Russell Simmons is a hip-hop producer and also the motive force behind Russell Simmon's Def Comedy Jam. If you have ever sat through a Def Jam product you know that it promotes the worst of the "hip-hop" culture. he is also a massive hypocrite.
Vulgarity, debasment of women, promotion of racial stereotypes, and outright rascism against non-blacks are the common denominator of all of Simmon's products. I am all for that. Honestly. I like Hip-hop and the more vulgar it is the more it amuses me (see Insane Clown Posse).
What galls me is Simmon's sudden Conversion on the Road to Damascus right as he has a self-help book to promote. Simmon's flip flopped his position on hip-hop censorship in the time between Imus and Va-Tech. Before now he has opposed it on free speech grounds but today he is spamming the press with interviews and press statements calling for outright censorship (UPI).
Simmon's rode the worst of hip-hop vulgarity to a payday of ten's of millions of dollars and now that it is politically expedient and his fortune is made he is attacking the very thing he helped to create and exploit. Jesse Jackson may be a shoddy excuse for black leadership but he shines compared to money-grubbing hypocrites like Simmons. Vanilla Ice was more genuine.