Inside the Business of Usher’s $1M Detroit Innovation Hub

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Forbes

Business News, News, Entrepreneurship, Business

4.8 • 6 Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2026

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Follow The Enterprise Zone Detroit is the starting point for a national movement if Usher Raymond IV gets his way. The Multi-Grammy-Award-winning artist is issuing a direct challenge to global entrepreneurs and local leaders: stop "taking" from cities and instead match his seed investment to uplift the creators of tomorrow exactly where they are today. This landmark $1 million partnership with the Boys and Girls Club inside the historic Michigan Central station serves as a first-of-its-kind model for "Participation over Preparation." The 15,000-square-foot space, which opened last month, is inside The Station at Michigan Central. The entire fifth floor is dedicated to young creators interested in digital content, fashion, film, video production, and music. For Usher and fellow Boys & Girls Club alum Big Sean, this hub is a calculated rejection of traditional gentrification. The goal is not to encourage children to leave their hometowns to find success, but to provide them with world-class tools—from virtual production studios and special effects labs to autonomous drone training—to build massive businesses within their own neighborhoods. This tall task aims to impact one million Black creators by 2050 and scale to 500 hubs nationwide, proving that when you invest in local "opportunity zones" with authentic mentorship, you don't just change a life—you help shape a city's future. Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1 Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more: https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes: http://forbes.com Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In 1999, superstar singer Usher Raymond IV made perhaps the biggest investment in his entire life.
0:06.0	Back then, he started a nonprofit organization, Usher's new look, and one that serves youth from broken homes.
0:13.0	Today, more than 25 years later, Usher's finally saying a big return on that investment in a form of a $1 million partnership.
0:21.6	Hello everyone, this Jabbar Young, senior writer at Forbes.
0:24.6	And back in February, we had a chance to shadow usher while he was in Detroit, Michigan,
0:28.6	to headline the opening of a new 15,000 square foot entertainment innovation hub with the Boys and Girls Club.
0:35.6	The mission is to impact one million creators by 2050
0:39.5	and open 500 hubs around the country.
0:41.8	It's a tall task, but as a long-term investor,
0:44.5	it's one that Usher says he's committed to seeing through.
0:48.0	Taking you inside Usher's New Look from Detroit.
0:54.0	Speaking on behalf of Newlook and Atlanta,
0:58.0	which this entire connection between Detroit and Atlanta predates this moment.
1:03.7	You think about the entrepreneurial spirit of Detroit
1:06.7	and the fact that without it, we would not have and be the industry that we are in Atlanta.
1:13.6	I think about what Detroit has meant to all of us as entrepreneurs.
1:19.6	When you think about Barry Gordy in the Motown phase and that idea of artist excellence,
1:25.6	without Motown, I wouldn't be the artist that I am. I wouldn't be the
1:29.5	entrepreneur that I am. So I'm happy to be able to give back for everything that Detroit has offered me.
1:37.3	I can remember going to the Boys and Girls Club and being inspired by artists that they would have come and just talk about their careers.
1:45.0	And while it wasn't necessarily relevant to what I was doing at that age,
1:49.0	that might have been the spark that actually, you know,
	...

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