Image: Rick Ross at SXSW earlier this year. Image: Wenn

Surprise, surprise there was an altercation at the BET Hip Hop Awards on Saturday. Make that two altercations, one backstage and one in the parking lot. Classy. The current tally of involved parties includes: Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, G-Unit security, and some guy named Gunplay (yes, Gunplay). At this point, the channel might as well add one of those weigh-in press conferences to the pre-show festivities.

As news of the confrontations reached the masses, the network issued a statement:

For the past 7 years BET has celebrated the true art form of Hip Hop. Due to some misjudgment of select attendees, it is unfortunate that certain incidents took place. BET Networks does not condone any type of violence.

What BET really meant was that while they condone violence in the music, videos, and brands that they honor, don’t bring it to their event. It’s nonsensical for the network to think they can separate the two.

Business is not exempt from the laws of karma. Karma literally means “action.” It is a Hindu and Buddhist principle stating that the sum of a person’s actions decides their fate. Put simply, you get back what you put out.

When applied to the business world, the laws of karma demand that the energy around the product or service you promote comes back on the brand. If your product promotes positivity, your company will attract positive customers, employees, and partners. If your brand promotes ego-driven male posturing that revels in violence, you get a fight at every award show.

Companies and business schools are paying closer attention to the energy they put out as highlighted in BusinessWeek’s Karma Capitalism.

The seemingly ethereal worldview that’s reflected in Indian philosophy is surprisingly well attuned to the down-to-earth needs of companies trying to survive in an increasingly global, interconnected business ecosystem.

…”You are the architect of your misfortune,” [Swami Parthasarathy, one of India's best-selling authors on Vedanta, an ancient school of Hindu philosophy] said [during an auditorium lecture at Lehman Brothers]. “You are the architect of your fortune.”

When anything involving hip hop is discussed, Jay-Z is never far from the conversation. The mogul was no where near the award show, performing at the freshly minted Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets in which he owns a minority stake. As social media reacted to the news, many stated that rappers should pay closer attention to how Jay-Z handles himself. He may have had skirmishes early in his career, but since he’s become a businessman, he has reached Huxtable levels of polish.

I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that every rapper needs to aspire to be Jay-Z. Nor do the Hip Hop Awards need to look like an Oprah Winfrey production. However, companies and artists alike need to recognize that the opportunities available to them reflect the energy they put out. A short temper and a penchant for violence may be hot in the streets, but it’s not what stable sponsors or partners are looking for. If you lead a hood lifestyle expect hood money, which, while plentiful, is temporary.

C. Cleveland is a freelance writer and content strategist in New York City, perfecting living the fierce life at The Red Read. She is at your service on Twitter @CleveInTheCity.

Some suggestive photos of the former first lady of the G-Unit playing kissy face with rapper Maino have popped up on the web. No one seemed to have any clue the two were dating, which makes you wonder: are they really?

Olivia is preparing for the debut of Season 2 of “Love and Hip Hop” and Maino is trying to get play for his new song, “That Could Be Us.” Do you smell a publicity stunt? Obviously I do.

It’s amazing how people will use love these days for publicity, money and ratings.  Do you blame them for capitalizing?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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By Alexis Garrett Stodghill

After filing for bankruptcy in 2010, former G-Unit member Young Buck has been working with creditors to structure a plan to pay off his debts. According to The Wall Street Journal, the former 50 Cent protégé is moving toward a five-year payment schedule, which suggests that Buck has filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. When an individual files for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, they are allowed to keep all of their assets and receive court protection from further harassment from creditors. Creditors sign on for this delayed repayment of monies because this agreement is more profitable than prolonged fighting in court. But the debtor has to be confident that there will be enough funds earned in the future to make repayment possible.

50 Cent apparently does not have faith that Young Buck can or will repay his debts, so has rejected Buck’s July 11 petition — in some pretty damning language. The Wall Street Journal reports:

50 says he wants to know just how Young Buck—who titled his debut solo studio album “Straight Outta Cashville”—is going to successfully manage his business affairs so that he can raise the revenue needed to pay off his creditors over the next five years, as his plan proposes.

