The public hasn’t heard much from Chamillionaire these days, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t fighting for the greater good. While he’s been actively dropping mixtapes over the years, the rapper is also a master at being an angel investor.
Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Alley Sunday (March 31), the Houston native broke down his investment journey and plans to share to wealth with his community. Part of that journey includes his business relationship with ride-sharing app Lyft. Founded in 2012, the rapper explained how he and a few others took an interest in the app in 2014 and decided to invest in the then-private company.
“Me and a few others like Big Boi from Outkast and Trey Songz were excited about the ride-sharing space,” he said. “This was around 2014, we started making the steps to get in touch with Lyft and did our investment in 2015.”
Lyft, which was worth a reported $2.157 billion in 2018, went public recently with some early investors selling their stakes for a very pretty penny. Activist investor Carl Icahn sold his stake– reportedly worth $550 million at the IPO price–but Chamillionaire doesn’t plan on sellling his.
“I’m definitely bullish on the company and will be there for the long-run,” he added. He also elaborated on the reasoning behind his investment journey and how he plans to take what he’s learned and share it with fellow neighbors in Houston and beyond.
“My focus is not necessarily about money as much as people think,” he said. “I believe that [the tech] industry has a lot of value in it and this value hasn’t been given to my community. I’m trying to do is learn as much as I can, make a lot of investments so I can plant seeds to help my family but then bring a lot of other people in. That’s really why I’m here. I feel like a lot of these companies are disrupting the world with so much innovation and so many people from my community don’t have access to this stuff. My mission is to try to help a lot more people who look like me get into these companies.”
Chamillionaire later shared the interview on Instagram. He noted that the chat happened just after he found out about the murder of Nipsey Hussle and how he powered through in his honor.
“We have to start planting more seeds in our communities,” he captioned the interview. “We have to start INVESTING in our future. We have to support each other more. What do riches mean if your people aren’t eating? (Please tag someone that needs to hear this)”
Check out the full interview above.