Money Matters Music Mogul — A Hip-Hop Contest for Teens
What happens when you couple the musical talent and creativity of today’s youth with one the most important and often intimidating topics among teens today? Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) and
Charles Schwab Foundation did just that when they partnered to create the Money Matters Music
Mogul (M4) contest to strike a chord with teens about the power of financial education and knowledge.
The contest leverages hip-hop to build awareness of Money Matters: Make It Count SM , a teen personal finance program that builds basic money management skills. It is made available through BGCA’s more than 2,900 teen-serving Clubs. For the contest, Boys & Girls Club teens across the country are challenged to write original song lyrics about tackling personal money issues for the opportunity of a lifetime: to have award-winning hip-hop producer Kevin “Khao” Cates professionally produce the winning song as a music video.
Contest Winners
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2013: Blake McGuire of Boys & Girls Clubs of Indianapolis won the top prize for his “Money All
That Matters” song.
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2012: Syretha Shirley of Boys & Girls Clubs of Las Vegas won the top prize for her “ Time is
Money ” song.
Kevin “Khao” Cates

Khao has worked with some of the music industry’s top hip-hop and R&B stars, including
Ludacris and Ruben Studdard.
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In addition, Khao is the founder of Bridge DA Gap , an organization that combines hip-hop music with a character-building curriculum to teach teens important life skills.
Money Matters: Make It Count

Since 2004, Charles Schwab Foundation has collaborated with BGCA to provide the Money
Matters: Make It Count teen financial education curriculum in Boys & Girls Clubs throughout the country.

The program runs in more than 1,700 teen Clubs and available to all 2,900 Clubs serving teens.
More than 400,000 youth have completed it to date.
Findings from the Charles Schwab 2011 Teens & Money Survey

Most teens are interested in learning more about money; in fact, 75 percent say that learning more about money management, including budgeting, saving and investing, is one of their top priorities.

When asked how teens can best help the economy, almost half (46 percent) of teens said that helping others learn how to use money wisely is how they can make the greatest impact.

Teens say their generation’s money issues are much different from those of their parents’ or grandparents’ generations.

Although most teens (77 percent) believe they are financially savvy, many aren’t savvy about important specifics. For example, only 38 percent knew how to establish good credit and only 35
 percent knew how to manage a credit card.
The complete Teens & Money Survey findings are available here .