Is there racism in hip-hop? Rapper J. Cole thinks so. On his recently released single, ‘Crooked Smile‘ he raps, “ I asked if my skin pale, would I then sell like Eminem or Adele?“. I think we all can relate to rappers who sell despite lack of their lyrical potential i.e. Vanilla Ice and receive mainstream appeal because the color of their skin.
Newcomer Corey Charron claims racism stopped him from performing at the annual BET Hip-Hop Cypher after winning 106 & Park freestyle content. According to Corey, he thinks he was cut loose from the cypher because he didn’t fit the network’s image.
“I’m a white Canadian [with] kind of like a baby-faced nerdy look to me and I just really don’t think they thought I was going to win the competition,” said Carron.
BET has not responded to Corey accusations, although he was promised he would appear after winning 106 & Park. However, the network did send the rapper an email stating, “the cypher’s direction has changed towards artists that have huge projects that are current.”
Damn… Cory is pissed he took to his Facebook page to rant:
B.E.T. Decided to remove me from the cypher this year. 200+ hours of bussing on my own dollar only to have the prize stripped from me. It’s unfortunate that discrimination still exists in 2013. who cares if I’m a White Canadian? I still managed to beat every American and win a prize we contractually agreed on. I phoned and emailed numerous times since March. After 6 months I get a response saying they already pre-filed the cyphers and there is nothing that could be done.
This isn’t the first time a white Canadian was treated unfairly by the network. Organik won a contest 2 times to be on BET and was never given the shot he earned. Thanks to everyone that reached out to BET on twitter and voiced their opinion. I have a lot of fans that wanted to see my verse on the cypher. Look like I’m going to film it from Canada and put the whole industry on blast.
What you think about this situation, do you think racism played a part? If in fact these allegations are true, shame on you BET. Elvis would turn over in his grave to learn that there is racism in hip hop!
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