Bad Beef
By now, we’ve all endlessly heard the n-word and the b-word in rap music, but we haven’t enjoyed nearly enough of the a-word: accountability.
Last month, hip-hop magazine The Source was hit with a sexual-discrimination claim brought by former vice president Michelle Joyce and ex-editor-in-chief Kim Osorio. The complaint names Source co-owners Dave Mays and Raymond “Benzino” Scott.
Osorio’s allegations of “blatant gender discrimination and harassment” come as no great surprise to industry observers, but the events detailed in the complaint are nothing short of startling. Joyce and Osorio allege that Benzino regularly stalked and harassed female employees, calling one woman up to 50 times a day. The suit, filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), also alleges that Benzino refused to hire qualified female applicants for open staff positions, complained of “too much estrogen” during a fashion-department meeting and demanded closed-door sessions with no female staffers present to select models for fashion shoots.
In return, Mays alleged that Osorio had “sexual relations with a number of high-profile rap artists” during her tenure at The Source. Evidently, the publisher considered that a sufficient rebuttal to the lawsuit; he declined to address the larger questions raised about the climate at the magazine.
The Source hit newsstands in 1990. At one time, it was considered the Bible of hip-hop. But the mag has sabotaged its own hard-earned credibility under Benzino’s reign of error, which began around 2001, when it was suddenly revealed that he co-owned the magazine with Mays. Since then, he has advanced his dubious, Eminem-bashing rap career as the public face of The Source while the low-key Mays has played the background. Benzino’s well-known distaste for journalists has resulted in a perpetual editorial revolving door. On this front, the lawsuit alleges that Benzino promoted a mailroom worker with no journalism experience to music editor, overlooked a male employee’s statutory-rape charge and killed an investigative piece into the Kobe Bryant case.
Such ignorance has not gone unnoticed, especially by irate bloggers. An online petition started by three well-known hip-hop journalists amassed more than 1,300 signatures in a mere four days, filling in the accountability gap left by commercial media outlets and showing a willingness to go after the culture’s sacred cows. The a-word isn’t nearly as popular as the n- or b-words yet, but as hip-hop culture continues to mature, at least we’re starting to hear it more often.
