Hip-Hop Summit Action Network Defends Hip-Hop On Capitol Hill

The

Hip-Hop Summit Action Network took

to Capitol Hill on yesterday (Wednesday Dec. 6th)

to question findings in the recently released

by the Federal Trade Commissions study on the

entertainment industry’s marketing practices.

Minister

Benjamin Chavis Muhammad, CEO of The Hip-Hop Summit

Action likened the commissions findings to racial

profiling. Minister Muhammad and Ed Towns, a Democrat

from New York and member of the Congressional

Black Caucus, were troubled that over three quarters

of the music that was reviewed by the FTC was

Hip-Hop music. The Commission suggested that the

music was inappropriate for teenagers because

of the content.

"The

FTC is engaging in a type of racial profiling

aka Rap Profiling," the Minister said. "It

is coming in the most terrible form: censorship

of freedom of artistic expression."

While

the report blasted the music industry, it did

commend Hollywood studios for a number of marketing

reforms after blasting the movie business in their

September 2000 report for marketing R rated films

to kids.

The

FTC has insisted that it is not focused on the

content of the music, but on the marketing practices

and who the target audience is. Critics maintain

that the content is the issue and that the FTC

is making judgment as to what content is suitable

for children and what content isn’t.