Universal Music Group may face a withdrawl of $84 million in state investments if the company doesn’t change the title of Nas‘ forthcoming release, Ni**er.
According to local New York news outlet, The Brooklyn Paper, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Fort Greene) has requested that Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli withdraw the $84 million that New York’s state pension fund has invested in Universal and its parent company, Vivendi.
“[They are] profiting from a racial slur that has been used to dehumanize people of color for centuries,” Jeffries said. “It is time for Nas and other hip-hop artists to clean up their act and stop flooding the airwaves with the N-word.”
Despite prior reports that the Queens MC’s album title, Ni**a, was shut down by Def Jam, Nas has since clarified that his new album will be called Ni**er.
Although Universal did not respond to The Brooklyn Paper’s request for comment, a spokesman for DiNapoli, who manages the pension fund, said the comptroller “is concerned about this issue and is intending to contact the company and urge them not to release the album.”
In February, the Council passed legislation urging people not to use the racial slur. Jeffries, a former assistant general counsel at CBS and lawyer at Viacom, said he is more interested in impacting the industry’s bottom line.
“It’s a staggering amount of money, which at least justifies a review of the appropriateness of the content that is flooding the public,” he said.
Posts
October 26, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
I’m shakin my head…
you just can’t see me.
October 26, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
don’t agree with this move by Nas
Maybe Mos Def could pull this off and spin it
Im pretty sure its conceptual but not sure he can execute it and get his point across without contradicting himself.
October 26, 2007 @ 2:23 pm
This dude right here…
I am so sick of this shit I dont know what to do!
October 26, 2007 @ 2:32 pm
Banga!
Nas is making me have a headache! First he wanna be Cornel West, then Michael Eric Dyson - now he wanna be a plain old nigger! WHY? I ain’t buying that shit!
October 27, 2007 @ 8:26 am
I disagree with you both. You gotta remember “Nigger” in a title ain’t nothing new. Comedian and activist Dick Gregory used it for his book. Gil Scot Heron and The Last Poets used it in a lot of their spoken word, in social commentary. If any MC alive could spin that shit and talk about it and break that shit down, it would be Nas, he doesn’t WANT to be a nigger but that what he is…people are judging that shit and haven’t heard any music from the album.
You don’t think if Pac was alive, he wouldn’t have done this shit too based on the controversy?
October 27, 2007 @ 8:32 am
And wait…this Hakeem Jeffries dude works as a litigation counsel at a “major media and entertainment company working on a wide range of issues including…FIRST AMENDMENT and commercial law…”
(according to his personal website)….
so while he protects first amendment rights, he’s working to make sure Nas can’t use his by financially sanctioning the company he works for….
WOW.
October 29, 2007 @ 8:54 am
Pac > Nas.
T.H.U.G L.I.F.E
October 29, 2007 @ 10:13 am
Nas is the G.O.A.T.
I said it.
Probably the only dude in the game right now that isn’t afraid to go left field with his material. And for that, I salute my dude.
Like he said, and I agree with this, how can cats be all in an uproar about an album THEY HAVENT HEARD?
If you know his music, you’d already this shit here is not a promo stunt. And hell, even if it was…so what? With all the coonin’ and shit going on in Hip-Hop now, THIS is where people want to draw the line? Everybody out now is selling boat loads of coke, bustin’ guns, all while still finding time to fuck “these hoes”, and we’re going to pick one of the few MC’s that’s actually talking about something in his music?
C’mon man…I think everyone’s energy is better spent elsewhere.
The album will be fire, and I’m copping regardless.
October 29, 2007 @ 10:19 am
‘If you know his music, you’d already this shit here is not a promo stunt.’
c’mon dog.
October 29, 2007 @ 10:22 am
@Willy
What?
October 29, 2007 @ 10:23 am
‘If you know his music, you’d already this shit here is not a promo stunt.’
————————————————————
Thank You! People be believing the hype too much. Our generation is just lost. We really wanna believe everything that the media says and hypes up. We dont even want to believe what WE know is facts. We know that Nas dont NEED no publicity, but because the media says so…he’s doing it to sell albums…
Nas is a real artist. He doesnt make albums to "sell"…
My people, My people…
And I’m not a real big Nas fan, but I respect his mind!
October 29, 2007 @ 10:27 am
This is a promo stunt to the fullest extent of promo stuntedness.
And now I’m making up words.
Therefore, whatever ‘potential’ social commentary to be had out of this album will be negated by the fact that he is tryin to manufacture controversy…
you can make all the social commentary you want, without callin the album ‘Nigger’.
Not even ‘Nigga’, but the full on ‘Nigger’.
It’s like he’s tryin to be rebellious.
October 29, 2007 @ 10:31 am
@Willy
“you can make all the social commentary you want, without callin the album ‘Nigger’.”
True. But, I still don’t get what the problem is. Dude is entitled to call his album whatever he wants. If someone dropped an album call “Cracker” I’d feel the same. Let them speak their mind.
And I imagine he is trying to be rebellious, he’s said so himself many times. But nah, I don’t agree it’s about creating controversy.
October 29, 2007 @ 10:33 am
True. But, I still don’t get what the problem is. Dude is entitled to call his album whatever he wants. If someone dropped an album call “Cracker” I’d feel the same. Let them speak their mind.
