While a large portion of the country celebrated this past Valentine's Day
hugged up with significant others, the hip-hop community anxiously awaited the
reunion of one of its all-time favorite couples, Suge Knight and Dr. Dre. The
former cronies were slated to give opening remarks in front of an eager crowd
during the recent West Coast Hip-Hop Summit, which took place at the Four
Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Although the huge turnout meant standing-room-only, there would be no kissing
and making up on this day. Suge was late, and Dre was a no-show. But in
attendance were West Coast hip-hop luminaries Xzibit, Mack 10, Kurupt, Rass Kass,
The Boo Ya Tribe, Jewell, Tray Deee, Kam, Bosko, JT The Bigga Figga and Queen
Pen, Damian Hall, Mr. and Mrs. Marion Barry, Barry Hankerson, Khadijah
Farrakhan, comedian Michael Colyar and many others. The Hip-Hop Summit is forum
created primarily for artists, music executives, religious leaders and
politicians in an attempt to take back responsibility of what goes on in
hip-hop.
With the help of key contributors such as Russell Simmons, Sean "Puffy" Combs,
Dave Mays, Hilary Rosen of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Jermaine Dupri and summit leader Minister Benjamin Muhammad, The Hip-Hop Summit
Action Network (HHSAN) was born out of the initial national summit last summer
in New York, which was followed by regional ones in Queens, N.Y., and Miami. In
addition to the summits, the HHSAN co-sponsors a literacy program with the Urban
League, has partnered up with the NAACP, MTV, BET and Radio One with Rap The
Vote to encourage people to register and vote, and recently backed spoken word
artist Sarah Jones in her lawsuit against the FCC.
Not only was this latest meeting special because it was
the first on the West Coast, but it was also the first time the network allowed
media participation, although it was limited. "None of this is the press'
business, really. This was supposed to be a closed-door summit and then people
were asking for access so we gave it to them," says Simmons. "The press is not
gonna help us. The press named it a East/West Coast war when it was only an
argument between two people."
Nevertheless, the media was allowed inside long enough to hear from the
distinguished panel, which consisted of Simmons, Grand Jury Records CEO and
anti-gang activist Michael Conception, DJ Quik, The D.O.C., Steve Harvey, Power
106 (L.A.) air personality Big Boy, hip-hop activist/journalist Davey D, Susan
Jenkins of the Recording Industry Association of America and Nation of Islam
leader the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, who delivered the keynote
address. The main issues on the agenda during the closed session were political
empowerment, economic empowerment, hip-hop's response to federal regulatory
agencies and the success of voluntary parental advisory labeling.
No stranger to the hip-hop community, Farrakhan delivered the previous keynote
address at the national summit in New York. His first effort to reach out to
hip-hop artists was in 1996 when he met with several rappers at his Chicago home
in an attempt to stop the East Coast/West Coast beef that had escalated out of
control. In his comments to the West Coast summit audience, the 69-year-old
minister praised hip-hop's accomplishments while encouraging its creators to
take more responsibility over the music. "You ought to accept your
responsibility of the children not listening to their teachers in school. But
they listen to you," explains Farrakhan. "You're their teacher. You're their
second mother and father. You have to accept some responsibility. We gotta
recognize death when we see it. Death can come out of your mouth as well as a
gun. Either you're killing your people, or raising them. You decide."
Jenkins, speaking on behalf of the RIAA, the organization that represents the
recording industry, agreed. "I ask that we be conscious and that we choose our
words carefully and we make sure that it's real so that when the babies recite
the message that we deliver we can all be proud," Jenkins said.
Yet some artists resist the idea that changing lyrics will change their
realities, and some are less open to making their music palatable to the masses.
"As a Black man I know it's wrong to call a Black woman a b****, but let me let
you in on a little secret that you might not know, it's a gang of b****es out
there," explains The D.O.C. "And whether or not we stop on records calling them
b****es and hoes, don't think for one minute they gonna stop acting like it."
Those kinds of sentiments may be hard for some to swallow,
but that's the beauty of a forum such as this. Instead of holding back,
participants are encouraged to say what they feel. As a collective, the network
will determine what's best overall. According to Russell Simmons, honesty is an
artist's best policy. "Seventeen percent less rap records sold this year
compared to last year," says Simmons. "What happened? It went to R&B. What are
R&B artists singing about? The truth. Senator Thompson said (at a censorship
hearing) he thought that every 15-year-old boy should see 'Saving Private Ryan'
because they need to learn about war. Every 15-year-old boy needs to hear Snoop
Dogg so he can know about the war that's going on down the block."
Gospel, jazz, blues, R&B and rap all are considered soul music because of their
honesty. Music is and always has been the universal language bridging the gap
between cultures, generations and religions. During the latter part of the
meeting, Tha Row CEO Suge Knight posed a question to the panel: How is it that
music is by far one of the most important elements of life, but unlike most
other professions, there's no arrangement for life after music? "The most
happiest moments in your life, let's say your wedding, they gonna play music.
The most saddest things in life like funerals, they gonna play music. Any time
it's a crisis, any time it's a war, they still heal the soul with music. So why
is it music's so important (but) the industry gets no union? It's no retirement
plan, it's no dental. Get sick, you ass out!"
Simmons agreed that such a union could be helpful, though no concrete plans to
create one were announced.
Though the venue was filled to capacity, there was still a noticeable absence of
West Side trailblazers such as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Too $hort and
E-40. Conception didn't see it as a problem. "Maybe Snoop wasn't there, but his
lieutenants were there. So I think that it resolved a lot of the conflicts. This
about peace here, man. This about love here, man. This about hugging one
another, man. That's what I like to see happening before we leave here. I'd like
to see Suge and everybody else before we leave here hug each other because this
ain't working. Nobody's winning."
Simmons added, "We had so many people to come out here that work in rap music,
or come from gangs, or come from the streets that's close to the rap community.
And they came to do something positive. It was such a great turnout. I would
have hoped that we could have resolved some of the conflicts and worked on it,
but we did a lot, and a lot of it is done behind scenes. I think it's important
that the people who came out came and the work that they do is recognized."