*It was good news and bad news for Rev. Al Sharpton this week.
The civil rights activist was pleased to hear that Nas decided against calling his new album "Ni**er," but he is furious over allegations in a new book that he threatened to march against Dr. Dre's Aftermath label unless he was paid a million dollars.
"He said if we didn’t have a million, we marching. It’s that easy," recounted longtime Dre associate Bruce Williams to Web site HipHopDX last week. Williams accuses Sharpton of "orchestrating" the infamous beef-squashing press conference between rival Aftermath artists 50 Cent and The Game, and that "these so-called" activists demand money "all of the time."
Williams also makes these allegations in his new book "Rollin With Dre: The Unauthorized Account: An Insider's Tale of the Rise, Fall and Rebirth of West Coast Hip Hop."
He writes: "We got a lot of black leaders that don’t do sh** to me. I don’t see what they do. In the (Game/50) situation (Sharpton and company) are going to come and say 'we need X amount of money', whether you are going to give it to charity or not? Why don’t you come and say 'hey, let’s all of us sit down and figure this out?' Don’t come and say 'give me a half a million dollars or we marching!' That didn’t even get the situation resolved. You seen it. They didn’t even look like they squashed anything."
Sharpton's National Action Network responded to the allegations Tuesday with a lengthy statement denying any involvement with the 50/Game press conference, or having ever met with Dr. Dre.
It read: "To state that National Action Network and or Rev. Sharpton threatened to march is almost laughable because the first question would be whom would we have marched upon, since this was reportedly a clash between two black artists and there was no civil rights questions involved, and for what reason would we have marched?
"Secondly if someone gave donations to offset our movement that would have precluded Reverend Al Sharpton’s personal participation in standing with the teenager James Rosemond and his family at a press conference calling for an end to the kind of street violence that scars the hip-hop industry. The press conference was widely reported to be taking issue with the artist 50 Cent, Yayo and G Unit. It would also have precluded our marching on record companies, many of whom sponsored events with us, for using the “N,” “B” and “H” words, and withdrawing an award from record executive L.A. Reid for those same reasons. Clearly donations do not alter our focus and work and certainly are not requested from us to assure that it will. However, we think if Dr. Dre and others did make donations to charities, even in the arrangements that were inaccurately alleged, they should continue to do so, as all successful members of our community should help legitimate agencies and organizations that serve the communities that they sell to. We will continue our work around civil rights, racial violence and police brutality, and will not engage scurrilous banter to help sell books."
The press release from National Action Network also included a statement from Game's manager, Jimmy Rosemond, whose teen son James Rosemond was assaulted by an associate of 50 Cent's G-Unit member Tony Yayo.
"I am 100 percent positive that the Game did not come to the conference in fear of Al Sharpton marching and Rev. Sharpton had nothing to do with that conference or donations affiliated with it," Rosemond stated. "The Game has worked with the community and National Action Network in the past and it has never been affiliated with a donation. The Game recently did a song in support of [police shooting victim] Sean Bell and has been vocal about his support for Nicole Paultre-Bell and the victims involved in the case.”
As for Nas' decision to drop the N-word from his album title, Sharpton released yet another statement saying: "This proves that record companies and distributors realize that the community will not allow companies to profit from denigrating us and polluting the minds of our youth."
"I have a lot of respect for Nas," Sharpton later told the New York Daily News. "I liked what he said about Sean Bell. We have a fundamental disagreement on this. He can rap against me. I'll preach against them. We're still friends."