T-Pain may want to buy you a drink—but rest assured that he isn’t going to put it on credit, or use a “buy now, pay later” app to settle up with the bartender.
The acclaimed hip-hop and R&B artist “crashed” a college course this week at Clark Atlanta University, in an effort to share some of the basics related to financial literacy. It’s part of a partnership between T-Pain and banking app Chime, which is declaring April “Financial Progress Month” in an attempt to make Financial Literacy Month more approachable and fun.
T-Pain, who has openly discussed his struggles with money in the past, tells Fast Company now he’s taking the chance to spread the importance of financial literacy to young people.
“Having been a person that’s been on all sides of finances, being super wealthy, and then super broke, and then kinda rich, and then back to wealthy—I know what it takes to gain it, lose it, and then gain it back again,” T-Pain says. “There’s a level of self-experience that I bring to the table that not a lot of people can.”
Notably, T-Pain says that many young people have a lot of opportunities to earn money, perhaps more so than previous generations, and that they need to be prepared for the ups and downs that come with that.
“You can get famous with a couple of [social media] clips, and you’re suddenly making $40,000 per month,” he says. But unless you know what to do with the money, it can easily be frittered away . . . We need to prepare people for the downside.”
“There are a lot of get-rich programs,” he adds. “There are not a lot of get-rich-again programs.”
T-Pain’s partnership with Chime includes not only a visit to Clark Atlanta University, but the artist is also giving away signed “coloring budgets” (similar to coloring books, but with a twist), VIP tickets to his tour, and financial advising sessions for life. As part of its broader Financial Progress Month activities, Chime is also releasing the aforementioned coloring budgets and digital resources, such as budgeting templates and a gamified learning experience, in partnership with Zogo.
The broader goals of Chime’s partnership with T-Pain are focused at increasing financial literacy levels among young people—and the two have their work cut out for them. Despite members of Gen Z being the generation most likely to have taken a financial literacy class or program—which are mandated in public high schools in half of U.S. states—many of those programs are inadequate. As a result, young people still face financial hurdles.
T-Pain says his message to young people is simple: Be prepared.
“I don’t want to scare anybody,” he says, “but one medical bill can financially take you [out].” It’s the one-off, financially disastrous what-ifs that young people should do their best to financially prepare for, he says, because once you’re in a hole, it can be very difficult to crawl back out.
“What we’re trying to do is to create preparedness, create education—it’s really scary to a lot of people,” he says. But by making learning about money a bit more fun and approachable, the hope is that more young people will catch on and apply the principles.
“We want people to approach finances in a simple, informed way,” says T-Pain.