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Minister Louis Farrakhan has responded to Rihanna tweeted about her Grammy outfit.
According to allhiphop, a representative for Minister Farrakhan and longstanding member of the Nation of Islam told them that Minister Louis Farrakhan would never disrespect Rihanna.
“He would never say such about Rihanna herself, the person,” a direct representative for Minister Louis Farrakhan told AllHipHop.com. “It was not the person, it was the general act and what it represents.”
To prove his point Minister Farrakhan provided a transcript and video of his comments about Rihanna’s outfit, which was fodder for numerous media outlets, including Billboard, The Huffington Post, The Guardian and others.
“The full text is offered, here, so that any evil or any ill- intended misrepresentation of his words regarding our Sister, Rihanna, would not incite our Sister or those who love her to respond negatively to the continuous effort to bring respect and the uplifting of our people,” the rep told AllHipHop.com.
Minister Farrakhan made comments about her Grammy outfits during his annual Savior’s Day speech from Rosemont, Illinois on Sunday (February 27th), that was webcast around the world.
“I saw my beautiful sister the other night at the Grammy awards. Rihanna. My poor sister, she’s dressed almost like -with a pair of draws. And she got her legs wide open and just grinding away,” Minister Farrakhan said during a portion of his annual speech.
In response, Rihanna tweeted to over 3 million followers: “A minister says I perform filthy, sat + watched the filth, then called u SWINE for doin the same! Haa, Is that judgment in ur tone? I certainly don’t think u are swine! But a holy man of God does!!!”
Peep video below.
Right on,when will my people WAKE UP?
Rihanna is a young woman who, like far too many in the entertainment business, apparently doesn’t understand that she is also a victim of a very racist, sexist music industry, which will only promote those who will agree to debase themselves in public, to cater to the baser instincts of a buying public.
I would ask my dear sister if she is certain that she could achieve such success as she has enjoyed purely on the strength of her singing and dancing talents, without having to feed into the soft-porn image that is now being stamped upon young talent, both “black” and “white”, and I would also ask what she would say is the general message in the lyrics of the music she performs.
There was a time in African culture when music was a noble art, as it was used to educate, to convey wisdom gained by generations of experience in a way that entertains, it was also used to convey current information, such as the arrival of visitors, or intruders, at the speed of sound, when Europeans were still transporting information by hand, or horse.
I am also a producer of music, currently producing artists in Asia for the market there, and have been for a few decades now, so I know a little about this, I would caution my dear sister to consider the long-term body of work with which she will be credited, the general typecast she is setting for herself, and whether the image she has adopted for her stage persona is one that will stand the test of time.
Minister Farrakhan was not insulting “my beautiful sister”, he knows that she is only doing that which her marketing people tell her she must.
He was rather, questioning the responsibility of the “black” audience, which further encourages the ever increasing and worsening debasement of our young women by continuing to be part of the market which record producers exploit, as the great George Clinton once wrote, “…by f*cking their brain until their ability to think is amputated, by pimping their instincts until they are fat, horny, and strung out…”
When I was a teenager, I might have enjoyed the performance, but now, at an age where Rihanna could be my daughter, I feel almost like a father watching a daughter accepting to do that for which I would have hoped I had raised her to have better alternatives, and lament the fact that such has now become not only acceptable, and encouraged, and still one of the too few ways to lift ourselves to a better economic reality.