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"The purpose of this summit is to protect our right to say ‘fuck the police.’"
——Russell Simmons on the Hip-Hop Summit

HIP-HOP SUMMIT RAP-UP

Simmons Summit A State Of The Hip-Hop Union

by Kenya Yarbrough

Rap mogul Russell SimmonsHip-Hop Summit, held today and tomorrow in New York, brought together hundreds of artists, music-industry executives, politicians, activists and religious leaders for a series of closed-door meetings about the state of hip-hop culture. The invite-only confab was co-organized by Minister Ben Muhammad and the Source’s David Mays.

The summit covered marketing, empowerment, media and A&R issues as they relate to the hip-hop community, as well as youth roundtables and a keynote address from Minister Louis Farrakhan, who was expected to stress "responsibility without renunciation."

"The purpose of this summit is to protect our right to say ‘fuck the police,’" said Simmons, during the Marketing Initiatives meeting today, which discussed the fine line of advisory stickers and governmental censorship. That panel included the RIAA’s Hilary Rosen, and initiated the idea of intra-regulation, creating guidelines and policing from within the hip-hop community.

"We need to do what we say we’re going to do in implementing our guidelines and policing ourselves," said Rosen. "We don’t have a ratings board, we don’t want one; we’re not [MPAA chief] Jack Valenti."

The heavily attended Political Empowerment meeting featured a panel of politicos and rap pioneer Chuck D., who contended that the power of hip-hop is exploited by such media entities as BET and local radio, resulting in negative images of Black America. He requested that labels take the responsibility for nurturing artists. "That way, they can create music that is quality and something to be accountable for," he explained.

The turnout, which included legislators (Maxine Waters, Cynthia McKinney, Bennie Thompson), activists (NAACP’s Kwesi Mfume, SCLC’s Martin King), artists (Sean Combs, Wyclef Jean) and celebs (Bill Cosby, Ossie Davis), helped raise worldwide awareness for the event.

According to attendee James Cruz of Violator Mgmt., "We’re taking a proactive stance so that we’re not conforming to others’ guidelines but creating our own. Russell is trying to express how we’re going to hold ourselves accountable."

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