(AllHipHop News) In business, you invest money in endeavors that you project will yield sustainable results. In the second part of our EXCLUSIVE interview with Brooklyn Bodega’s Wes Jackson and Juels Pierrot, the duo discusses the moral and business benefits of MTV investing in the Black and Latino culture, Dame Dash and Funkmaster Flex’s feud and more.
On July 1st, MTV’s parent company Viacom’s Music Group began its Director Diversity Program designed to enroll particularly women and ethnic minorities in shadowing programs where they’ll be mentored by directors in non-drama and episodic series. According to Wes Jackson, MTV investing in the Black and Latino culture is a moral and business imperative:
It’s like a moral obligation. There’s a sense of you’re coming into the community and there’s these young Black men and women. Or if you’re going to make a racial thing, these young latina women and young latino men, you should sort of give back to the community because you just earned a lot from it. From a business perspective, the way that you’re going to…it’s almost like they’re cutting down all the trees and not planting no new trees. Eventually, you’re just going to run out of resources so you should even reinvest in the community so you can create. [Me and Juels] was talking about this today, you need new customers. You need to create new customers.
MTV appointed their first Chief Diversity Officer on October 28th, 2005 with the hire of former Chief Diversity Officer of Hudson Highland Group Billy Dexter. In the press release for Dexter’s appointment, MTV’s former Chairman and CEO Judy McGrath stated MTV is “completely committed to diversity and inclusion, because it’s the most creative and vibrant thing we can do for our future.”
Jackson connected his current gripe with Viacom and MTV to Emmis Communications benefiting in ad revenue off of Dame Dash and Funkmaster Flex’s recent back-and-forth:
Who was really the one going at Dame? It was Funkmaster Flex, a Black man. So,one Black man on one of the biggest platforms in the country, trying to eviscerate another Black man. That’s exactly what Dame was talking about. It’s that we start chasing this check and next thing we know we ripping each other apart. Who’s sitting there earning them advertising dollars watching Flex and Dame go at each other. It’s Emmis [Communications].
Check out the SECOND part of AllHipHop’s EXCLUSIVE interview with Brooklyn Bodega’s Wes Jackson and Juels Pierrot below: