I was able to catch the second day of Oprah’s round table discussion on ….what else? (For a recap of the first day of the discussion you can find it at Oprah.com) and found myself getting a tad annoyed, even though I have even more respect for former Def Jam head Russell Simmons that I did before. While acknowledging that yes, there is sexism in Hip-Hop Simmons argued that artists come to the plate as ‘story tellers,’ using narratives from their own lives and experiences within their songs (which honestly, doesn’t exactly justify the lyrics of some artists0:

"The hip-hop community is a mirror, a reflection of the dirt we overlook—the violence, the misogyny, the sexism. They need to be discussed."