BET’s Viral Controversy

Black Entertainment Television has recently come under attack for an animated video entitled “Read a Book,” in which a Lil Jon-esque rapper screams at his audience, and community, to “Read a book, read a book, read a [expletive expletive] book!” While many say the video is aiming to “wake up” the black community, many see the video as part of the problem, not commentary on it.

The video, which is definitely NSFW, is embedded below. Several unedited versions of it have already surfaced and made the rounds on YouTube, escalating both the pro and con sides of the debate, as the The L.A. Times recently noted.

The video, with its parental advisory warning-worthy lyrics, was produced in coordination with BET Animation. Bomani Ahmer, who says he’s “not a rapper but a poet with a hip-hop style,” wrote and performed “Read a Book” via animated avatar, “D-Mite.” Curiously, BET, which is owned by Viacom (VIA), has not requested the video be pulled from YouTube, where it has been posted (and reposted) and viewed over 800,000 times.

“It is a satirical observation of the current ridiculous, offensive, and embarrassing state of the once noble art of Hip Hop,” writes Tcphilosopher, the preeminent poster of the video on YouTube.

The video has been likened to Richard Pryror’s matter-of-fact comedy and Aaron McGruder’s acidic comic “The Boondocks.” The New York Times drew a contrast between “Read a Book” and another animated video on BET, “Bid ‘Em In” (embedded below), which it called “a sharp and sober depiction of a slave auction.”

Some argue that the video reinforces a variety of negative stereotypes and is exploitative in the way it tries to gain attention. An attorney from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition released a statement Aug. 23 on behalf of Rev. Jesse Jackson that condemns the video. It reads like a press release as written by an angry, verbose, YouTube commenter:

If Benjamin E. Mayes challenged us to reach for the stars, the not-a-rapper video “Read a Book” on YouTube takes us into the abyss. Billed as a satirical look at popular culture, a viewer is left with the distinct impression that nothing matters, that life is futile, knowledge fruitless, manners meaningless… The narrator is obviously illiterate, unkempt and disrespectful. So who takes his advice seriously? The best Hip-hop is clever, with allusions to politics, history, great music and literature. The simplistic repetitive rhyme and tune made it clear that the creator had not taken his own advice, i.e. to Read a Book.

Clearly the Rainbow PUSH Coalition did not appreciate the song’s use of Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” as its classical hook. The issue of propriety and the roll of hip-hop in the black community was brought to the forefront earlier this year with Don Imus’s firing. In his wake, Current TV did a great piece interviewing members of the hip-hop community, and J Smooth of Ill Doctrine, the “first official video blog for hip-hop,” had a great episode on Russell Simmons’s comments (embedded below).

Perhaps all of this could pave the way for a BET animated music video of Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain.”