Youth-focused hip-hop media outlet launches in Vancouver
An SFU student passionate about hip hop is shining a spotlight on the music community with the newly-launched media platform Kids Take Over, based in Vancouver.
KTO Founder Arshan Jawaid told Daily Hive Vancouver that he created this online outlet to assist youth in achieving their dreams of starting a career in hip hop media.
Jawaid got the idea when he was attending secondary school, dreaming of being a journalist to interview hip hop artists. But he was disappointed to find there weren’t many platforms for youth, or in the city, to create content about the music or to get experience.
KTO Founder Arshan Jawaid (submitted)
“I kinda felt really overlooked as a kid because there really isn’t much youth in the hip hop community at all, so I felt like since I was overlooked, and there’s so many other kids that are overlooked, like… why not start this to inspire all them?” he said.
“I guess me being of like Pakistani descent really makes it important too because you don’t ever see any, like, brown people in hip hop media at all,” he said.
Now 19-years-old, Jawaid said interviewing hip hop artists is still a gig he’d like to pursue, and would like to help other kids achieve similar goals by giving them opportunities to create content through reporting, working on production and social media for the KTO platform.
Right now, the hip hop content can be found on YouTube and Instagram.
“There’s basically a ‘1-on-1′ interview series, which is in person, and than there’s a FaceTime series with artists and like teams behind the artists, and than the third one is a behind-the-scenes series which basically documents everything that happens to make both interviews happen.” Jawaid said.
“The Instagram is just really there ’cause there’s gonna be like discussions on that page, there’s gonna be a lot of promoting.”
Jawaid said he’d eventually like to see all the content together on a website.
Right now, you can find interviews with artists including Sahbabii and A$AP Twelvyy, and Jawaid said you can soon expect to see segments with Anders and Tobi Lou.
Jawaid said the team is made up of his friends and family so far, adding they’re looking to bring more people on board.
“It’s growing so fast and there’s just already so many young people that has messaged me saying like ‘hey man, please don’t ever stop this, like this is the only way that hip hop is gonna grow in Vancouver,’ and I just feel like I… I just never wanna stop because I’m making so many connections as I go,” he said.
If you want to get involved in creating content with KTO, you can reach out to Jawaid at [email protected].
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