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.H I P H O P M AT T E R Spolitics.In his eƒort to mount greater pressure on lawmakers, Sim-mons rallied support from the world he was most familiar with, hiphop.As one of the most successful entrepreneurs in hip hop’s thriv-ing culture and economy, Simmons had access to the movement’selite creative and celebrity classes.A few well-placed phone calls from him could turn out some of the biggest names in hip hop and entertainment—Jay-Z, Sean “P.Diddy” Combs, Alicia Keyes, MariahCarey, LL Cool J—to support whatever cause he promoted and thatsparked big crowds and even more important, free media publicity.In the weeks leading up to the close of the legislative session Simmons used his ties to hip hop to stage an all-out campaign blitz that included high-profile public rallies at City Hall Park and the Public Theater on Lafayette Street in the East Village.Simmons also worked to run spots on some of New York’s most popular urban radio sta-tions.It was a calculated eƒort to use his clout with the street and the hip-hop elite to apply public pressure on lawmakers.Famous for his success in selling hip hop to the mainstream Sim-mons was slowly establishing a foot in the political arena.It was an unlikely move from a man who, by his own admission, had neverbeen involved in politics and had only recently bothered to vote.Already a major cultural and economic force, hip hop had createdits own small power elite that had access to the things politics and politicians are drawn to most: money, celebrity, and the influenceboth generate.That was certainly the case four years earlier whenSimmons held a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser at his SoHo apartment forthe then would-be junior senator from New York, First Lady HillaryClinton.That gathering was his first o‰cial bid to be what onenewsweekly called, “the President of hip hop.” Simmons was clearlypositioning himself as the man who could not only deliver a con-stituency—the hip-hop generation—but more important a group ofyoung, hip leaders in business and entertainment who could bolsterany politician’s bid for o‰ce.It was that kind of influence that drew considerable fire from critics who asserted that Simmons’s unprecedented access to state law-146 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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