 Looks like last Friday's violent end to the Oakland Cash Money concert is being heard all around the world. The footage that was shot depicting a group of brothas stomping on another spectator has been shown all around the world. The unfortunate thing is now club owners and venue owners here in the Bay Area are using this past week's fiasco as the excuse not to have any more rap concerts. Everyone from law enforcement on down to politicians are suggesting and even encouraging a moratorium on Hip Hop concerts. Publicly they are saying 'lets look into last week's event'. The reality is that people are already closing doors. One prominent Bay Area promoter/dj found that almost all his showcases that were lined up for the upcoming Gavin Convention that's gonna be held here In the Bay Area this February, were all but cancelled. When he explained that he was showcasing Hip Hop acts that are along the lines of Souls of Mischief or Mos Def, the owner wasn't trying to hear him. All he knew was there was some madness that jumped off at a concert being promoted by the Ron Isley. Heck, if a guy as famous as Ron Isley of the Isley Brothers can't have a safe event then who can? Adding insult to injury, this story has dominated local newscasts and radio talk shows almost everyday since it happened along side all the drama surrounding Puffy, ODB and Jay-Z.As much as we would like to separate ourselves and claim that Cash Money and their materialistic message of 'Bling Bling' isn't 'real Hip Hop, folks are finding that we are indeed all definitely tied together. As this popular promoter found, club owners don't know and don't care about any supposed difference between Hip Hop and Rap. This thing we call Hip Hop has been severely tarnished by all the recent negative headline making news. It didn't help that while while law enforcement, the Oakland Coliseum and and local politicians have all weighed in on the issue via press conferences, far too many Hip Hoppers were absent from the scene. During one press conference, the Alameda county sheriff stated that all rappers are 'dumb' and so are their fans.. Where was the direct response from the Hip Hop community? There was no local press conference offering a varied perspective from Juvenile, the Cash Money record label executives or any other rap acts around town. The closest this came to happening was me being interviewed on several newscasts, Boots of the Coup along with a few Hip Hop club owners doing a show on KPFA radio and several activist who took it upon themselves to write letters to public officials emphasizing that Hip Hop is not the culprit of last week's misfortunes. It's kind of like this, if we see a video tape of a few police officers beating down some one like we saw with Rodney King, then all police officers become suspect. That video tape of the Rodney King destroyed police community relations for a while..It took a while to build up the trust and in many cases the trust simply isn't there and will never be there. Well, the same type of thinking applies to Hip Hop, the image of people getting beat down and cops drawing guns while they ran around the Oakland Coliseum is permanently embedded an people's minds. It has frightened people and will continue to haunt and hurt Hip Hop until all of us stand up and understand that this our ship and we have to take charge and firmly control it's destiny. I'll be damned if I'm gonna stand around and have the Mayor, sheriff or any one else who doesn't know, doesn't care and has a marginal interest and disinterest in what I intrinsically know and love speak on my behalf. Hip Hop is what we bring to the table not them. It's high time we set the tone for the conversations at hand and control our art and business. I'll give you an example of what the Hip Hop community should be doing. A couple of weeks ago, 60 Minutes did a profile on Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown. During the report reporter Leslie Stahl, made some extremely unsavory remarks about Oakland. She called it a pocket of poverty within a sea of prosperity. The City Council and other civic leaders held a press conference and are now demanding a retraction from 60 Minutes. hey went on record to point out that there is a powerful body of people within Oakland who will not quietly sit back while some one takes cheap shots at them during a newscast. These civic leaders clearly understand that to let 60 Minutes remark go unchallenged could adversely effect business. Large companies may not want to set up shop in Oakland or conventions may not want to come to town, if folks believe the maligning report put out by 60 Minutes. The same thing applies to Hip Hop. We got misrepresented last Friday night so now all of us have to step up and counter the savage imagery that was being shown. Everyone I know who's connected to Hip Hop should be writing letters or request meetings with Oakland officials and the press. It's up to us to take some very proactive stances to protect our business and industry. This includes, local deejays, artists, street promoters, writers and record label owners. etc. This must be done. We're not kids anymore and we are all involved in a what is now thriving multi-billion dollar business. There are forces at work that wish to knock it down. If we don't speak up both collectively and as responsible individuals, Hip Hop will be tarnished from the misguided acts of a few and the overwhelming neglect of the promoters and guardians of last Friday's event. People often ask me, why do I spend so much time writing and talking about Hip Hop? I was recently asked why I spent time talking about Puffy and Jay-Z? Why didn't I just ignore them? The reason I didn't ignore them was because what they did would and is effecting me. There are folks on hand on have things that I need who have resources I want who are believing and reacting to all the drama and media accounts surrounding Hip Hop and some of its biggest superstars over the past couple of months. Don't think for a second that Puffy's mistake won't have some investor, club owner, radio station, ad agency etc, thinking twice about doing business with you or me. Don't think this Cash Money fiasco happened in a vacuum and you can skate through unscathed by claiming that's you're 'Hip Hop' and Cash Money is 'rap'. That 'Hip Hop' is the culture and 'Rap' is the business argument don't hold water to with folks who see us all the same especially if you haven't taking charge to stand up and publicly make things clear. Currently, the public representation of Hip Hop is the antics surrounding, Puffy, Jay-Z and ODB. Hip Hop's representation are the last week's riot. Hip Hop's representation is that young 15 year old brotha that local TV station Channel 5 decided to interview who used the 'N' word which they conveniently forgot to bleep out. We can't let such coverage slide, even if there are some people who think its ok or are too scared or lazy to fight back themselves. An interesting side note to this whole scenario. It was widely reported by myself included that the last Hip Hop concert at the Oakland Coliseum was 10 years ago.. Well it was pointed out by my boy and fellow writer Oliver Wang that the Coliseum had two sold out Hip Hop shows last year with the Beasty Boys. What makes it even more interesting I gave away tickets for that event. The other interesting scenario is that during last years Woodstock Riots, many newspapers labeled groups like Korn and Limp Bizkit 'Hip Hop' groups. I even showed several newspaper clippings to this effect. Korn will be at the Coliseum again next month and now they are back to being labeled an alternative rock group. The other interesting thing to note is that since all this has happened.. I've gotten over 100 emails and phone calls. I've heard from security personal that was on duty, police officers and lots of disgruntled fans. The overwhelming majority of people cited that there was severe under staffing of security.yesterday it finally came out on the news that the guards themselves were upset about the cutbacks that were going on with their staff. hence this explains why there was no one patrolling the outside grounds of the Coliseum or the parking lots. It also explains why there were only two guards at the ticket gate that I personally witnessed get bum rushed. So to answer the question of why bother? Or why spend time addressing their issues? Until I own the arenas, radio stations and have a comparable viable medium on hand at my disposal, I have to keep my voice and hopefully sensible perspective out there in the mix. Until more of us speak up and demand to be counted so that people clearly understand that there's more to us and Hip Hop then crime and mayhem, then we all need to speak out.
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