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
Hip hop during the 1970s. Jamaican hip hop artists often rap in both Brooklyn and Jamaican accents. Jamaican hip hop subject matter is often influenced by outside and internal forces. Outside forces such as the bling-bling era of today's modern hip hop and internal influences coming from the use of anti-colonialism and marijuana or "ganja" references which Rastafarians believe bring them closer to God. Author Wayne Marshall argues that "Hip hop, as with any number of African-American cultural forms before it, offers a range of compelling and contradictory significations to Jamaican artist and audiences. From "modern blackness" to "foreign mind", transnational cosmopolitanism