Journalist Gerald Rivera recently sat down with HuffPost Live to talk about everything from Brian Williams to hip-hop. His take on the latter resulted in the reporter calling out Russell Simmons and moguls of his caliber for encouraging a culture that separates people from the mainstream and results in the inability to find gainful employment. He took a few other shots at the genre that are sure to receive a response by Simmons in the near future. He said the genre is "destructive culturally."
"Hip-hop has done more damage to black and brown people than racism in the last 10 years," Rivera said in the video over at the Huffington Post. "When you find the youngster, a Puerto Rican from the South Bronx or a black kid from Harlem, who has succeeded in life other than being the one-tenth of one-tenth of 1 percent that make it in the music business, that's been a success in life walking around with his pants around his ass or with visible tattoos."
Rivera used Simmons as an example of someone championing the hip-hop culture. According to Rivera, Simmons and others like him need to "cop to the fact" that hip-hop culture has encouraged people to be so different from "mainstream culture" that it is difficult to build a career. Instead, fans are doomed to "the racks in the garment center and those entry-level jobs."
"I lament it; I really do. I think it's been very destructive culturally," he added.
Despite calling Simmons a "dear friend," Rivera and the Def Jam founder have been on each other's bad sides before. After Rivera made some distasteful remarks -- see below -- in 2012 about why Trayvon Martin was shot -- his hoodie made him look too "gangsta" -- the journalist apologized. Simmons was not having it, though.
"Geraldo, your apology is bulls**t! Your apology is nothing but a defense of a racist, backward thing you already said," he said.
