Eskay: Russell Simmons has made it very clear that he will not be supporting 'Preme when he goes to trial next year. Do you feel he’s being disloyal, or are people in the industry waking up to the fact that they need to distance themselves from these types of guys?
EB: I don't know. But I don’t think Russell was distancing himself from Preme–he and Preme never really had a relationship that went
much beyond those Supreme Team parties in the 1980s.
I should make the point here that I don't think that anyone in the hip-hop business needs to "distance" themselves from people with criminal records. Hip-hop has been an incredible outlet for ex-street guys who want to be involved in something legitimate. That said, rappers and record label execs need to re-consider the strategy of using guys like Preme as props to express street cred. It’s a legally perilous way of doing business and I have big problems with it ethically. The drug business has put hundreds of thousands of African-Americans in prison; it's not something that should be used as a marketing strategy for middle class rappers...
