Webloggin » Will Obama Return David Geffen's Campaign Cash?

Geffen Records feature artist, Snoop Dogg

Barack Obama derided the music industry in the wake of the Don Imus firing last week but has yet to return 1.3 million raised for him by rap enabler David Geffen.

The Associated Press’ Jim Davenport reports: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, challenged rappers who use degrading language in their songs yesterday.

“We’ve got to admit to ourselves, that it was not the first time that we heard the word ‘ho.’ Turn on the radio station. There are a whole lot of songs that use the same language. . . . We’ve been permitting it in our homes, and in our schools and on iPods,” Obama said at a fundraising dinner for the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus in Columbia.

The remarks come two days after Don Imus was fired by CBS and MSNBC for using the phrase “nappy-headed hos” to describe the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Imus met with the team on Thursday to apologize following a week of press conferences, apologies, and sharp criticism from Al Sharpton to Al Roker.

“If it’s not good for Don Imus, I don’t know why it’s good for us. If we don’t like other people to degrade us, why are we degrading ourselves?” Obama asked. (src. ABC Political Radar)

Let’s see if we can figure this one out. Using logic that most politicians seem to forget the minute the microphone is turned off we should ask ourselves a key question. Is it the rappers who are promoting and enabling the message of “ho, slap you on the ass bitch gurl” or is it the record labels who line the pockets of drug dealers, gang bangers and thugs while concurrently promoting their derisive messages?

Nobody is forcing the record companies to sign these idiots to their labels. Many rappers certainly wouldn’t be able to fund their demeaning and violent videos without the help of David Geffen and I am pretty sure that the labels could make the money just fine without gansta, drug rap.

Barack Obama’s message about rap music is spot on. But it rings hollow when he continues to accept campaign donations from the true sources of the rap pack enablers. David Geffen, owner of Geffen Records has signed many rappers including Drug Thug Snoop Dogg of “I wanna fuck you”, the latest Billboard top 10 collaboration between Akon and the Dogg Father, and other rappers like Geffen artist Slim Thug who chimes “You know tha boss got bitches galore” in the hit “Everybody Loves A Pimp”.

This is hypocrisy at its highest form. If Barack Obama really wants to lead and send a message to the music industry then he should do so by example. Is he willing to put his money where his mouth is?

Update: As an aside, did anybody notice that talentless grand theft auto ex-con Akon appeared on kid friendly American Idol two weeks in a row? Just because the songs he sings on American Idol are cleansed for the kiddies doesn’t mean that the kids won’t go and search out the rest of the trash from the guy. This is passive promotion; it exemplifies why parents have an uphill battle against these corporate promoters of teen targeted slime.