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Hip Hop Peace Summit April 11 1997
 Major props are in order to Minister Louis Farrakhon and the Nation Of Islam for their continuous behind the scenes work with the hip hop community... For those who don't know.. last Thursday, April 3 1997... Key figures in the rap industry were summoned to the NOI Chicago headquarters for an in-depth pow wow. The meeting was the result of several preliminary meetings which had taken two weeks prior.. Two were held at the NOI Mosque in Los Angeles.. The other was held in New York and the other was held in Atlanta.. The main thrust was to put an end to this so called East/ West rivalry and to point out the outside forces that are hard at work trying to fuel it.. As the Minister noted in his address a lot of the strife going down within hip hop is the result of an 'unseen hand' and lack of communication. On hand were artist like Snoop Dog, Tha Dog Pound, Ice Cube, Bones Thugs And Harmony, Channel Live, Nate Dog, Mack 10, WC, Too Short, Willie D of The Geto Boys, The Goodie Mobb, Fat Joe, and Chuck D to name a select few... One key player who wasn't there was Sean Puffy Combs.. but his full support of this meeting was communicated to the folks in attendance. The end result of this meeting was the burying of the hatchet so to speak... In short the East/West Coast war is over and hip hop is about to embark on a whole new direction...The meeting to say the least was quite inspiring, beautiful and very spiritual.. It was the same type of vibe that existed during the Million Man March. Many of the artists who were in attendance did a lot of soul searching and dropped their egos and pride and reconciled whatever differences they had with one another...Kurupt of Tha Dogg Pound got up and offered an olive branch to  Bizzie Bone of Bones Thugs and Harmony... When the two embraced you could hear Bone saying..'Man I've been waiting to do this for a long time...'.. It was incredible...witnessing everyone just recommit themselves to uplifting and furthering hip hop...One of the most compelling and moving moments came when Ice Cube got up and hugged Common Sense from Chicago... The pair had been feuding on records and now realized the type of impact such exchanges can have within their communities.. Later on Ice Cube reconciled his differences with former partners Kam and Shorty of the Lench Mob... Kam spoke before the audience and let it be known that he had already recorded a song dissin' Cube..  but in lieu of everything that was happening in hip hop.. he would denounce that song and let everyone know that he and Cube had made peace.. One of the most passionate exchanges again involved Ice Cube and Fat Joe...Fat Joe in a very passionate way expressed the sentiment that a lot of East Coast folks had when records like 'Bow Down' and 'West Up' started circulating around.. Joe's whole point was he didn't understand why someone like Cube who had a lot of love and respect in NY would be involved in a project like the Westside Connection.. 'When I heard you were gonna be here, I got in my car and drove 15 hours just to see the whites of your eyes.. I wanted to see you face to face and ask you why you did what you did?' Fat Joe did not understand why someone who was down with the Nation Of Islam would release a record that was so divisive to the community. He noted that Cube had a lot of fans in NY who had been checking for him since his NWA days.. he noted that nowadays there are folks in NY who are looking to cause some bodily harm to Cube... Ice Cube who seemed a bit taken back responded by pointing out that artist outside of New York were feeling a lot of pain because of the continuous rejection from those who controlled the media in a city that is deemed as the hip hop Mecca... He stated that he felt like it would have to be someone of his stature to stir things up by taking his course of actions... He said he knew there would be a lot of heat on him, however he felt that there were a lot of unfair attacks upon West Coast artists... He explained that a lot of people took offense to East Coasters accusing West Coast rappers of ruining hip hop by creating 'gangsta rap'. Cube continued, by noting that the term 'gangsta' rap was not a term he or anyone he knew had ever attached to their type of music. It was always known as reality rap and early on, he and others saw themselves as street reporters... Cube also expressed his frustration that he and other west coast artists would be labeled as gangsta rappers who ruined hip hop, while these same critics would honor groups like Wu-Tang and even Fat Joe himself who were basically rapping about the same subject matter-street life. Cube further noted that his remarks by noting that having been around the world he noticed that people had different musical tastes and different outlooks on life... Everything is not like it is in New York... Yet a lot of NY media critics seemed to think so and would dis anything that didn't fit into their narrow definition of things.. He said that a lot of East Coast artists are given love on the west coast in terms of air play and magazine reviews even if their fan base in that area is not large.. Such artists are given a chance to be exposed to a west coast public. He pointed out that an artist like Fat Joe who never went gold or platinum could be heard on airwaves all out on the west coast and then you get groups like Too Short or Bones or other who are going triple platinum and being played and admired all over the country until they come to NY.. There everyone wants to dis them and say they're not even hip hop.  