Some musicians score a record deal and immediately buy a luxurious home, a fancy ride, or some other status-symbol indicator. When the New Orleans-based rapper Dee-1 signed with RCA in 2013, he decided to pay off his student loans. Indeed, in his new video “Sallie Mae Back,” Dee-1 boasts that instead of buying a Mercedes Maybach with his recording contract advance, he burned off his college note.
The video was filmed in front of the football stadium at Louisiana State University, where Dee-1 graduated in 2008. The song speaks to the hardships he faced in trying to pay his loans back, especially in Louisiana’s low-wage economy:
Needed tuition, needed room and board
Had to pay for books, so I took out loans to feed the boy
Graduated wasn't making quite enough to pay ‘em back
Went in default, messed my credit up, check my Equifax
I ain't proud of that, I'm more proud in that I ain’t drown in that
“I love being debt-free, so I made this song as an anthem to celebrate and also to encourage others who are working towards being debt-free,” the rapper said in a press statement released to accompany the video.
[For more of this story, written by Brentin Mock, go to http://www.citylab.com/work/20...o-sallie-mae/463830/]
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