Thursday - April 19, 2007 by Jolene "foxxylady" Petipas
After Don Imus was firied for using disparaging remarks about the Rutgers University Women's Basketball team, the media has turned its attention to rap's misogynistic lyrics and began to ask what steps the industry should take to police itself. As SOHH previously reported, Imus for referring to the predominantly black Rutgers basketball team as nappy-headed hoes. After Imus went on The Today Show and said, that phrase didn't originate in the white community, that phrase originated in the black community, other media outlets began to connect Imus' remarks with the use of misogynistic lyrics in hip-hop.Hip-hop critics and activists, such as Al Sharpton, have since called for record labels to be held liable for the music they distribute and they've also called on rappers to tone down their denigrating lyrics. DJ Quik, no stranger to explicit language, believes Imus went too far, but he says rap is not to blame. As a dad, I feel sorry for Don Imus for putting his foot in his mouth, DJ Quik explained to SOHH.
He made a mistake as a man. A man deserves to be forgiven. But the fact that it spilled over to hip-hop is bullshit.
With all this renewed scrutiny on rap, Common, Warner Music Group Executive Kevin Liles, Russell Simmons and others appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show for a two-day town hall meeting to discuss the issue. While all the aforementioned individuals would agree there is a problem, Simmons cautioned against trying to limit rappers' free-speech rights. He said that poets always come under fire for their unsanitized descriptions of the world.
[ ] To further address the problem, Russell Simmons held a private meeting with various hip-hop executives and artists yesterday (April 18) to discuss issues challenging the industry in the wake of controversy surrounding hip-hop and the First Amendment. According to the Associated Press, the meeting which included Warner Music Group executives Lyor Cohen and Kevin Liles, Island/Def Jam head L.A.
Reid, T.I and Damon Dash, among others, did not result in any specific initiative. Afterward, they planned to hold a news conference at a Manhattan hotel to discuss initiatives agreed upon at the meeting.
But by early afternoon, the news conference was postponed because the meeting was still going on. Needless to say, the Imus controversy has the hip-hip community calling for answers as the music industry struggles to find a solution. The industry is unfortunately run by money and not great ideas that will uplift the community socially, in-demmand music video director Gil Green told SOHH.
You can boycott Universal, but you really can't shut down YouTube, said Nelson George, author, filmmaker, and producer of BET's American Gangster.The only thing that can change hip-hop is the audience. Much of that audience believes there is a thin line between rappers and reality.
According to a poll depiction of young black men and women. As the hip-hop community contemplate its future, and the images that represent them, R B songbird Emily King believes this is an opportunity for music to heal. King created a music video addressing the Imus debacle.
[ ] Last week's events were truly saddening for all of us, King said. We should be promoting and embracing racial harmony, not racial divisiveness and hatred. George believes that this is all part of the evolution of a form.
Changes in its taste move us from era to era, and it will again, George said. Everything else is just people running their mouth and blowin' out hot air. As far as the private meeting and any results, it's still unclear if there would be another one.
Simmons' publicist released a short statement that described the topic as a complex issue that involves gender, race, culture and artistic expression. Everyone assembled today takes this issue very seriously. Representatives for major labels including Interscope, Def Jam, Atlantic as well as TVT declined to be interviewed for this story.
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