A smart phone is the easiest way to do that with another whole world at the tips of my thumbs. This world– App World. And I live and breath it’s air religiously. Too bad, the praises of my Blackberry isn’t the reason for this post. We can talk about iPhone vs. Blackberry some other time.

Right now, I want to address this article that I would have never expected to acknowledge hip-hop as a factor in the business world.

I guess I was so shocked, because I was thinking the exact idea they addressed.

I’m only 22 years old, so drinking (legally) is still kind of new to me. However, I’ve been exposed to different cultures and experiences that may have put me in a position to develop a mature pallet. College campuses are flooded with wholesale cases of Heineken and kegs of Yuengling. Frat parties love providing mixed drinks starring veiled vodka, but rarely do 20-somtheings think to grab a bottle of wine.

Before rapper Drake’s little plug for moscato in the “Invented Sex (Remix),” I knew Sutter Home had a nice, refreshing, and tasty $7 bottle of the wine, and often grabbed it on nights I didn’t want to get too wild. Napa, California and Associated Press writer Michelle Locke happens to think Drake created a buzz for the grape and had a small role to play in “the last year sales of moscato [going] up nearly 79 percent to just over 1 million cases.” Chardonnay sales are still higher in the market, but it is fascinating to see an increase at all, especially after Drake mentions it. I remember seeing a few of my followees on Twitter jokingly (or seriously) say they warmed up to the vine and began drinking the wine because of the lyric, so how powerful is Hip-Hop really?

I don’t think I fully acknowledge the influence it has on our culture and my peers. Is it healthy to leave that kind of power in the hands of drug dealers and abusers, womanizers, and murders? It sounds scary when you lay it out like that, doesn’t it? But even the “feel good” hip-hop songs promote one or all of the aforementioned themes. Are we placing power in the right hands? Just think for a little, how often do we see 6-year-olds recite Nicki Minaj lyrics verbatim? I don’t hate hip-hop. It’s cool for what it is, but I don’t know if this is what I want this nation’s future business and political leaders to aspire to.

Be careful where you allow your power to be held. Oddly enough, I feel the need to quote one of Hip-Hop’s most controversial artists– Mr. Kanye West,

“No one man should have ALL that POWER“

True words, indeed.

Drake’s verse on Trey Songz’s “Inveted Sex (Remix)”

~BobbyPen