Richard O. Jones

Ben Chavis, CEO of Hip-hop Summit; Common, a clean rapper; and Kyle Lile, former rap artist promoted to vice president of a division of Warner Music was also on stage with Simmons. Each man believed that artists should be able to spew disgraceful lyrics about women with immunity from protest based on their realities. Chavis blamed the social conditions of poverty, violence in the community, etc., which must be addressed before we can expect rappers to change their tune. Lile falsely accused New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch, who spoke from the audience, of calling him a clown when Crouch said the ‘clowns' in the hip-hop business disgrace the Black people, women in particularly, with their lyrics. Lile resorted to name-calling and referred to Crouch as Imus. Lile felt that his industry was being attacked but failed to genuinely acknowledge that it was his industry during the attacking. Lile only succeeded in convincing me that minimum clarity was required to become a vice president in his industry. Lile also claimed to be a mentor of the young rappers. Common acknowledged that the hip-hop industry changed towards negative over the years although his loyalty was with the hip-hop industry. The others jokingly agreed under pressure from Oprah.

Simmons and the others were apathetic to the plight of Black women who protested being denigrated in rap music for the past twenty years. At the end of the program, I was convinced that the young rappers are encouraged by their mentors to be as angry as their ghetto reality dictates and the hip-hop industry will have their backs regardless of the long-term emotional damage to Black people globally.

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