Cordae Says People Should 'Always Try to Be a Light' and Shares Dreams of Opening a School
Warner Music Group Cordae
For Cordae, community involvement is everything — and he intends on using his platform to lift minorities up.
Speaking to PEOPLE about his partnership with Downtown Los Angeles' Inner City Arts, Cordae opened up about his passion for helping others and the future plans he dreams of putting in action.
"Community involvement is important to me because I think that's the foundation of every successful society, group of people, is through community. It's just a sense of togetherness," the "C Carter" rapper, 25, tells PEOPLE.
He continues, "I feel like now, because maybe it's post-pandemic, maybe it's the social media age we live in, but everybody's just super to themselves. Everybody is kind of team me, and team me and mine versus team togetherness."
Warner Music Group Summer on the Seventh event flyer
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A common trend he's picked up on over the years is that successful groups of people never did it alone — including himself.
"I feel like Black people, we were at our height, and we were together, and minorities, and just people in general, are most successful when they have a group of people with them," he says.
"So I'd say the sense of community is just bringing everyone together, giving back in whichever way I can. And this is applying to me specifically, because no matter if you have a platform or don't have a platform, or whether you have a lighter, or you don't have a lighter — you should always try to be a light and pay it forward in whichever way you can," he adds.
He concludes, "It don't got to be monetarily; it can just be giving advice, lending a helping hand, an open ear, or whatever you may have to help somebody."
Someone that helped the rapper along the way is YBN Nahmir — who Cordae previously worked with as a part of the hip-hop collective YBN (Young Boss N-----) — "by just shedding light and shedding platform," he says.
Now, with a platform to speak on and his career to back him up, the "RNP" rapper has big plans to make a difference.
"My ultimate goal is to open up a school one day, man, open up a full school, open up a rec center, just a house for creatives. Also, open up a rec center so that kids where I'm from can go play whatever sport they want," he says.
"We're not just talking about a regular rec center I want to open up, we're talking about state of the art sports facility, sports and training facility. I want to open up a restaurant, where we just give free healthy food. I want to open up a local convenience store, where we're selling high quality water for dirt cheap or for free, and just continue to help serve underprivileged communities like where I come from. I think that would be super tight. Just have my name on something. The only thing I want out of it is for my name to be on it."
Warner Music Group Cordae visiting the DTLA ICA campus
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In light of his interest in community involvement, Cordae will be performing at the Summer on the Seventh fundraising event for Inner City Arts — a non profit arts education provider — on Saturday.
The event will be held at the ICA (Inner City Arts) campus from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m.. For ticket information click here.
Last week, Cordae toured the campus and spoke to small groups of interns and students working the visual arts studio, media arts studio, dance studio and more. During his visit, the students asked the rapper thoughtful questions like where he draws inspiration from, advice for feeling stuck and more.
Meanwhile, later this month, the rapper will embark on his From a Birds Eye View European tour — and he cannot wait. "They always go crazy," he says.
