Pimpin' ain't easy: hip-hop's relationship to young women is complicated, varied and helping to shape a new Black gender politics.(FEATURE)

WHEN HIP-HOP IMPRESARIO RUSSELL SIMMONS appeared at Hamilton College for an evening lecture on "Hip-Hop, Culture, and Politics" in April 2004, no one could have anticipated the fallout. Simmons, whose net worth hovers around $400 million, had been invited to lecture for his work as the chairman of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN). The year 2004 was a critical election year for many who were tired of the mendacity and chicanery of the Bush administration. Some were also openly smarting from the voter fraud and widespread Black disenfranchisement in Florida 2002. Simmons's HSAN had voter registration among hip-hop generationers as their mission, as well as challenging the [New York state] Rockefeller Drug laws as unethical, racially biased, and harshly punitive.

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His lecture morphed into a Q & A session, as he made a last-minute decision to stray from the contractual script towards a "just kickin' it" dialogue. As with comedian Dave Chappelle's bodacious, street-creed-upholding character in the skit, "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong," Simmons's attempt at "keeping it real" fell flat.

Riled by the television show BET Uncut and specifically the rapper Nelly's controversial video "Tip Drill," female students swapped volleys with Simmons. At one point, he suggested that the students just "turn off their television sets," an increasingly used line by corporate representatives when directly confronted by critics of such programming. Simmons's use had the effect of identifying him more with his lucrative financial interests than with his audience. The students though were more concerned about the 80 million television sets that were tuned into BET, and the unpleasant gender politics and sexual provocations that continually flowed from them.

One of the Hamilton students, a young woman, was especially agitated. While she was clearly misguided in her assertion that there were no networks devoted to promoting white culture, she nonetheless zeroed in on hip-hop culture's contradictory relationship with women and boldly declared that these videos impinged upon ...