Cube said the type of treatment angered people. He also said the same type of shock people may have had towards him for being in Westside Connection is the same type of shock that people out west had when artists like Tim Dog came out of no where and began dissin artists from Compton. 'Just like you were asking why.. so were we.. We were asking why us? What did we do to deserve all this criticism?' He said that sort of rejection hurt and got a lot of people pissed because for the longest time, people look to NY and respected the city as the birth place of hip hop. 'It was a place where everyone wanted to get some props.. So while Cube may have gotten some props, everyone else was dissed.. and that needed to change. Hence Cube and others felt it was necessary to start kicking up dust and force a dialogue.Cube concluded that as an artist he sees nothing wrong with folks battlin' on records.. He felt like this approach had long been a tradition within hip hop. However, considering the current climate in which folks are taking things personal, neighborhoods are getting split up and people are getting killed, Cube felt like perhaps that part of hip hop culture needs to be suspended for a while until a lot of this drama dies down... Other artists like Snoop Dogg, Willie D, Celo of The Goodie Mob, Dougie Fresh and Too Short expressed themselves in ways that could only leave you knowing that a brighter day is coming.... Snoop spoke about his commitment to take his music in a whole different direction. He explained that he wants to use his influence to help save lives and build up folks.. He said he's willing to do this even if it means diminishing record sales.. Too Short remarked that he will have to do a lot of re-evaluating about the type of messages he puts in his music.. He noted that his impact and power to influence could no longer be used irresponsibly. Dougie's remarks were especially heartfelt as he was moved to tears and could barely speak.. He talked about how hip hop was when it first started and how he came up under the tutelage of pioneers like Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc and others.. He remarked that he could not believe how much this industry had become corrupted.. A lot of folks in the room felt Dougie's pain... He certainly left folks with an awful lot to think about..
 Minister Farrakhon spit much game at those who attended.. He laid down the groundwork by reading the now infamous Willie Lynch letter... For folks who are unfamiliar with Willie Lynch.. he was a slave owner who devised a strategy for whites to control their Black slaves. The main thrust was to develop a series of divide and conquer techniques which included pitting, young against old, light skin vs dark skin, house Negroes vs field Negroes, man vs woman etc.. As was stated in the letter: 'I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves and I take these differences and make them bigger.. I use fear, distrust and envy for control purposes.. .These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South... Take this simple list of differences and think about them. On top of my list is 'Age' but it is there only because it starts with an 'A' , the second is 'color' or shade. There is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, status on plantations attitude of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley or on a hill, East, West, North South, have fine hair, course hair or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences. I shall give you an outline of action-but before that I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust and envy is stronger than adulation respect or admiration... The Black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self refueling and self generating for hundreds of years maybe thousands...'.As the letter was being read many on hand began to note the numerous artificial differences that have popped up to plague the rap community. Everything ranging from rap vs hip hop to old school vs new school to east vs west.. Oftentimes these differences have manifested themselves under the guise of competition..but upon closer looks one will find that such differences have been highlighted for the sake of garnering sales, attracting viewers, readers and listeners or enhancing one's reputation as a journalist or reporter. A main culprit that was identified has been the media in particular the hip hop media. Many in attendance pointed out the role that was played by publications like Vibe and The Source in heightening the East West Coast conflict... The consensus was that the type of coverage and attention that was given to this conflict was exploitative and in many ways antagonistic... Keith Clinkscale, who is the President of Vibe Magazine addressed those accusations by noting that from a journalistic perspective Vibe was correct and did a good job in it's coverage...  But from an ethical and community based perspective they may have been wrong..Whatever the case, many of the artists will be taking a long hard look at the type of coverage they are receiving from within the hip hop community.. It was mentioned that one would expect biased and unfair coverage of hip hop from those who reside within the mainstream media.. It however, is a whole other deal when there's explosive writing coming from those who claim to be within the hip hop arena... The question that needs to be answered is do hip hop journalist have a stake in the community where many of the artist they write about come from? The same question could and should be asked of record executive who oftentimes have a final say so as to what gets released and what doesn't?
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