For years, whenever there is some big story involving a rap star or wanna-be rap star, I would later hear on some TV
or radio show about how the "media" was giving the
business a "bad rap."

During interviews on either
MTV, BET or other three-letter acronym entertainment outlets, artists whine about some conspiracy, allegedly constructed by the media, to make them out to be some evil influence on society.

During those interviews, generally conducted by non-journalists, I usually always grit my teeth, with the wish that one day I could sit on one of those panels to correct what I consider to be one of the big lies in the marketing of hip-hop.

My wish would come true after having a rather casual conversation with a friend of mine from "The Source".

She just so happened to be in charge of setting up panels for the Hip-Hop Summit in Manhattan recently.

She said she was looking for journalists to take part in discussions on that very topic.

On the eve of the event I was told it was going to be cancelled because co-sponsor and Southeast Queens native Russell Simmons had different ideas about the direction that panel would take.

But somehow it survived and I would be taking a seat at the table with other reporters in the Hilton on day two of this convention of sorts.

When I did sit down I quickly realized that I would be the only journalist from the so-called mainstream at this table.

There was a notion that scrolled briefly in my head that this was going to be brutal — that I was going to be a dogpile like the kind you may have experienced as a child, when you find yourself at the very bottom of a human stack.

Usually the person at the bottom is having the least fun and the person at the very top is having the most. I wondered if that is where I would be, since some of the people in the audience expressed some open hostility towards "the media."

While I waited for the rest of the panel to arrive, I was encouraged by a young up- and-coming artist who said he was from Southeast Queens and that he read my articles in the PRESS regularly. He said that he thought I had my hands on the pulse of many of our issues. I thanked him for his readership, and said to myself, "well I have at least one person here who won’t stone me."

Anyway, the time came for us to "get it on" as it was. At the table, I was seated with Carlito Rodriguez, editor-in-chief of The Source magazine, O. J. Lima from VIBE magazine, a brother from BET and a sister who writes for TIME Inc, but who used to write for XXL. Clearly I was the least "in" reporter there but fortunately I wasn’t the least comfortable with speaking out in public.

What happened was what I had hoped for, which was an even-handed discussion about how the mainstream media handles hip-hop news and how I personally felt about the things in the industry that could change for the better good of us all.

But one of the best moments for me was when I took on the myth of who the so-called enemies of hip-hop were.

I told the group that since the parent companies of their record labels were more than likely also the parent companies of most of the major news outlets it essentially meant that our employers were the same.

There was a gasp in the room.

Could it be that we were all children of the same parents and if there was any strife between the two groups that maybe it was "created" to be that way?

Let’s face it, negative publicity sells stuff like CD’s so that executives can generate revenue by inventing this or that controversy.

From there, it seemed that what we talked about had genuine substance.

There was no wholesale bashing of the media or me. In fact, in that microcosm of the hip-hop-entertainment community, I think there was some genuine learning about what happens on both sides of the mic and why some of the things that we hear or see are offensive simply for the sake of being offensive and do not add to their art form.

But I also came away believing that many of these artists were also looking for standards and guidance from the society that so often vilifies or misunderstands them.

It was almost as if they were saying "we say and display what the public parlays." If that is the case then we have to also play a role in what should be considered hot and what is not.

I left the summit feeling a little hope that progress may have been made in "taking back responsibility", which was the theme of the event.