The much reported backlash against sexist and racist language in US hip hop continues, with civil rights activist Al Sharpton announcing that tomorrow he will lead a 'March For Decency' through New York, a march which will stop off at the head offices of SonyBMG, Universal and Warner Music, before reaching a rally at Columbus Circle.
From the start, Sharpton has been trying to focus attention in the current hip hop debate onto the major record companies who profit from the genre. He argues that it is their job to ensure that offensive words like 'bitch', 'ho' and 'nigger' do not appear on hip hop releases, and that hip hop music and videos do not degrade women. As previously reported, as well as staging protests like tomorrow's rally, Sharpton is planning on buying some stock in the majors so he can attend shareholder meetings and bug the record companies' investors about the whole thing.
Confirming the march, Tamika Mallory of Sharpton's National Action Network organisation told reporters yesterday: "We aren't marching against artists - we are marching against record companies to ban these words completely. It's nice that Russell Simmons asked for these words to be bleeped out, but if we start from the top and ban them, then we won't have to answer questions at the bottom".
Simmons, as chief of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, has been lobbying from within the hip hop industry to encourage the "bleeping out" of the offensive words in question, though given that he is generally an opponent of censorship in the genre, he is unlikely to go as far as Sharpton in calling for industry wide action.
Mallory confirmed yesterday that Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn's 41st District and daughters of the late James Brown will take part in tomorrow's march. The Brown family will take part in the rally before attending a special ceremony being held at the Apollo Theater in Harlem to commemorate what would have been Brown's 74th birthday. Mallory: "James Brown always said we needed to clean up our music. This was something he always talked about in his life and so it made sense for this march to take place on this day".