By Scotty Reid, news, culture, entertainment, education

Andy Cohen is the Executive Vice-President of original programming and development at the Bravo cable network that is a subsidiary of NBC Universal. He is the brain behind the gutter reality show Real Housewives series among others shows. He is billed as the first openly gay late night television talk show host with his weekly program Watch What Happens Live.

The February 15^th broadcast of the show featured rapper Lil’ Kim and news media personality Willie Giest.  During the show’s Plead the Fifth segment, Cohen asked Lil ‘Kim “Who do you think is the most overrated artist at this moment”. It is no secret that Lil’ Kim dislikes rapper Nikki Minaj whom she has accused of copying her style and this was clearly an attempt by Cohen to generate headlines in exploiting the beef between the two Black women for some cheap laughs and headlines. I have spoken before about the sad spectacle of two grown Black women in the public eye acting like feuding children setting a bad example for young Black women and girls openly hating on each other and dissing each other in the played out and tired old marketing gimmick known as diss rapping.

Cohen and the rest of corporate media have no problem instigating and facilitating bad blood between Black people because ignorant people seem to enjoy seeing this kind of bad behavior and sadly, it makes for good ratings and generates the sell of recordings for the artist’s labels. In fact, this type of behavior is often encouraged behind the scenes. Lil Kim, perhaps tired of beefing like a teenaged schoolgirl, attempted to resist being baited into saying something ugly about her younger nemesis and fellow Black artist. Nikki Minaj is under some heat for her apparent hatred of Black features making fun of the natural hair of African descendant women in her raps and wears an assortment of costumes and wigs to make her appear more Barbie like but perhaps Lil Kim was beginning to see how immature the whole affair is. After all, she will turn 37 yrs-old in July.

Later in the segment Cohen, perhaps unable to let it go or more sinisterly, not about to pass up on a chance to get one Black woman to denigrate another for the enjoyment of the masses, claimed he had a bunch of Nikki Minaj related questions. Whom the questions were from, the studio audience perhaps, is unclear and I would not doubt that he more than likely would have put in the questions about Nikki Minaj if none came from the audience. Perhaps taking the lead from Cohen, Willie Giest decided to get in on the act of baiting Lil Kim and asked her what she thought about Minaj’s Grammy performance which has been called bizarre at best and demonic at worst. Lil Kim still refused to say Nikki’s name but seemed to enjoy the game of cat and mouse but seemingly and more than likely clueless to the real agenda at play.

Cohen then asked Lil Kim what she thought about Nikki’s song Stupid Hoe. Not known for her consciousness on how Black exploitation works in media, sadly Lil Kim gives them the sound byte they were looking for by saying that Nikki Minaj is a “stupid ho”for putting out a record titled Stupid Hoe. While it is ignorant for a Black woman to refer to other women as hoes or call them stupid, Lil Kim fails to realize that Nikki Minaj, like herself, are both tools in the broader of agenda of the media masters to destroy Black culture and promote hatred  among Black people.

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