NAACP Awards Under Fire for Endorsing Rappers
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_17533339
The lineup for the Friday night's 42nd Annual NAACP Image Awards, which includes rappers Jay-Z, Kanye West, Nicky Minaj and Diddy-Dirty Money, has created a groundswell of criticism that sent shock waves from Maryland to Pasadena.
Rev. Delman Coates, senior pastor of the Mt. Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Maryland, has started a crusade against the sexually explicit and often violent lyrics performed by rappers.
It's a criticism that has been echoed by Pasadena residents in recent days, according to Joe Brown, president of the Pasadena-branch NAACP.
"We have received several inquiries regarding the honorees from residents and those in the faith-based community in Pasadena," he said.
In the past, Coates' group, the Enough is Enough Campaign for Corporate Responsibility in Entertainment has protested lyrical content that glorified or promoted violence.
The group has also taken stands against music that demeans and sexually objectifies women, promotes drug use and criminal activity, or refers to youngsters as pimps and gangsters.
Coates recently turned his attention to the NAACP Image Awards.
"It is unconscionable that the NAACP would sully its brand, squander its legacy, and take such a stand contrary to the aspirations and dreams of the mainstream of the African-American community," Coates said about the NAACP's choice of rappers for the show.
Complaints about the line-up levied by members of the
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Pasadena-branch NAACP have been forwarded to the NAACP's national office, Brown added.
"I think the national office is going to review the policy of the nominees and the participants," Brown said. "Hopefully this will eliminate inviting those whose lyrics are considered disdainful."
NAACP officials declined to comment on the selection of the featured performers but defended the nomination of some of those same musicians for the organization's Image Awards.
"The nominees and the winners are selected by NAACP members. It's a democratic process," NAACP Spokesman Chris Fleming said.
According to the NAACP's website, the Image Awards is a "multi-cultural awards show celebrating the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts ... as well as those individuals or groups who promote social justice through their creative endeavors."
Coates said there's little that matches the NAACP's mission in the messages of its current crop of performers.
"While artists are free to produce their own art, it is not acceptable for public corporations and established civil right organizations to sanction the kinds of lyrics promoted by some of these artists," Coates said.
Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Sean Combs - front man for the group Diddy-Dirty Money - have given generously to education, nonprofits and aid efforts in Africa, At the same time the performers have glamourized materialism, promiscuity and violence in their records, according to Coates.
"These are the wrong images for a civil rights organization to nominate and endorse," Coates said.
The ascendancy of hip-hop as popular music along with its intoxicating message and the wealth of its celebrities have pitted community leaders against millionaire entertainers in a battle for the minds of young people.
"On one side these are young black men that are great business men, but on the other end it is like the tobacco business," said Rev. Lucious Smith, pastor of Pasadena Friendship Baptist Church. "In the end you get cancer."
Smith declined to comment on the choice by the NAACP to host the controversial acts, but said the imagery and lyrics prominent in popular culture has continually vexed him.
"I have always have concerns in regards to what is being presented to either the country or young people as to who are the best role models or who represents the best image," Smith added.
But Coates' battle with the NAACP's choice for musicians goes beyond the tales of dope dealing on Jay-Z songs or the hedonistic impulses chronicled on a Kanye West track.
After symbolically burying the N-word in 2007, the NAACP will celebrate musicians that feature the word prominently in their songs.
"We were led to believe that the NAACP's 2007 funeral for the N-word was intended to represent a broader stance against the glorification of offensive themes and lyrics in today's popular music," Coates said.
Coates insisted his battle does not amount to a war against hip-hop like the one anti-rap crusader and civil rights leader C. Delores Tucker led in the 1990s. Tucker forged an unlikely alliance with conservative former Secretary of Education William Bennett to campaign against rap music.
"The NAACP should be ashamed for not using this platform to profile the numerous positive hip-hop/R&B artists that are out there today," said Coates.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
brian.charles@sgvn.com
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