Kimora Lee Simmons, wife of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, arrives for theTony Awards at Radio City Music Hall, June 8, 2003, in New York. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)
Posted on 07/29/2004 12:24:13 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SADDLE RIVER, N.J. - The wife of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons faces drug and motor vehicle charges after police said she was driving erratically and ignored the flashing lights of a cruiser for nearly two miles.
Kimora Lee Simmons was arrested just after midnight Monday outside the couple's estate in Saddle River, according to published reports.
Saddle River police and a spokeswoman for Ms. Simmons did not immediately return messages left Thursday.
Simmons, 29, was charged with eluding an officer, possessing marijuana, careless driving and operating a vehicle while possessing a drug.
The former model, who helps design clothes for the couple's Phat Farm brand, was issued a Municipal Court summons.
Kimora Lee Simmons, wife of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, arrives for theTony Awards at Radio City Music Hall, June 8, 2003, in New York. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)
Hip-hop artists Wyclef Jean,left, Free, center, and Chairman of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network Russell Simmons, right, sit on a panel, Monday, July 26, 2004 during a Boston Hip-Hop Summit youth voter registration event at the Reggie Lewis Athletic Center in the Roxbury neigborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole)
|
Heavy drug use seems like a logical response to those peculiar exercise videos her husband makes.
|
Mon Jul 26, 4:32 PM ET
|
By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Music Writer
NEW YORK - When Sean "P. Diddy" Combs unveiled his get-out-the-vote initiative, it had all the elements of hot album release party.
|
There was a DJ spinning cool songs. A "street team" of young kids wearing T-shirts promoting the cause. A few supermodels. Even an A-list celebrity face in Democratic strategist James Carville (well, A-list for political world, that is).
P. Diddy is just the latest rap figure this year to try and make voting cool to a hip-hop generation that Combs has dubbed "the forgotten ones."
Russell Simmons brought his Hip-Hop Summit Action Network to the Democratic National Convention in Boston on Monday. About 2,000 people turned out as stars such as Wyclef Jean, Loon, Lloyd Banks and Bone Crusher urged them to register to vote.
The muzzled mouth of OutKast's Andre 3000, who also was present at the Boston event, is adorning new public service ads by the nonpartisan group Declare Yourself, with the motto: "Only You Can Silence Yourself." And Jadakiss, who raps about drug dealing, violence and other thuggery in his lyrics, is raising political issues in his new song "Why" and giving interviews about voting and getting the minimum wage raised.
"This is the collective conscious of hip-hop at work," said hip-hop mogul Simmons, who over the past three years has enlisted superstars like Jay-Z, Beyonce, Eminem (news - web sites), Nelly and Ludacris as his group registered thousands of young black and Latino fans to vote.
"It's a cultural snowball effect. We want people to feel like if you don't vote you're an idiot," he told The Associated Press.
The idea of rap stars as political motivators may seem opposite the image projected by many of today's rappers — a crowd that leans toward sex, violence, partying and the bling-bling lifestyle.
However, James Bernard, who organized the Hip-Hop Political Convention in Newark, N.J., earlier this year, points out rap's long history of political muckraking, from KRS-One and Public Enemy in the mid-1980s to the current group dead prez.
Although rap has been rapped plenty for its raw content, Bernard believes that "hip-hop music is getting more mature. ... I think it's just taken time for this conversation to bubble up."
Jadakiss and P. Diddy acknowledge as much.
Jadakiss says it was time for his music to reflect a larger view of the world: "As an artist, you're supposed to grow. I'm just trying to show maturity and growth as an artist."
P. Diddy, who says he hasn't voted since the 2000 election, says running the New York City marathon last year while raising funds for charity helped him realize he could do more with his celebrity.
"I think we're growing up, and No. 2, we're starting to recognize our power, and power is responsibility," he told The AP. "We have kids, we're thinking about other things. We want to do other things than making jewelry hot and clothes hot."
"The same way we made a Biggie (Smalls) album hot ...we're going to saturate you with our message," P. Diddy said of his new campaign, Citizen Change, which he launched last week.
There have been past efforts to get out the hip-hop vote. During the 2000 election, Rap the Vote, an offshoot of the group Rock the Vote, used Mary J. Blige, P. Diddy, Queen Latifah and others to generate voter turnout among black and minority youth.
But Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study for the American Electorate, says those efforts haven't really helped much. Except for a few elections, he said, youth voting has been on a downward spiral.
"People don't vote because of hip-hop artists or rock stars, they vote because they think there's something important to decide," said Gans.
In the 2000 election, about 60 percent of those registered to vote actually did, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (news - web sites) figures. However, among 18- to 24-year-olds, only 36.1 percent did.
A sign of the hip-hop's latent power could be 34-year-old Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who likes to quote Tupac Shakur and, when he was elected in 2001, inspired a 40 percent increase in turnout among voters ages 18 to 40 from the previous mayoral race.
Some question whether P. Diddy — or any celebrity — can reverse youth voter apathy, particularly among minorities.
"Celebrities help, but it has to be combined with an organization on the ground who have people and resources who actually go out and register people and at election time reminds those people and helps those people to get out and vote," said David Bositis, senior political analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
The ongoing war, worries about the economy and terrorism are among the issues that may get more young people interested this year, both Bositis and Gans said.
Bernard said hip-hop fans are more animated right now: "I think a lot of young people are seeing this year as the year to jump in."
But Kevin Powell, an author who has written extensively about hip-hop and has held town hall meetings in several cities about the state of black men in America, said many of the efforts to spark the hip-hop vote are "too celebrity-driven."
"Unfortunately, we're equating the rappers with being leaders, and they're not leaders, they're artists," said Powell, who complained there was little emphasis on issues and supporting new leaders by organizations such as Simmons' network.
"Of course it (celebrity) helps, but there has to be an alliance between the celebrities and the people who were doing the work."
Still, Benjamin Chavis, president and CEO of Simmons' Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, sees a burgeoning movement that will have a lasting impact.
"All these are steps are leading to something much more enduring, because I think once people find out that they can make a difference, they're going to continue to make a difference," he said. "You're going to see young people run for Congress, run for mayor, run for senator ... This is not just a momentary blip on the screen."
___
On The Net:
I guess he doesn't want other poor blacks to be successful too, and would rather have them think of themselves as victims. Sad.
..
blip
..
I'd be on drugs too if I had to look at Russell's face. When you marry for money, you earn every penny.
i would take drugs too if i had to listen to russel simmons
Huh, heh, Yeah. KEWL!
Hip Hop Action Network,, a non-partisan org.. Ha ha!!
Board of Directors:
Kwesi Mfume
NAACP
Another thing, I guess being a multimillionaire like Simmons means that you can make people believe that your wife is sexy. IMHO, she looks like a drag queen, with that mannish features and those fake breasts.
Maybe her next defense will be that the government planted drugs on her to distract from the war in Iraq, a la Janet Jackson!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
