Dash's essay

Essential Question

Do artists boast about their charity to sell records and make money?

During my trip to Boston on the Junior Urban Adventure one of our plans for the trip was to go to a recording studio and ask these types of questions. The visit to the recording studio, however, fell through leaving to still ponder my essential question. Bands such as U2, give away millions of dollars to fight AIDS and hunger in Africa while artists such as 50 cent give away only mere thousands to promote himself.

Bono the lead singer of U2 has traveled the world talking with leaders of many countries trying to discuss plans to end the AIDS pandemic and world hunger. So instead of using this to boost his popularity, Bono uses his popularity to boost his message around the world and help solve this dilemma. U2 have given away the majority of all money they have ever made for noble and just causes and they should be the role models this generation looks up to.

50 cent on the other hand, decided to donate to a Harlem Boys charity to help promote his new album. At the conference he also had a treaty with rival rapper The Game, to create hype for his new album which was released days later. The conference seemed to have little to do with charity and more to do with an advertisement for his album, which due to this conference sold 1.4 million copies in 4 days. Not to mention the fact that 50 cent donated a very small percent of his overall net worth. I believe he only donated around 500,000 dollars at the most. His net worth is more than 50 million dollars.

The fact of the matter is that it depends on the artist and the event. Events such as Live Aid had bands that ranged from the Dire Straits to Queen to The Who and every band in between. They all played live shows on two different continents. They played in England and America with different bands at each concert and they actually made a dvd of the concerts and even the profits from that went to fighting hunger in Africa. Bob Geldof of the Boomtown rats had put the whole thing together with great success. Success that a few years ago they had another Live Aid except this was called Live 8 and had 8 different concerts around the world, and all these profits went to fighting AIDS and hunger in Africa. So if you were to ask me do artists boast about their charity to sell records, I would say the answer is generally no. However, there are always a few rotten eggs that do it for the money and not about the morality of it. If only more people like Bono and Bob Geldof were there to use their music to help fund their helping the world. The world would be a better place if that were the situation.