Motion to repeal: New York activists, joined by hip-hop politico Russell Simmons, are trying to overturn the notorious Rockefeller drug laws. Nicole Davis looks into what the tenuous coalition has been able to accomplish.

With very few exceptions, most music artists (irrespective of genre), athletes, actors, and industry insiders shun opportunities to use their clout, name recognition, and, equally important, money to make concrete political changes in the lives of those who are their biggest fans.

But what happens when someone as well known as Russell Simmons decides to try his hand at politics? Due to his recent involvement with the effort to repeal the 50-year-old New York state Rockefeller drug laws, Simmons has been meeting for hours on end with some of New York's biggest political players--Governor George Pataki, Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, and Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. The question isn't why these men are meeting with the best-known guy in hip-hop, it's whether or not it'll make a damn bit of difference. The answer is yes. Kind of.

The founder of Def Jam Records and the Phat Farm clothing line, Simmons added a Tony Award to his wall of Grammy awards for the Broadway hit, Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam this year. In June 2001, he held the first National Hip Hop Summit, "Taking Back Responsibility," and from there launched the Hip Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) (funded mostly by his own money).

When the HSAN first got off the ground last year, the issue they chose to address was public education. This year their attention has turned to the Rockefeller drug laws, named after Governor Nelson Rockefeller who was in office when the laws were first past in 1973. They mandate a 15-year to life sentence for anyone caught selling two ounces or possessing four ounces of illegal drugs, regardless of prior arrests, offenses, or the circumstances leading to the crime. And they have had a devastating impact on New York's black and brown communities.

"The unfairness of this law for the past 30 years has caught our attention," says Dr. Benjamin Chavis Muhammad, president and CEO of HSAN. "Today in the state of New York, 94 percent of all persons held in state prisons as result of the drug law are black and Latino. These laws have significantly impacted the hip-hop community. It's our responsibility to raise the issue, to put demands on the decision makers to change things."

The HSAN joined a long line of community and advocacy groups that have been working on this issue, some of them for nearly three decades: Drop the Rock, Mothers of the New York Disappeared, Justice Works, and the Ya-Ya Network to name a few. Most, however, have fallen into the background as Simmons and HSAN have moved into the political and public foreground on this issue.

Recently Simmons has been receiving a little more attention on this issue than perhaps he would like. He is under investigation by the Temporary State Commission on Lobbying for his work against the drug laws, specifically for engaging in lobbying activities without registering as an official lobbyist in Albany. He is also under fire by many of his allies in this struggle who are incensed by Simmons' efforts to cut a deal with the governor that they find unacceptable.

Randy Credico is one of the main organizers behind Mothers of the New York Disappeared and, while he recruited Simmons to the fight, he is now second guessing himself. Credico's father was incarcerated for 10 years, so he knows firsthand what happens to a family when a parent is locked up. A former, comedian on the Hollywood circuit, he's had plenty of hands-on experience working with celebrities and with drugs themselves. "I think celebrities that have a big following of young kids who are normally politically inactive, if, in fact, those kids become political and they mobilize and organize and institute voter registration drives, then working with them can be very effective," he says. Recently, however, he told the New York Times, "The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was bringing Russell into this movement."

While no one questions that Simmons' involvement has brought unprecedented attention to the issue, both from the press and from politicians, what many are questioning is whether this is a good thing. Many supported his involvement early on, but it now seems he is doing more harm than good. Although the HSAN is able to get thousands of young people to attend a rally there is not, in fact, any way for them to hold the organization accountable for its action. There are no members to run decisions by, no constituency to approve deals Simmons is making in Albany. They are not, in any real sense, organizing.

