Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan will be the keynote speaker at the Second Annual Hip-Hop Summit Jun. 12-13 that Def Jam hip-hop industrialist Russell Simmons is spearheading in New York City toward an effort to clean up rap music and culture’s image.
The appearance is among Farrakhan’s first, outside Chicagoland after convalescing from prostate cancer surgery performed a year ago at the Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC. In 1997, Farrakhan spearheaded two South Side peace summits at his Kenwood home and the now-closed Salaam Restaurant to end U.S. hip-hop’s sectional hostilities shortly after the gun slayings of Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG that included appearances by such figures as Simmons, Common, and Crucial Conflict.
Other confirmed appearances at the New York City summit would include RIAA CEO/president Hillary Rosen and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), hip-hop’s lone champion in Congress. Top ranking hip-hop representatives will convene a series of closed-door meeting during that summit to resolve conflicts in hip-hop.
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“It’s just his way of trying to change things by working inside the system,” said Chuck “Jigsaw” Cheekmur, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the New York City-based web site Allhiphop.com. Simmons has hired Allhiphop.com to promote the summit through news content alerts via its wireless news subscription news service provided to two-way pagers, cellular phones, and personal digital assistants, or hand-held PC’s. Representatives from the site will also attend the summit and take part it its closed-door meetings.
Simmons has also requested appearances by representatives of Vibe and The Source magazines and MTV to help shape and foster the summit’s goals of responsibility, conflict resolution, and evolution in the hip-hop community.
For more information about the summit, email hiphopsummit@allhiphop.com.
