Big Sean has never been one to shy away from showcasing the love he has for Detroit, MI. He knew very early on that he was called to not only put on for his city but also put on for others along the way.
He isn’t the only one who sees something special in Detroit. Dubbed one of the Blackest cities in America, Detroit has a population that is 76% Black, according to the United States Census Bureau. Among its other attributes, the Motor City got its nickname for being the center of the U.S. auto industry for more than a century. Detroit is also home to Motown, one of the culture’s most revered musical styles and Black-owned music labels, founded by Barry Gordy in 1959. It served as the catalyst for Black music becoming some of the most popular music, not only in America but also across the globe.
Throughout his music, Big Sean has always amplified his city’s stance in the world and its impact on culture. Now, he’s taking it a step further, partnering with Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design (PLC Detroit), the first and only design-focused Historically Black College and University (HBCU), as it prepares to debut its first-ever student capsule collection.
Partnering With Pepsi And PLC Detroit
“I know it’s the only historically Black college that’s a design school essentially, and the only one here in Detroit as well,” Big Sean told AFROTECH™ in an exclusive interview. “So, I mean, how can you not support that? That’s my whole background. That’s my whole start in the city. Being creative and being an artist was just in alignment with my purpose. I feel like I’m here to inspire. I feel like just me being a rapper is a byproduct of that. That’s why I wrote my first book that’s coming out in January and all of these things.”
He added, “I think it’s important that everyone in the city knows their voice is heard in every avenue because we’re a city that gets slept on. Being a chocolate city, one of the Blackest cities in America, we sometimes feel overlooked, and this is the inspiration that gives Detroit the courage to work so much harder.”
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Big Sean will partner with the school to debut its first-ever student capsule collection during the PLC Black Footwear Forum, building on a three-year partnership developed by PepsiCo to support and foster Black talent as they reshape the design landscape.
Moreover, he hopes that PLC Detroit continues to make noise and give those in the city a voice where they can feel as though they are not only heard but supported in their creative endeavors. Especially for people like student designer Baiyinah Ings, who was selected by the public to have her collection both produced and sold by PLC Detroit with sponsorship from PepsiCo.
The inaugural capsule collection will be available for sale starting Friday, Sept. 27 for those attending the PLC Black Footwear Forum. In November, the product will be available for purchase to the public via the PLC website.
“I’m really grateful to PepsiCo for a program like this one at Pensole Lewis College (PLC),” said Ings in a statement shared with AFROTECH™. “With their support, I’ve been able to hone my skills as a designer and gain invaluable insights from mentors in my field. I’m so honored to be the designer of PLC’s first-ever student capsule collection and I can’t wait to see what doors this opens for me in the future.”
Big Sean’s Stance On Education
For the “Play No Games” emcee, PLC Detroit also supports his bigger mission of the importance of education. Despite being enrolled in college following high school, Big Sean decided to pursue his creative endeavors full time. In many ways, he says that the music industry became his form of higher education.
“I absolutely wanted to go to college,” he recalled. “I graduated high school with a 3.7 GPA, and I was really enrolled in school. That was the plan, but for some reason, God led me to a different type of college: the music industry. Building my fan base organically through these mixtapes and all of this and that, it took the same amount of time as college would’ve taken before I graduated and was able to put out my first album.”
Big Sean continued, “I remember when I did the [2012] XXL Freshman Class cover, it was me, Nipsey [Hussle], and J. Cole, and all of these people on it, and that came out the same year that my high school class was starting to graduate from college. It was just like a whole different curriculum, honestly, that I had to take the leap of faith and trust my gut. But I do believe in education, especially if it’s for something you need a degree in.”
He says he still received his education, but just through different teachers in life.
“I feel like I still got my education, just in a different way, because I had professors. I feel like I had Ye as a professor or Jay-Z as a professor,” Big Sean said. “I had Deepak Chopra, all of these people as professors in my life and mentors, and all sorts of things, but I do feel like it’s important for everyone to receive that in their own way, and that just happened to be the way that I got it.”
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“As long as you’re open to learning and are in pursuit of something, I think you’re on the right track, and I think that things will line up for you,” he shared. “It is important to have faith in that, have faith in yourself, know that you are on the right track, and listen to yourself as well. Be intuitive. Follow your gut, follow your heart. It’s funny how life works out like that, but I do strongly encourage — I mean, I come from a very well-educated family of scholars and teachers and all of that, so it is very important to me.”
Big Sean doesn’t just stress the importance of education — he has programs in place to back up the sentiment. Through his Sean Anderson Foundation, which he runs alongside his mother, Myra Anderson, students in the community have access to scholarships and opportunities such as afterschool programs as early as middle school.
Empowering Detroit Youth
“We have this project called Project Knapsack where we connect kids from here with kids in Soweto, [South] Africa, as pen pals, and they send pictures and letters and just become well cultured,” he said. “Our foundation does what we can to support kids, and we link with the Boys and Girls Club to really show them the ins and outs of the music industry and the different jobs they can have in it.”
Investing In The Future
Thanks to his successful career in music, Big Sean has had the opportunity to sit with many financially well-off individuals. He says he has also learned a significant number of business lessons about making long-term investments — some good and some not so good.
“I have real estate deals,” Big Sean said. “I have stocks and stuff in crypto, and I have businesses that I invested in early on, like Uber and this company called Ember, a mug company that keeps your coffee hot or extremely cold throughout the day, because that’s something that related to me. I love drinking matcha every day and green tea and stuff like that.”
He added, “And [there’s] a lot of things that didn’t work. I invested in this restaurant with Jay-Z and a lot of other people that were doing well, and then the pandemic hit, and it crashed out, or this company called Wheels that’s similar to the Bird scooters. They were doing really well and I was making a lot of money, and then all of a sudden, the pandemic came and completely wiped it out. So, there’s a lot of things that I’ve invested in that did work and didn’t work, but I think the No. 1 thing to remember is that money is fluid and it’s energetic, and it takes money to make money, like Stretch Money from Detroit said a long time ago. You can’t just hoard it or hold on to it, you really got to keep it moving.”
Just like anything else, the “Blessings” rapper says if it sits for too long, money will be no good. The importance is having the confidence to fervently pursue your dreams, whether creative or more on the logistical side of things.
“Everyone who has had financial gain has always bet on themselves,” Big Sean concluded. “That’s why one of the things I’ve learned to do is diversify my portfolio and take care of things that are needed first. I bought my mama a crib, and then I got myself an apartment. I knew what type of investment that was for me, like a heartfelt one, because I needed to get her out of the hood. So my thing is, just always follow your heart when it comes to these things. You can take advice and follow advice, but just do things that feel right to you, and I think you’ll be well off.”
