Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist and Bronx native Cardi B made an appearance in Brownsville over the weekend, where she stopped by various community events hosted by Community Capacity Development, a human justice organization, and CAMBA, a nonprofit initiative focused on neighborhood development.
According to K. Bain, CCD’s executive director, Cardi reached out to his office to become a human justice advocate and educate herself on the work of human justice movements in the city.
During the phone call, Bain told Brooklyn Paper he invited Cardi to travel around the boroughs and witness the youth programs first-hand. Over the weekend of Sept. 10, he took the artist to various back-to-school events, music programs and a girls basketball game in Brownsville, where she met some of the young people Bain’s program mentors.
“This program was an example of the work that we do around the city of New York with the ‘highest risk’ young people in neighborhoods that have been disinvested in for generations,” Bain said of the basketball game.
The celebrity commended the two offices for creating opportunities for youth development in marginalized communities — and Bain said she’ll return this week to take organizers to the Bronx where she was raised.
The executive director believes Cardi’s childhood upbringing allows her to connect with the kids more authentically.
“A lot of the times she’s relating to them because of her experience growing up in housing developments, growing up in the poverty that we work and provide services in. She’s very comfortable and familiar with [it],” Bain said. “Cardi is a real model, meaning someone that’s been through the bumps and bruises associated with survival behaviors but has come out the other side of that adversity with a message that’s built on truth, honesty and authenticity.”
CCD started as an anti-gun violence task force in 2012 by now-Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. Today, the group works year-round to provide community programs for people of all ages in all five boroughs.
The group takes what Bain calls a “holistic approach to social justice” by investing in areas with disadvantaged or marginalized communities. Similarly, Brooklyn-based CAMBA provides social services to New Yorkers in need.
