Financial Literacy Gets a Hip-Hop Makeover

Long filled with messages of outlandish lifestyles and expensive habits, hip-hop has lately been promoting more frugal choices. From "Mo Money, Mo Problems" to the virtues of shopping secondhand in "Thrift Shop," the genre's done a 180.

It's spinning a little faster this week with the help of an unlikely ally.

Few things are less antiestablishment than the establishment itself -- in this case, the quintessential banker stereotype. But Charles Schwab and the Charles Schwab Foundation are reaching out to a younger audience through a partnership with the Boys & Girls Club of America to teach financial literacy through music.

The brokerage sponsored the Money Matters Music Mogul contest with the nonprofit organization to help promote financial literacy and responsibility among teens. The grand prize winner, 15-year-old Blake McGuire of Indianapolis, won with his rap, "Money All That Matters," which received more than 100,000 online votes. (Watch the video above.)

The song includes the lyrics, "I'm gonna balance all my checks so my money never falls / budget out my money so I don't get collectors' calls / cause you can't rob Peter to go and pay Paul."

The contest was an extension of the Boys & Girls Club "Money Matters: Make It Count" initiative, a personal finance program for teens that teaches money management skills.

For the Money Matters Music Mogul contest, teens at 2,900 clubs across the country were encouraged to create original lyrics promoting responsible spending and money management skills.

McGuire, and six other teens ranging in age from 13 to 17, will be featured on the financial-literacy hip-hop album produced by Kevin "Khao" Cates. All proceeds from the album, which is available for download and streaming, will benefit a scholarship program for the teens on the album.

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