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Kurtis Blow Breaks Down the Importance of Hip-Hop's First Labor Force Organization, The Hip-Hop Alliance

Kurtis Blow Breaks Down the Importance of Hip-Hop's First Labor Force Organization, The Hip-Hop Alliance

Published Thu, May 11, 2023 at 2:00 PM EDT

Hip-Hop legend and founder/executive director of The Hip-Hop Alliance (HHA) Kurtis Blow recently sat down with Rock The Bells for an exclusive conversation about Hip-Hop's first labor force organization, The HHA.

"The organization just signed an agreement with SAG-AFTRA, the big labor union in entertainment with over 150,000 members," the "If I Ruled The World" MC said. "We have access to lots of resources and support when it comes to health and wellness, legislation, ownership rights, collective bargaining agreements."

Blow went on to explain further just what the Hip-Hop Alliance is. "The Hip-Hop Alliance is just that. It's a labor force organization that is on a mission to secure fair wages, fair royalties, strong health benefits, pensions and retirement benefits. In addition to the aforementioned benefits, Kurtis says that the organization specializes in intellectual properties, ownership, copyrights, publishing and steaming. "The mission and the point is in the need to find the exploitation of the creators who have been plagued for over 400 years," he explained.

As far as health and wellness the HHA is implementing programs that deal with physical and mental health according to Kurtis.

"We have all kinds of education modules on mental and physical health on our website," he said. "It's all about the education and information that you need to know concerning your physical and mental health. The other thing that we are dealing with is legislation. We are working to turn bills into laws that will eradicate some of the injustices and inequalities that plague our people such as the Rap Act (Restoring Artistic Protection). We are trying to insure that a court of law cannot use the lyrics of an artist against them in a court of law. Also there is the Crown Act, that enables people to wear their hair as they feel in the workplace."

quotes
Our president is Chuck D, and our chairman is KRS-ONE.

- Kurtis Blow

As far as streaming, Kurtis Blow echoed the recent sentiments of Snoop Dogg. "If you get 1 billion streams there is no way that the artist shouldn't generate at least 1 million dollars," he said. "Snoop has spoken on that recently and we plan to reach out to and partner with him."

Kurtis also shared that the Stop The Violence Movement, which was spearheaded by KRS-ONE in the late 1980s, is being resurrected. "The Stop The Violence Movement is being resurrected by KRS-ONE and Special Ed, and we are looking forward to that," he said.

MC Lyte, Doug E. Fresh and Dr. Bob Lee also occupy major roles in the HHA.

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