On June 4, the Countdown to Fairness Coalition hosted a rally at City Hall in downtown Manhattan. HSAN initially estimated the rally might get a turn out of 100,000 people, in no small part due to the hip-hop celebrities that Simmons promised would attend, but the crowd was much smaller than expected. While The Village Voice said that some people placed 20,000-50,000 participants at the rally, those I spoke with outside of HSAN gave numbers anywhere between 1,000 and 10,000. Still, it seems safe to say that thousands of people, mostly young, mostly of color, gathered together not to hear hip-hop artists perform their music, but to hear them speak about a political issue.

"Celebrities are so unreachable," comments Chino Hardin, a youth organizer with the Prison Moratorium Project and a member group of the Drop the Rock Coalition. "Some of them got up and didn't say anything related to Drop the Rock. It needs to be about more than getting kids to a rally. We need resources as well as time. Even if they repeal the laws, it's not going to stop young people from being locked up or using drugs. There are reasons why people start using drugs and those need to be addressed." At 23, Hardin has been arrested 16 times and incarcerated eight times.

Naturally it's easier to recruit a teenager to a political event if you tell them their favorite celebrity will be there than if you tell them it's something really important for their community. The Hip Hop Summit Action Network knows this. Their board of directors reads like a "who's who" of men in the music industry. Along with Russell Simmons sits Damon Dash of Roc-A-Fella Records, Kevin Liles and Lyor Cohen of Island Def Jam Music Group, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs of Bad Boy Entertainment, Jermaine Dupree of So So Def Records, and the anomaly, Manning Marable of Columbia University.

Most of these men make a living by knowing what motivates young people--to buy CDs, buy sneakers, attend concerts, and now it seems, get political.

Robert Gangi is the executive director of the New York Correctional Association, the organization that coordinates the Drop the Rock Coalition. The Correctional Association has been working to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws for over 20 years, so they know a bit about how things work up in Albany. "Russell has an interest in using the standing and influence of hip-hop to address issues of racial justice," says Gangi. "I think it is effective. The issue that arose here is that Simmons and the people he connected with in the reform movement began to negotiate. He began to negotiate himself to promote compromise and to call for a deal. Some of the people in the movement became concerned because they don't know the nature of the deal that he may or may not give his blessing to. Some people think any deal is better than no deal. My idea is that some deals are worse than no deals."

Roger Credico of Mothers of the New York Disappeared puts it more bluntly. "Russell got hustled by the governor. I hate to say that, but he met with him and the governor bought some time until the session ran out. The movement should grow rather than take what's behind door number one blindly. We need to take it to the next level; we need to repeal. You can't reform racism, you can't tinker with racism. Right now the governor is offering tinkering."

An across-the-board critique of the Hip Hop Summit Action Networks methods is that they don't have a good way to capture the youth that attend their events, to turn those numbers into a sustained movement that can create real change. Their website offers a way to sign up with the group, but it's unclear what happens after that. HSAN has partnered with Rock the Vote, and Simmons was the main person behind Rap the Vote 2000, both of which have registered tens of thousands of young people to vote. Since the June 4 rally, however, Simmons seems to be the only visible HSAN presence working on the issue. There have been no more rallies, no busloads of hip-hop youth protesting in Albany, no letter-writing campaigns targeting the officials with the power to change the laws.

Jan Warren is a self-described middle-class suburban white woman. She was released from Bedford Hills Prison in January 2000 after serving over 12 years of a 15-to-life sentence. Arrested the first time she ever sold drugs, Warren was 35 when she went to jail.

Warren was released from prison by an executive clemency order issued by Pataki. She is grateful to be out but knows that the fight is far from over. What does she think about Simmons being involved in this issue? "I'm glad Russell Simmons is stepping up to the plate and getting involved. Sometimes I ask myself, Where has he been all this time? But I'm happy that he did it. He has the name, he has the money, he has the press attraction to get more attention on the issue. He helped organize the largest anti-drug rally in the history of world.

"Will [the celebrities he recruited] have staying power?" Warren asks. "I doubt it. Would it be a good thing if they did? Absolutely."

Nicole Davis lives in New York City and is a graduate student in creative writing.