At a recent questioning over Young Buck’s financial affairs, 50 Cent’s lawyers said the rapper “had trouble identifying where he had been on tour, who had booked his travel, how he had even gotten from one place to another.” This troubles creditors like 50 Cent, his lawyers wrote in court papers, because it raises the concern “as to whether any creditor can truly rely upon these claims and projections by the debtor.”

Another concern is the fate of a contract with 50 Cent and his G-Unit record label, which signed Young Buck in 2004 and under which the latter is still obligated to record.

The continuing contention over this contract includes Buck vacillating between wanting to break it, then more recently stating he wants to continue it under different terms. In response, 50 Cent said through his lawyers: “If the debtor defaults under the recording agreement… G-Unit would maintain a claim for damages flowing to it as a result of the debtor’s failure to perform under the recording agreement in an amount believed to be not less than $10,000,000.”

Ouch.

It is unfortunate that artists in the music industry often go into debt to their labels.  Yet, Young Buck is in a situation of his own creation, and at the complete mercy of 50 Cent. 50 owns him as a recording artist and has a much more powerful legal team behind him. Buck might think he has options — such as rejecting his contract, or paying his debts when it’s convenient — but he does not. And in this particular instance, 50 is not the one for fair discussions.

VH1 is putting even more black women on televison in their new upcoming reality series “Love and Hip Hop.” The show will feature the first lady of the rap group G-Unit, Olivia, Jim Jones’ woman, Chrissy, Fabolous’ girlfriend and mother of his child, Emily and Swizz Beatz’ ex wife Mashonda.

Check out the trailer for the show below:

While we don’t know how these women will be portrayed, a writer at Black Voices doesn’t think it’s promising.

Do you think does VH1′s programming perpetuates stereotypes within the black community?

By Brittany Hutson

Nowadays, when music artists get the itch to step away from the industry and dive into the world of entrepreneurship, it’s pretty much no surprise that their first venture is a clothing line. But according to Kristin Bentz, retail analyst and president of Talented Blonde, LLC, “the era of the celeb-designer is close to being over, if not already. When the recession hit, so many rappers/actors/personalities rushed to get licensing deals. So now we are overrun at retail with the remnants of rappers past.”

We collaborated with Bentz to critique some of hip-hop’s hottest lines that are still memorable today, not only for their sales, but also for their massive appeal to consumers and demonstrated business savvy on the part of the artist; as well as some of hip-hop’s less memorable brands due to high pricing points, an absence of solid promotion and mismanagement.

Here are Bentz’s picks for fashion lines that have been leaders in the artist-designer arena:

Phat Farm

Russell Simmons was undoubtedly the pioneer of the celeb-designer phenomenon with the launch of Phat Farm in 1992, which combined the urban aesthetics of the streets and the preppy culture of the Ivy League for men. Successful lines such as Phat Farm are “established by tier one rapper/artists that truly have the star power and financial backing to hire superior management teams and designers, as well as [finance] multi-million dollar ad campaigns,” says Bentz. Another example the demonstrates Simmons’ business savvy and why the brand has lasted for nearly two decades was his decision to sell Phat Farm to the Kellwood Company in 2004 for $140 million. “Brands are sold to large publicly-held companies that know how to merchandise, manage and promote a brand much better than the celebs who own the company are able to.”

by R. Asmerom

Entourages have always been part of the rap game. But these days, the entourage is part of the act. From Death Row to The Diplomats, hip hop has turned to creating artistic alliances as a way to build business and a strong brand value. Capitalizing on a classic business model, famous artists like Jay-Z and Lil Wayne leverage their own fame to push new artists, thereby expanding their own companies, procuring creativity into the music marketplace and proving their own business hustler savvy.

But as we all know, some business ventures succeed. Some don’t. We collaborated with Erin O’Patton, author of  “Under the Influence: Tracing the Hip-Hop Generation’s Impact on Brands, Sports & Pop Culture”, and founder and principal of branding consulting firm TMG to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a few of the hip-hop families that have come, gone and sustained.