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Have you guys seen this or heard about this? What are your thoughts?

http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/showbiz/2009/10/23/ludacris.leadership.natl.cnn

I think it's great that he's at least trying to make a difference. I don't know the exact nature of his programs, but he's right in that the government can only do so much. It's ironic but those "conservatives" who are lambasting the U.S. governemnt for raising taxes and instituting more and more programs (big government) are often among the most philanthropic when it comes to charitable donations. What Ludacris is doing on his own is what many very wealthy capitalists do with their money, donate it and create programs to help needy people. The divisions that many people create between liberal and conservative, democrat and republican, are ludicrous (no pun intended)....

This gives me a reason to wonder about him, for sure. I wonder about the actual effectiveness of his striving to achieve his societal ideals, as his chosen field of music is often a rather negative one, in that it does not encourage education or respect. His own lyrics often seem at odds with his ideals - "shake it like a Polaroid picture," for example. It's hard for me to take him seriously when, on one hand he calls out for a positive life style & such, while on the other, he calls out for a partying or sexually degrading life style.

I prolly sound like a prude, here, but I'm simply trying to understand how the two "Ludacrises" can exist in one person, without seeming hypocritical.

Is he having to perform community service or something?

I could take LL Cool J more seriously than him, for some reason...

As it stands, this guy just looks like a guy who's made it big who's trying to prove that he's still a good guy...rather than actually BEING that good guy...but perhaps I'm just too cynical...

Lucacris' is all about PR. The more negative and controversial you are the more PR you get. Do you remember when Queen Latifah first became prominent? She had lyrics suggesting killing cops I believe. Got her lots of PR. Now she's a big star. It's ALL ABOUT PR. Anything to get attention. Ludacris mught be a great guy. He might be philanthropic. He got his notoriety by performing the opposite. Remember the Kanye West/Taylor Swift incident? It was a PR stunt, plain and simple. It got both of them a lot of press. The Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake incident at the Super Bowl? A PR stunt. There's a number of "stars" that have to generate attention by B.S. People with little actual talent have to baffle us with B.S. Britney Spears. A talentless person who's made millions of dollars with nothing but B.S. It's the same old crap over and over and over again. When flocks of Paparazzi follow somebody around it's B.S. What does it have to do with music? Nothing. The LED lights on my bullsh*tometer start going crazy when somebody gets PR with something that has nothing to do with music...