I said, if you have Aunt Jemima pancakes or Uncle Ben rice, these are not real people. Us coming together saying Uncle P, other guys out there and girls that have products, bringing it to life. And also, to do us fair, we've got to start hiring African-American judges, African-American jewelers, own some of these cases to give what's fair. And I just think, in business, we need that same fairness as African-American entrepreneurs.

Give us those opportunities to buy these teams. So you look at like a BET. BET is not owned by us no more after Bob Johnson sold the company. It's time for us to create more companies like that, more content that we own. I mean, even looking in the movie business, "Black Panther," we love the movie. But imagine if we owned that.

So we've got to get those type of budgets. We have to bring a bunch of us together. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to hold accountable all my entertainers and athletes. And I want to take over their social media for one hour and start going to all the-- whether it's Snoop, Drake, whoever. I'm going to start going to these people saying, let me get your social media for one hour.

And I'm going to talk about stocks. I'm going to talk about buying our blocks back. I'm going talk about teaching our people, putting the right people on. And then I feel like we spread that message, because they don't think we're thinking like that. So that's the way we need to start thinking.

We need one hour on everybody that I know celebrities. I'm going to start holding them accountable, at the least, in entertainers. We don't want no money from you. We're just saying, give us your social media to spread this life across the world. The same thing we had to do and get out there and protest, we need to educate our people. Because we're all on social media now. That is the new way to get everybody's attention to educate each other, us helping us.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Do you think Snoop is going to give you his Twitter account for an hour?

MASTER P: Yes. So I have a new document of "No Limits" coming out. It's July 29. And so you're going to hear the whole story about "No Limit" and how we started. We started from poverty. So I want people to see me and say, if Master P could do it, I can do it. So I'm just going to hold accountable everybody that's been a part of my world, but even the people-- I don't care whoever it is, Beyoncé or Jay-Z, Usher, I'm going to reach out to these guys, the ones that understand why we need to own our communities and our blocks and create our own products and grocery stores.

They gonna get it. We're not asking them for no money. I'm asking them to give us your social media for one hour to talk to your fan base and show them and teach them some things that we need to be protesting about, to where we don't have to die out in these streets by the injustice the bad police officers out there in the world. Because we're going to be controlling these blocks once we buy them back.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: And Master P, what really shocks me is that this could have never have happened. You could have possibly sold the rights to your own name, not be able to use it. Because you were offered, reportedly, a $1 million music contract in the '90s. That would have put you out of the game. So how important is it for talented celebrities, actors, entertainers, to not just sign but really understand what's in these contracts?

MASTER P: Well, you know what? That's going to take doing some research. And that's what I'm saying, educating ourselves on financial literacy. I looked at the deal that Michael Jordan did back in the days. And they say he signed his rights away for $1 million.

As a kid, I'm thinking, I don't want to do that. I've got to keep control of my rights. And so even though Jordan went on and made millions of dollars-- but I want people to look at the good things we've done and the bad things that-- the mistakes that we make.

So I tell people, it's never a loss. There's always a lesson. So every ailment is a lesson for us. So take our lives, other people's lives. I took what Michael Jordan did, which is he's a billionaire now.

But they also had a guy named Spencer Haywood that could have owned 10% of Nike back in the days. Well, he took $100,000. So that's what I mean, when you're educated, you know what was going on-- he could be $8.6 billion richer right now. And this a guy that played for this the Sonics back in the day. Probably made $300,000. But he would be owning.

So that's what I'm saying. Even as CEOs, African-American CEOs in the Fortune 500 companies, it's only three, which is a half a percent. That has to change. So we have to think-- so having a vision like that is going to take some time. It's going to take some sacrificing, being able to wait for your money in the long haul, instead of getting it right now. I think that's the way we have to start thinking, if we want to change this problem.

We can't just go for the check. We have to go for the big check, to where, now, we're thinking outside of the box, to where we own it. We're putting people in positions. We're giving people opportunities. This is the way we need to think now.

I know everybody you can't think like that. But most of us, especially since we have 17% of unemployment going on right now. I mean, we need to start thinking like a boss.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Well, Master P, it's great to see you want to reinvest your success in the black community with concrete goals and plans and your call to action to your fellow celebrities. It was great to have you on. Thanks so much.

MASTER P: Yes, thank you.