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The term “black excellence” looks differently in everyone’s mind. To some it may look like former President Obama; to others it may look like young African American college students. To Sean Combs, professionally known as P. Diddy, it looks like community. During a cover interview with QG, Diddy touched on what “black excellence” means to him and how he’s doing his part to encourage it.
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According to the business mogul, “[his] culture” kept him moving forward and striving for better. “I want to be an authentic, unapologetic warrior for black culture and the culture of the street and how it moves. My thing is most importantly to change the narrative of the black race. I can’t relate to anything that isn’t about that,” he said during the interview.
While he didn’t want to share too much, as the project is still in the works, the rapper and record producer talked about his efforts to push black businesses forward. Alongside heavy-hitter Jay-Z, Diddy is working to develop an app that would pinpoint the location of black-owned and black-friendly businesses in a user’s vicinity. Diddy said that the app, which so far doesn’t have a name, isn’t “about taking away from any other community.” Rather, “the application will make it possible for us to have an economic community. It’s about blacks gaining economic power.” “We’ll still go to Chinatown. We’ll still buy Gucci!” he said.
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“I don’t believe in passiveness,” Diddy continued. “At some point there has to be some kind of fight. I feel like we’ve done a lot of marching. It’s time to start charging.” He goes on to share that him and Jay’s conversations are filled with the phrase “black excellence,” using it to refer to black influencers who push the race forward by example.
For more, read the full interview with GQ.