ABSTRACT
In June 2001, Rush Communications CEO Russell Simmons convened a hip-hop summit in New York City. With the theme “Taking Back Responsibility,” the summit focused its agenda on ways to strengthen rap music’s growing influence. The 300 participants included major rap artists and industry executives as well as politicians, religious and community leaders, activists, and scholars. Few forces other than rap music, now one of the most powerful forces in American popular culture, could bring together such a diverse gathering of today’s African American leaders. In many ways, the summit signaled hip-hop as the definitive cultural movement of our generation.
