Kanye West’s much ballyhooed comments during NBC’s hurricane relief special — “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” — apparently mirrored the sentiments of several hip hop artists in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “This is what rappers have been screaming all the time,” rapper David Banner told MTV. “The problem is America concentrates more on our cuss words. They don’t hear the pain in the music all the time. You just finally had somebody who has the power Kanye has, who said it at the right time.”
Because of the growing mistrust of the government, many rap and R&B artists have chosen to take matters into their own hands by organizing relief efforts themselves. Banner began a fund under the moniker Heal the Hood, and rappers T.I. and Young Jeezy are putting together a fundraiser to take place in Atlanta. “All those people who are down there without homes and shelter, those are folks from the ‘hood,” T.I commented, “That’s the urban community.”
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