Ben Sisario of the NY Times reports on the press conference for the Smithsonian’s hip hop collection plans.  Gee, I can’t wait to see the reports from the New York and New Jersey based hip hop news sites that sent somebody over for this historic event.  They should be great!

It looks like the earlier AP report got some more facts wrong since Sisario reports that "Brent D. Glass, the director of the museum, said the project was begun in recent months with seed money from Universal Records."

Although I know I give Russell Simmons a hard time, I also have respect for many of his accomplishments and for his intelligence so I find it incredibly hard to believe that he actually said that hip hop is "the only real description of the suffering of our people."  Assuming he means African Americans, as opposed to rich men with expensive wives, he just dissed a lot of great black artists, including numerous writers whose work will tower over even my favorite hip hop lyricists long after they’re dead.

Yeah, back that azz up, I’m suffering!

But, man, I wish I could have been at the conference.  I know I would have met some great writers from all the news sites we all follow on a daily basis.  I’ll be sure to add their eyewitness accounts as soon as I track them down!