Thug Life Army

A national hip-hop campaign being started in southern Cali right now,will kick things off with a huge protest TOMORROW at Universal Music Group in Santa Monica, starting at noon.

They have already got an endorsement of their efforts from the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Rainbow/PUSH coalition, and Cornell West, among a bunch of others.

The major record labels, such as Universal, know that sex and violence sell, so those are the only kind of rap artists they sign, and when they''re signed, they''re under the label's control. Then, they pay radio stations to play their artists; making sure that the Big Five (the five major record labels that have a monopoly on the mainstream music biz) control all the rap that gets played on stations owned by mega corporations like Clear Channel.

So the labels only promote a type of hip-hop and rap that paints black men as violent thugs and objectifies black women. That means that the vast majority of America, all those people out there in the Midwest, all they see is one image of black people, and a whole lot of ''em justify their racism by pointing at MTV or the local rap station and saying "See? They''re all criminals."

Inside the ghettos, it's not much better. Violent hip-hop and rap glorifies violence and abusive behavior, and it's a tragically self-fulfilling prophecy.

So they’re taking our anger to the labels themselves. But they aren''t telling them to stop producing violent rap -- this is America, where people should be able to say or listen to whatever they want to.

Instead of advocating censorship, we''re asking for diversity. There's a lotta really good hip hop out there in the underground that's not being heard because the labels don''t want to promote anything that doesn''t further violent, sexist stereotypes.  How are we doing it? First, the protest, which starts at noon tomorrow (Friday the 13th) in Santa Monica, and a national boycott of ALL of Universal Music Group's artists.

Their next step is a benefit show later this year featuring a whole bunch of big names in underground hip hop, a documentary, spoken word, and other cool stuff.

For more information on these important happenings please visit their site and show support.  TakeOurMusicFoward.com