50 Cent & T.I. Respond to Critics

Recently during the BET Award Nominations, 50 Cent and T.I. both had opportunity to voice their opinions on the recent attack on hip hop in light sight of the Don Imus situation.

When asked if he would remove offensive lyrics from his music, 50 Cent‘s responded with; “Are
you familiar with politics? Are you familiar with the President’s No. 2 man?
You’re familiar with him resigning based on him using, maybe what we’d call a
dating service? Maybe he’s hanging out with hoes that we mention in the music.
If that doesn’t make you aware of a situation that exists….”

“Music
is a mirror, and hip-hop is a reflection of the environment that we grew up in.
It’s the harsh realities that end up in the music … If I ask you to paint a picture of the American
flag and not use the color red, you’re gonna have a difficult time. To capture
what we try to capture in the art form, I’m sure some conservative Americans
can’t [identify] with it because of their lifestyle and the way they’ve actually
been brought up, and they haven’t been exposed to those realities.”

50 also took a chance to slide a quick jab at Master P when a reported brought up the fact that Master P was going to displace all explicit material from his label.