I'd like to introduce myself with a post that clarifies my interests at ProHipHop, the blog that is attempting to consume my life. ProHipHop focuses on hip hop business news, including issues of social responsibility, and I started it in November. Not long after, an incident occurred at the taping of the Vibe Music Awards in which Dr. Dre was punched and the alleged assailant was stabbed. Many of us involved in hip hop were extremely disturbed by this event and I was one of those who took Vibe President Kenard Gibbs' statements regarding Vibe's plans to address the incident in their January issue to heart. When I went back to find his statements, they were no longer readily available on line, but I've since found them in the Dec. 4th issue of Billboard in an article by Gail Mitchell:

Gibbs adds . . . "All of us within the culture have to look at this and develop some means of accountability."

"This is paramount in terms of understanding what allows things to get to that point," Gibbs says. "That night took from the whole spirit of what the show is about: the best in urban music. We still have faith in the culture. We will rise above and endure."

What follows is an excerpt from a recent post in which I discuss the January issue of Vibe and its approach to "accountability."

Vibe Drops the Ball

I finally got a look at the January issue of Vibe magazine and I'll have to say I was extremely disappointed by their weak response to the Vibe Awards incident involving an assault on Dr. Dre followed by a stabbing. At the time, Vibe President Kenard Gibbs stated that the January issue would address not only the incident but underlying issues within the hip hop community as well. Although the links from that post have expired and none of the articles readily available online include the quotes to which I refer, SOHH did discuss some of what Gibbs promised in the wake of the incident.