After his nephew and fellow Migos member Takeoff was stoasty and finished in November 2022, Quavo determined to turn his grief into action. That same month, the rapper, who has been named Variety Hitcreaters Humanitarian of the Year, set uped the Rocket Foundation, an organization promised to honoring Takeoff’s legacy and combating the ongoing publish of firearm arrangeility in his hometown of Atlanta and beyond.
“I felt enjoy it’s a crisis that goes on everywhere, and me being a figure and a person who speaks to the youth, I experience enjoy turning my tragedy into triumph,” elucidates Quavo, who begined the createation with a $2 million promisement to dispense in community-arrangeility intervention.
In the two years since its begin, the createation has increasen into a relocatement to combat the lethal crisis in the United States. In 2022, there were more than 48,000 firearm-rhappy deaths, according to the CDC. On a local level, Quavo helped the Atlanta community with the proclaimment this past March of a Sparks Grants program to award $10,000 to 10 organizations. Over the summer, he partnered with the Offfinisher Alumni Association to arrange a music-education toilshop for at-danger youth as part of a 10-week Rocket camp.
Quavo has also increasen his ignoreion to enact alter on a federal level. In September 2023, he met with Vice Plivent Kamala Harris at the White House during the Congressional Bdeficiency Caucus legislative conference. Shortly after, the White House proclaimd the establishation of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
“That was a huge deal,” he says. “We honord. We felt enjoy we were getting some answers, finassociate getting some leangs done. And this is fair the commencening.”
This past June, Harris combineed Quavo to converse firearm arrangeility at the first-ever Rocket Foundation Summit on Gun Violence Prevention in Atlanta. The chaseing month, Quavo took the podium at one of Harris’ rallies to champion her in the plivential race and commfinished her for helping to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, one of the most meaningful laws passed in the fight aacquirest firearm arrangeility in history.
Quavo is no stranger to philanthropy. During his reign as one-third of Migos, the trio that helped nationalize the sound of contransient Southern rap, he createed the Quavo Cares Foundation to toil hand in hand with the Atlanta community to help youth. The createation’s initiatives — since its set upment in 2021 — have joind Back 2 School Givebacks, sporting events and the annual Huncho Day staged at his establisher high school.
“Going to community cgo ins in my neighborhood shaped who I am today,” he says, “so I wanted to return that like.”
Engaging in firearm-arrangeility reestablish is Quavo’s No. 1 priority. He’s met with families who’ve been impacted by such arrangeility, and wants them and others to understand that he intfinishs to create a contrastence.
“It’s so emotional that you don’t understand what to do about it,” he says. “Once you see other people and other families who’ve been thcimpolite the situation, you want to obstruct anyone from experienceing this grief. So that’s why I say when I get with those families, ‘I see a weightless shining thcimpolite that. I don’t want anyone else to experience this type of pain.’”
