NWSF Bullet: Ludacris Dissed in Durham?

When Herald Sun columnist John McCann dropped the 411, last Wednesday that Durham Mayor Bill Bell would possibly give the key to the city to rapper, Ludacris, who is scheduled to be in the Bull City this weekend for a Car and Bike Show, I bet that the phones at City Hall didn't stop ringing.

"You're going to give the key to our beloved city to WHO!!!????..."

But according to today's News and Observer, it was a false alarm.

According to reporter Matt Dees, Mayor Bell said:

"I didn't appreciate the process, to put out a press release saying I was going to do something when I hadn't made up my mind,"

That didn't mean that he wasn't going to do it before it hit the paper, does it?

According to the article, he went on to say that the decision was not politically motivated.

Yeah, right...

Thomas Stith, the dude who's running against Bell in the next election said that he wouldn't give Luda the key to the city from the jump according to both the Herald Sun and News and Observer.

Now, I've got some problems with Luda. The "Pimpin' All Over the World Thing" at about the same time that MTV was expanding into Africa didn't sit right with me.

Although he wore a Marcus Garvey T-Shirt and bragged that the most "beautiful women are in Africa," if you're "pimpin'" over there, that still makes them "ho's" doesn't it?

But I'm also not a big fan of "Sister Souljah" moments either, when politicians play to the conservative crowd by quickly dismissing Hip Hop, altogether.

This would have been a good moment for dialogue.

Maybe, they could have done a disclaimer and said that the key was in recognition for the Ludacris Foundation and the song "Run Away Love" that spoke to the issue of troubled teenage girls and not for the song "Move B***** Get Out tha Way."

Hip Hop is out of control because the older generation did not take it seriously a generation ago and did not engage rappers in serious, critical dialogue.

When it comes to Hip Hop, like the old dude said in "Cool Hand Luke"

"What we have here is a failure to communicate."