Friday, February 1st, 2008

Davey D :: It’s Election Time, Where’s Diddy?

From Davey D, a great summary of hip-hop gen voting efforts and a big question:

n 2004, Diddy was everywhere. He was on Oprah, he was on CNN, he was on the campaign trail sparking rallies that drew hundreds and thousands of youth in numerous cities. Many activist and politicos cringed when Diddy showed up. They accused his ‘Vote or Die’ campaign as being nothing but a marketing ploy. Others felt that by showing up on the campaign trail he was taking away from the important issues the candidates needed to discuss. Republicans felt like Diddy was a Democratic shield, while Democrats felt like his ‘non partisan’ Vote or Die message was actually inspiring GOP youth to go the polls.

Although his Citizen Change was non partisan, there are a few of us who recall him standing on stage at a Rock the Vote Lippert Awards ceremony in Los Angeles where he was being honored in February of 2004. There he promised to do everything he could in his power to ‘Kick Bushes ass out of office’…

When I saw Diddy about 4 months later he had launched Citizen Change and was distancing himself from those remarks by insisting he was non partisan. When I pressed him he became stern and repeated his non partisan status like a mantra. After the November 2004 election Diddy was and remains silent when it came to politics. I’m still trying to figure out what happened.

Read the rest here.

posted by Jeff Chang @ 8:07 am | 0 Comments