There’s No Bigger Women’s Water Polo Fan Than Flavor Flav

Hip hop’s greatest hype man Flavor Flav himself recently made his feminist allyship known by sponsoring the Olympics women’s water polo team. It seems like the rapper is as passionate about diversity and empowering women as he is about making great music.

Flavor Flav is a hip-hop legend. He was the official hypeman for one of the greatest rap groups of all time, Public Enemy, which featured members Chuck D, DJ Lord, and Sammy Sam. Public Enemy put out such hard-hitting albums as It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet, which both dealt with topics like institutional racism in America and class problems. They’re one of the most influential groups of all time and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 2013.

Flav recently became the official sponsor of the U.S. women’s water polo team. According to Today, he signed a five-year sponsorship deal that gives the team substantial financial help. He first heard of the team’s financial difficulties on Instagram when Maggie Steffens, a member of the team, made a plea on Instagram asking for help. Flavor Flav responded with “AYYY YOOO,,, as a girl dad and supporter of all women’s sports — imma personally sponsor you my girl,,, whatever you need.”

Flav is awesome for doing this, but it does highlight an unfortunate problem happening within the Olympics and women’s sports in general. Oftentimes, Olympic athletes don’t make a lot of money unless they have huge sponsorship deals like bigger names do. Olympic athletes can have to work multiple jobs just to support their dreams. (And, unless they can afford better, are subjected to substandard conditions even once those dreams are made reality.) This reality hits even harder for female athletes who typically receive less support and funding than their male counterparts—even if, as is the case with the U.S. Women’s Water Polo team, they consistently earn substantially more medals.

While it’s great that philanthropists like Flavor Flav are doing their part to keep these teams afloat, we do need better and equal pay for all Olympians.