On Friday, June 19 at 8 PM, Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium and Perelman Stage will host a night where hip hop royalty shares the spotlight with some of the sharpest minds in business, finance, technology, and entrepreneurship. The message is unmistakable: financial literacy is the new flex.
There are moments when the culture stops performing for the room and starts owning it. Power Network was built for that moment.
The musical lineup alone carries the weight of hip hop history. Big Daddy Kane and Ghostface Killah, two architects of the culture whose influence shaped generations, headline the evening alongside DJ Jon Quick and Igmar Thomas’ Revive Big Band. Hosting the night is Ed Lover, one of the most recognizable voices in hip hop media and culture.
But Power Network was never designed to be just another concert.
With the launch of a new partnership with Essence through The Essence Woman’s Panel, the event expands into an even more powerful conversation centered on ownership, innovation, leadership, and access to capital.
The panel lineup reflects that mission. Racquel Oden of HSBC Investments and venture capitalist Arian Simone, founder of Fearless Fund, are joined by Beatrice Dixon, the founder who transformed The Honey Pot Company into a household name and engineered a nine figure exit, alongside Kay Malcolm of Oracle.
The evening also opens with powerful voices driving civic engagement, advocacy, and economic empowerment: Shavon Arline-Bradley of the National Council of Negro Women, Melanie Campbell of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and Reverend Al Sharpton of the National Action Network.
Adding to the night’s focus on innovation is entrepreneur Alicia Lyttle, widely known as the “Queen of AI,” who will present on the future of artificial intelligence and opportunity creation.
The featured fireside conversation with John Hope Bryant, founder of Operation HOPE, brings one of the nation’s most influential voices in financial empowerment and economic literacy together with Earn Your Leisure founders Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, leaders who have redefined how financial education reaches the culture.
What separates Power Network from a traditional concert or conference is that it refuses to divide entertainment from expertise. Most spaces ask the culture to show up as either inspiration or information, never both at the same time. Power Network brings artists who created the soundtrack of generations into the same room as the founders, executives, and investors building wealth, equity, and ownership.
The connection is natural. The artists who built the culture and the entrepreneurs building businesses often came from the same neighborhoods, chased the same independence, and fought the same systems. Carnegie Hall simply becomes the stage where that truth is spoken out loud.
The story behind Power Network is equally significant. Created by Lewis Tucker, Terry “TR” Ross, Derek Ferguson, and William Cyrus Garrett, the platform has grown in just four years from a visionary concept into a cultural institution. Each year the conversations deepen, the rooms get bigger, and the mission becomes clearer: ownership belongs at the center of the culture.
For anyone who has ever loved the culture but wondered how to truly profit from it, Power Network is designed to close that gap.
Tickets are available now at CarnegieHall.org/Powernetwork.
