Ifè Oshun: Assorted Rants

At first I prepared to title this post: “Russell Simmons Is A Hypocrite,” but, being a professional, I chose to couch it in neutrality and let you, the dear reader, decide for yourself.

However, I just absolutely have to say I am soooooooo disappointed.

Simmons, the man primarily responsible for building the rap music industry, and who I’ve supported for years, has shown himself to be a real publicity whore.

Case in point, let’s examine the recent controversy still brewing around the derogatory remarks made by radio shock jock Don Imus towards the Rutgers women’s basketball team. When community leaders raised a big stink and caused Imus to get fired, Simmons came out weeks later recommending that the rap industry voluntarily remove the words bitch, ho, and ni**er from songs.

As quoted in the Hollywood Reporter: “These three words should be considered with the same objections to obscenity as extreme curse words.”

However, during an interview I conducted with him five years ago (June, 2001) he was freestyling a totally different verse.

When I asked him how he viewed rap music, he commented on the power that rappers have, but said he wasn’t interested in cleaning up rap.

“There’s not one record that I hear on the radio that I think shouldn’t be on the radio. I want to make this clear. There’s not one record that I find offensive.”

When I brought up the rampant misogyny in the rap industry and how, as a father of a then baby girl, he felt about it, he tripped over his pre-prepared responses and took a long pause, afterwhich he said:

“I feel… that [it is] for parents to govern what their kids’ understanding [is] of what’s in the world. What part of it do they want them to hear at an early age is the parent’s choice and the way they want to explain to them what they hear - if they hear it. Now if you don’t have parents [who can do that]… then it’s a hard world that you’ve fallen into… You can’t stop sexist statements.”

Check the whole interview: Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 and judge for yourself whether Simmons is using the recent controversy as a publicity vehicle for his own interests, namely the Hip-hop Summit and his new forage into Africa’s diamond mines. I can’t help to think that if he truly felt that “bitch,” “ho,” and “ni**er” were “extreme curse word” he would have done something about it decades ago when it could’ve made a real difference.