A week after BET premiered "Hip-Hop Vs. America," a town hall meeting featuring Nelly, T.I., Chuck D, Reverend Al Sharpton and columnist Stanley Crouch, **** Juice caught up with SOHH to address hip-hop's alleged glorifying ways.
In addition to the aforementioned panelists, "Hip-Hop Vs. America" also featured Mike Jones, Professor Michael Eric Dyson, author Nelson George and model turned actress Melyssa Ford, among many others. Moderated by BET's Jeff Johnson and Toure, the discussions had the speakers weighing in on hip-hop's relationship with crime, its degradation of women, lyrical accountability and the glorification of the black community's ills. Discussions often heated up with panelists sitting on opposite sides of the issues.
"This is what is sort of misleading from the show if you look at it in a way," Nelly told SOHH. "'Cause once the cameras are off, everybody is cool. But, it also was some debating when the camera goes off, 'cause everybody is speaking from their view point. And the point is, nobody is wrong. I just think people are pointing the finger at the wrong thing as far as the blame."
"People wanna say that rap is glorifying the problems from the neighborhood," Nelly continued. "The thing is, even if you gon' glorify it, it's still a problem. People wanna end the glorification and not end the problem. We're attacking hip-hop as a copout and it's an easy way to diverge everybody because older people don't like it. When we first started listening to hip-hop, my granny and them thought Run-DMC and them was straight hoods. She didn't get it. She's from a different era in music and it's the same thing as what's going on right now."
At one point during the discussion, former Essence Magazine editor Diane Weathers, who had previously been "angry with Nelly" because of his controversial "Tip Drill" video, acknowledged that she had misjudged the rapper.
"You know Nelly, it's nice to sit here and see how intelligent you are and that your children are doing well, because I was very angry with you over 'Tip Drill,'" Weathers told Nelly during the telecast.
"That's the whole point. When she said that, that should have been the end of the show," an animated Nelly stressed. "Because that's all you gotta do. Nobody comes to us and talks to us. Nobody gets our perception because they take in our entertainment."
"We're entertaining because we do go to these clubs," he added, before pointing how sweet Weathers was in their post show conversations. "Of course you're not gonna get the music, because you don't go to clubs. When's the last time she's been to a club? When's the last time she's been in there partying off of Miles Davis. I'm sorry, Miles ain't gon' get the club crunk. It's just that simple. You have to understand the era that you live in and understand the people before you can judge what it is that they're doing. You're judging what they're doing and not knowing where it's coming from."
Nelly's Brass Knuckles is scheduled to hit stores in November.
http://www.sohh.com/articles/article.php/12700
