Suge Knight Aims For A Union, Offends Many At Hip-Hop Summit

Suge Knight announced at the first West coast summit on Thursday that he aims to create a hip-hop union for artists. Knight said that he aimed to ensure that artists has pensions and health care benefits. The overall summit was a success, with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrahkhan giving a 90 minute keynote address. In […]

Suge Knight announced

at the first West coast summit on Thursday that he aims to create a hip-hop

union for artists. Knight said that he aimed to ensure that artists has pensions

and health care benefits. The overall summit was a success, with the Honorable

Minister Louis Farrahkhan giving a 90 minute keynote address. In the address,

the Minister urged rappers to sanitize their lyrics and their images. "From

the suffering of our people came rap,” Farrakhan said. “That should make you

a servant of those that produced you. That should make you a servant of the

‘hood.” While the Minister preached about being positive, Suge Knight’s time

at the podium sharply contrasted the Minister’s. Knight took his time to hurl

insults at Xzibit, Tray-Dee, Snoop, Dr. Dre, Puffy, Eminem, Cash Money and Master

P. Knight also offended many women in the audience

Former Death Row artist Jewell, who was in the

crowd got into a heated confrontation with Knight. After Knight questioned why

certain rappers never made it to the summit, Jewell stood up and said "maybe

it was because they were tired of his “employees” confronting them and threatening

to do them harm." The security handling the event, The Fruit Of Islam asked

Jewell to sit down, but Suge request they let her speak She stated that she

“could no longer sit and watch the devil do his work," and said that she

had been one of the first artists signed to Death Row and that she helped name

the label. She again excused herself. Knight continued speaking saying “another

thing I wanna mention is, know your role. It’s a lot of men runnin’ ’round here

tryin to be the women, and a lot of the women is tryin’ to be men.” The comment

was not directed to women in the audience contradicting some published reports.

The comment was apparently directed a Jewell, as Knight followed with “eatin’

coochie ain’t God-like”. At that point another woman in the crowd became irate.

The woman had brought her son, thinking it was going to be a positive meeting

on improving the community through hip-hop. Knight apologized and ended his

speech.

Russell Simmons, who helped organize the event

with Minister Benjamin Muhammad defended Knights presence, saying that he wanted

a variety of people present at the summit to speak their minds. Despite a large

number of Crips and Bloods that were present, their were no incidences of violence.

The overall summit was a success. The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network will team

with Rap the Vote and the National Black Youth Vote Coalition to enlist celebrity

rappers to help drive youth voting and education.