Big Sean and Usher are teaming up to give back to children in Detroit with $1 million for a production facility at the Boys & Girls Club.
The Detroit Entertainment Innovation Incubator is set to open in February of next year and will be located in the Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan inside Detroit’s revamped Michigan Central Station. Its features will include a production studio, special effects lab, and a creators’ lounge.
Rapper and Detroit native Big Sean called his city “where my creativity was born” in a statement about the new facility. This move is a part of his ongoing relationship with the Boys & Girls Club through his eponymous Sean Anderson Foundation. Through the partnership, he has donated four production studios and has thrown several DON (Detroit’s on Now) Weekend festivities for the community.
“From freestyling in my mom’s basement to performing on the biggest stages in the world. My mission has always been to make sure the next generation of dreamers and innovators from my city have the access, tools and mentorship to do the same,” he said. “The Innovation Incubator is about showing young people that they don’t have to leave Detroit to chase opportunity, they can build it right here.”
Usher’s New Look Foundation is partnering with Big Sean, as well as Ilitch Sports + Entertainment and Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, on the Innovation Incubator.
“It takes just one person to believe in your success,” he said in a statement, “And I’m honored to be one of many in this partnership to help make that happen.”
According to the CEO of the Southeastern Michigan Boys & Girls Club, Shawn H. Wilson, the new partnership is meant to target local talent and its potential into something tangible.
“Detroit has always been the blueprint for innovation, from the assembly line to Motown. This collaboration — especially with two heavy hitter alumni — extends that legacy by proving the creative economy can be a pathway to ownership and equity,” Wilson said in a statement. “Together, with our amazing partners, we’re transforming talent into capital and creativity into generational wealth.”
