A widespread boycott of Pepsi has mistakenly detailed that rapper Kanye West has been dropped from the soft drink giant’s current marketing campaign for comments made against President George Bush.
A statement from “boycott organizer” Shondell Towns was emailed to a group list of thousands of African American professionals mostly located in California. Still, the viral nature of the content has caused the message to be forwarded across the nation.
“This is to inform you that you’ve received an erroneous email regarding Kanye West and Pepsi. The letter said that Kanye has lost his endorsement deal with Pepsi, which is not true,” Nicole Bradley, Public Relations manager of Pepsi-Cola North America told AllHipHop.com
The rumors emerged in the weeks after Kanye West said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” on a nationally televised telethon for survivors of Hurricane Katrina earlier this month. While the statement created a countrywide uproar, Pepsi said their dealings with Kanye have stayed the same.
“Our relationship with Kanye has not changed and our marketing campaign is continuing as planned. In fact, his Pepsi commercial is scheduled to air several times this week,” Bradley continued.
Hip-Hop’s dealings with Pepsi haven’t always been on such stable ground.
Russell Simmons and his Hip-Hop Summit Action Network nearly boycotted Pepsi products in 2003 after the company suddenly released rapper Def Jam Ludacris from a popular ad campaign.
At the time, Bill O’Reilly branded Pepsi “immoral” for using Ludacris to promote the soft drink and, based on about 3,000 subsequent phone calls to his Fox News show, Pepsi bowed to the pressure.
Eventually, Pepsi agreed to donate $3 million to various grassroots community organizations in urban areas.