Hip Hop Caucus 2004. In 2003 and 2004 he was the Political and Grassroots Director for Russell Simmons' Hip Hop Summit Action Network, as well as a Senior Consultant to Jay-Z's Citizen Change "Voice Your Choice" campaign. Respect My Vote! is a voter mobilization campaign that aims to educate, register and mobilize young people of color between the ages of 18-39 who live in urban communities, do not attend college, people with felony records who are unaware of their voting rights, and students at historically black colleges and universities. In 2008, the Hip Hop Caucus and the hip hop artist T.I. launched the
Yonas (hip hop artist) 2018. Yonas (hip hop artist) Yonas Mellesse, known under the mononym YONAS, is an independent hip-hop artist from New York City. Between 2015 and 2018, Yonas sold over 150,000+ songs and 20,000 albums, and as of 2017 he had accumulated over 250 million streams digitally. His albums have consistently reached the top five of the iTunes Hip-Hop charts, the top 25 of the iTunes album charts, and the top 50 on the Billboard Hip-Hop charts. In 2009 Yonas released his first EP, "New Golden Era", independently, winning a Billboard Songwriting Award for his single "Banga". A year later he followed