Spike Lee: This Is How I Do

Standing ovations all around yesterday evening as director Spike Lee addressed an appreciative crowd of university students at Roy Thompson Hall. Lee used the guest lecture to bash a familiar adversary in gangstaism.

Last year, the man once know as Mars Blackman launched a full-out assault on the movie Soul Plane (starring a certain Dogg that everyone should be familiar with) for it's racist connotations - 'connotations' being a conservative term here. Last night, Lee took it a step further in pointing in the direction of rap music. Lee doesn't like how blacks are being played out in the music media as pimps or "video ho's." Lee also doesn't appreciate the amoral behaviour of some music personalities. The prominent race relations critic singled out R. Kelly in particular, mainly because Kelly videotaped himself peeing on a 14-year-old girl. Rapper Nasty NaS made similar comments recently, slamming 'CB4' style gangstas like Fifty Cents and The Game.

So, if Spike Lee, Nasir Jones and John Singleton (who made an appearance last night) all share one common value, it's the utter distaste for G-Unit apparel.