Rapper turned actor, Ice Cube, created a little controversy last week by working with the Trump Campaign on something he calls “The Platinum Plan, Contract with Black America”. So, if you’re wondering what I think about, here are my thoughts. I appreciate the idea, but the execution was a disaster. I like Ice Cube, he is a legitimate cultural icon, but I am a bit astonished with his naiveté. I appreciate that he wanted to express his commitment to his people by getting involved in the political process. If you watch this interview with Chris Cuomo, he makes it clear he is not advocating for diversity or some other politically correct concept; he is unequivocally focused on the economic and political advancement of Black Americans. I have no issue with this. If Cube has been anything throughout his career, he’s been blunt. This is no time for pleasantries and Latinos need to be every bit as unabashed. Where Ice Cube went wrong was in his execution. He claimed that he reached out to both candidates to negotiate this “contract” and the Trump campaign came to the table first. Now people are calling him a sellout for endorsing Donald Trump or even sitting down with someone who denies that systemic racism is a problem in America. Cube’s approach set himself up to be used by both campaigns at no cost to either of them whatsoever. Ice Cube may be a smart, savvy guy, but he is clueless about political campaigns and more importantly, how political ideas actually get implemented.
Ice Cube will be fine, but he may have squandered a good idea. If I were Ice Cube, I would have written down a list of priorities for Black Americans. Rather than go to the campaigns, I would have first worked to garner consensus for the plan with as many Black leaders as possible, and challenged both candidates to incorporate the issues in their own domestic policy plans. This would make it about the priorities themselves and not about himself and vacant campaign promises. I would also create a mechanism that would be constantly tracking the progress of any promises made, and I would use my influence with the media and other Black leaders to ensure that there is widespread awareness about real progress or the lack thereof.
I was watching a podcast recently, and something about it rubbed me the wrong way — but it also got my wheels turning. In this episode, I talk about what I love most about being American, why the system that built this country deserves more appreciation than it gets, and why some of the loudest “love it or leave it” voices go strangely quiet when powerful billionaires openly criticize the very system that made their success possible. This is a conversation about America, double standards, and what real patriotism should actually look like.
This April, the Hispanic Wealth Project is launching its High Net Worth Boot Camp, a 10-week intensive built around some of the most valuable wealth-building education I’ve seen. In this episode, I talk about why so many of us need to shift from a worker’s mentality to an owner’s mentality, why economic success has to move from consumption to wealth building, and why building wealth takes knowledge, work, and discipline. The High Net Worth Boot Camp is designed to help close that knowledge gap with modules on securities investing, real estate investments, buying and selling businesses, asset protection, and tax strategies. If building real wealth has ever felt out of reach or unclear, this is the kind of education that can change how we think and what we build.
The data tells a powerful story: Latinos are driving economic growth in America. If Latino Americans were a standalone country, we’d be the fifth-largest economy in the world, and without Latino homebuyers, the number of homeowners in America would have declined in 2025. So why doesn’t it feel like we’re winning? In this episode, I talk about the gap between growth and perception, why we still don’t have enough strong voices shaping the national conversation, and why purchasing power alone is not enough. Growth matters, but wealth matters more. This is a conversation about leadership, visibility, and what it will really take for our community to turn momentum into lasting power.