Boston Magazine Online
By Erin Byers
2004

Free's Advice

By schooling Boston kids in financial smarts, the rising star from Roxbury shows she's one diva with a heart of gold.

As a dancer-turned-rapper-turned-hot-stuff cohost of BET's top-rated 106 & Park, she hobnobs with the likes of Will Smith and Jay-Z. But back when Free was still Marie Wright from Roxbury, her life was filled with considerably less bling. "I got messed up on credit cards early," she says. "It took me awhile to get it together." To help teens in her hometown avoid the same missteps, she and her mom founded the Free4Life Foundation. The former Roxbury Center for the Performing Arts student says her next move is to take the organization's financial literacy campaign national.