MC Hammer will support his hometown of Oakland, California, by acting as the city’s official tourism spokesman.
The rapper is part of a new marketing campaign titled “Oakland. To Know it is To Love It,” which features the rapper espousing the positive changes that have occurred in Oakland over the past 25-years.
“My admiration, love and understanding of what the culture of Oakland is, is from experience,” MC Hammer said. “I’ve been here 50 years. Our city is one of the greatest cities to ever rise up and stand up.”
MC Hammer is a native of East Oakland. He received his “MC Hammer” moniker while acting as a bat boy for the Oakland Athletics as an 11-year-old.
Later in his career, former Oakland A’s players Mike Davis and Dwayne Murphy invested $20,000 each into Hammer’s rap label, Bust It Productions, which released his break-through album Feel My Power.
On the campaign’s official website, MC Hammer offers up six different areas for tourists to experience Oakland, including its unique neighborhoods, the city’s theaters, Lake Merritt, Jack London Square, the company’s sports teams and the digital community in the city.
“If you meet people from Oakland, there’s some of the warmest people, they carry hope, they inspire, they create,” Hammer explained. “Oakland is a hub of creativity. We are we are, we’re political, we’re artsy, we’re musicians.”
Check out the video below: