The Rev. Al Sharpton
announced the next steps in his battle against rap music and will take his fight
into various corporations’ boardrooms, by buying stock in companies that promote
the music. Sharpton
and his National Action Network are planning on purchasing stock in various companies,
including Time Warner and Universal Music Group, and will then use his right to
attend shareholder meetings, where he will voice his opinion on lyrics deemed
raunchy and sexist. "Some
of these stockholders have no idea that they own stock in a parent company that
owns companies calling them b**ches and ho’s," Sharpton told The New York
Post.
The tactic is the same strategy that C. Delores Tucker used in 1995.Tucker
was an outspoken criticism of "gangsta rap." She
bought stock in Time Warner and attended shareholder meetings, where she read
the lyrics to various albums marketed and sold by Interscope, which was eventually
dropped from Time Warner’s distribution system, because of releases by Death Row
Records. Sharpton
will also lead a group of women who will boycott the offices of Sony, Time Warner
and Universal Music Group.The
announcement was made during the National Action Network’s four-day conference,
which took place from Apr. 18-21.Various
politicians supported the conference, including Senators John Edwards, Hillary
Clinton, Howard Dean (DNC), NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams, Governor
Eliot Spitzer, filmmaker Spike Lee, Governor Bill Richardson, Fox News’s
Bill O’Reilly and Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who addressed the current
fervor around Hip-Hop music. "We
are all complicit…let’s not just single out the rappers," Obama said, noting
that he had heard offensive words in many places other than rap songs.Universal
Music Group withdrew it’s $15,000 contribution to Sharpton’s National Action Network,
after Sharpton decided it was inappropriate to honor Universal Music Group executive
and Island Def Jam CEO, Antonio "L.A." Reid. Sharpton,
who had planned on honoring Reid with the James Brown Freedom Award prior to the
Don Imus controversy, changed his mind and felt it was inappropriate to bestow
the award upon Reid. Congressman
Charles Rangel, who recently introduced a bill in Congress to reinstate the military
draft, is also among Sharpton’s supporters. "I
heard that someone in the music industry threatened to take back $15,000 they’d
paid for a table at this convention," told The New York Post. "I
said to Al, ‘You’ll have $15,000 from me tomorrow."