————————————————————-
That would be even better…they’d find a way to censor that..even if they had to rewrite the first amendment…
(which is where we headed anyway)
October 29, 2007 @ 10:35 am
‘Dude is entitled to call his album whatever he wants.’
True indeed…
doesn’t mean it isn’t tacky ass hell though.
October 29, 2007 @ 10:41 am
Willy:
Would it be tacky if he called it African-American, or Negro…
To the white man African American, negro, black, colored= nigger/nigga!
It aint tacky, its brillant…
He makin Jesse and Al nervous as hell. ( I love it, cause I wish they would go somewhere and ssit down. They dont represent me at all, cause the word nigger dont scare me. I know who and what I am!)They really dont have no real educated response to all this.
October 29, 2007 @ 10:43 am
‘It aint tacky, its brillant…’
Now Nas is ‘brilliant’??
October 29, 2007 @ 10:50 am
I’m saying he not going with the Norm and in these days that’s "brillant"! People are so scared to step out of the norm. I like the fact that he’s taking a chance..even if this backfires and he doesnt sell one album, he got people openly talking about the word and how it affects people!
I think that’s pretty smart.
October 29, 2007 @ 10:51 am
@Trissa
Agreed. The fact that it brings discussion is always good. Hear what my boy has to say tho before you judge his shit…
October 29, 2007 @ 10:58 am
‘he got people openly talking about the word and how it affects people!’
Ummm…
this ‘issue’ has been around for much longer than Nas.
C. Delores Tucker was on that shit heavy in the ’90s.
But then again I guess everything that’s old is new again.
30 is the new 20.
October 29, 2007 @ 10:58 am
The funny thing is, there’s the artist called Uncle Kracker…but no controversy whatsoever lol. Even had a number 1 single….Maybe if he’d spelled Nigger “Knigger (the K is silent)”, maybe there would be less controversy lol.
———————–
True. But, I still don’t get what the problem is. Dude is entitled to call his album whatever he wants. If someone dropped an album call “Cracker” I’d feel the same. Let them speak their mind.
October 29, 2007 @ 11:17 am
The funny thing is, there’s the artist called Uncle Kracker…but no controversy whatsoever lol. Even had a number 1 single….
——————————————-
to play devils advocate
Counter point
400 yrs of slavery isn’t attatched to the word cracker/kracker.
Far easier for a white person to flip the word Kracker into something positive when there’s no history of death and violence,slavery and inferiority behind the word, Jus Sayin.
Had Whites been slaves best believe they’d be in an uproar!
Shit white people will call 5-O on you for steppin on their grass. There’s no uproar cuz it don’t matter.
He has the right to use, but naming it jus to name it that not really feeling that. Don’t name it nigger and just slap together a 15 track album. Make a statement and then when you do. Don’t make and ass out of all of us when you do. Its got to be done right.
October 29, 2007 @ 11:20 am
Uh-Toh
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=490395&in_page_id=1811
Sex scandal at Oprah’s school.
Re: Uncle Kracker…
no controversy because of HOW he got that name…
being around a bunch of niggaz.
October 29, 2007 @ 11:26 am
Oprah was trying to go to Africa cause she thought things would be diffrerent!
NOT!!!!
I dont like Oprah….she faker than a dick between two lesbians!
October 29, 2007 @ 11:29 am
I dont like Oprah….she faker than a dick between two lesbians
——–
wow LMAOOO!!!
Can I borrow that
Thats going right in my repitore
October 29, 2007 @ 11:45 am
I know-and with a lesser artist i might worry, but I have faith in Nas
———-
He has the right to use, but naming it jus to name it that not really feeling that. Don’t name it nigger and just slap together a 15 track album. Make a statement and then when you do. Don’t make and ass out of all of us when you do. Its got to be done right.
October 29, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
@Jae
Love Nas to
one of my all time favorite Artist, own every one of his albums
but I’d be bullsht if I don’t admit he contradicts himself sometimes. Like with the whole Hip hop is Dead thing which I agree with. In his interviews he didn’t do the greatest job of explaining where he was coming from with it.
And thats what concerns me with this sht. When you make an Artistic statement like this you got to be real clear with whatever point your trying to make. If its not done right, when he’s being confronted by Peers and intelectuals, he gonna get torn to shreds. And this is one of those issues where, there’s no middle ground IMO. For every arguement there a counter one. So he could be bouncing back and forth all day when people ask him about the it.
One song not worried, but a full length album, kinda sketchy.
October 29, 2007 @ 12:11 pm
HIPHOP ain’t dead.
Don’t think it ever was either…
October 29, 2007 @ 12:30 pm
“She has now given the pupils her personal telephone number, her e-mail address and her postal address so that they could contact her at any time - day or night.”
….and I’m sure her assistant will be happy to respond to any inquiries.
Oprah took mad heat for opening this school up, but I gotta give a hand clap here. She didn’t have to do shit. She could just as easily be another face on TV talking about how fucked up shit is out here, but not using her wealth and influence to do anything about it.
Not a fan by any stretch…but respect is due on this one.
About Nas…I’m leaving it along until I hear the album.