An apology won't be enough to keep HOT 97 DJ Cipha Sounds on the air following remarks he made about Haitian women.
The station says Cipha, whose real name is Luis Diaz, will be off the air indefinitely.
This all started when the HOT97 Morning show was discussing the problem with AIDS in Haiti and how to help stop it, but Ciph chimed in and said he's basically in the clear because he doesn't,
"mess with Haitian girls."
Insinuating that he will not get AIDS because only Haitin women have it.
first released a statement saying he would not be fired and was just a young man who had made a mistake.
But a more detailed three-pronged action plan to address the controversy was announced overnight.
"First, the station announced that DJ Cipha Sounds has been suspended indefinitely," the statement said.
"Second, Cipha will immediately undertake sensitivity training focused on the Haitian community and specifically, the challenges the Haitian community has faced in terms of the HIV epidemic.
"Finally, HOT 97 announced it will work with local community leaders to utilize the influence of HOT 97 to increase awareness of HIV and community programs to address the HIV epidemic."
The reprimand came after community leaders and elected officials protehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsted outside the HOT 97 studios, calling for Cipha to be fired. He has apologized on the air for his remarks, saying he made a stupid, tasteless joke.
Well-known Miami/ Haitian Rapper, Haitian Fresh also speaked out against Cipha Sounds.
"We aint playing over here"
Haitian Fresh goes on to say,
"I hope he has people around him, because it's gonna be something."
Listen below:
And you knowww, the other side, Power105.1, had a lot to say about their rival NY radio competitor. Well, actually shock jock, Charlamange Tha God went all the way there! Usually competing radio stations do not mention each others names, but I know from Charlamange's mouth himself, behind the scenes, that this situation was so big he received "permission" to go in!
Listen to what he had to say below:
Here are the tweets from Rosenberg that Charlamange was referring to:
So after getting the 411, how do you feel about this situation?
Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie have begun work on the latest all-star recording of "We Are the World" to benefit Haitian earthquake victims. The pair assembled 100 actors and musicians for the re-recording. I'm talking from Jamie Foxx to Barbara Streisand to LL Cool J to Celene Dion and even little Justin Bieber....
It really is beautiful to see all of these stars in one room for one cause. Here is the behind the scenes footage, watch as everyone interacts with eachother:
AND HERE IS THE ORIGINAL W/ MICHEAL JACKSON, TINA TURNER & MORE:
Sources say, Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue will sing on Simon Cowell's charity single for the victims of the Haiti earthquake. It is also said that Cheryl Cole and Take That would also sing on the track, a cover of REM's Everybody Hurts.
Meanwhile, Radiohead have raised more than $500,000 (£308,192) for the appeal with a special gig in Los Angeles.
And George Clooney's global telethon has so far raised $61m (£37.6m).
It is believed the 7.0 magnitude quake on the 12 of January killed as many as 200,000 people. An estimated 1.5 million people have been left homeless.
Recording for Cowell's single has already started, with Leona Lewis, JLS, James Blunt and Joe McElderry laying down their vocals.
Half of the single's proceeds will go to the Sun's Helping Haiti fund and the rest will be donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee.
Radiohead performed for more than two hours on Sunday at the Henry Fonda Theatre.
Stars such as Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, Charlize Theron, Anna Paquin and Daniel Craig were in the crowd. Fans had bid for tickets in an online auction, with proceeds going to Oxfam International.
Some of the world's most famous celebrities, including Madonna, Jay Z, Rihanna and Mary J Blige participated in Clooney's Hope for Haiti Now telethon, which took place on Friday.
It was shown on all major US TV channels, YouTube, MySpace and on MTV in the UK.
Diddy also gave his son $10,000 to start a bank account [nice huh lol] but Justin decided to donate all of that money to Wyclef's charity to help Haiti. When Diddy's reps were asked about HIS donation to the Haiti Relief fund, his reps said they 'do not have that information.
Damn Diddy's kid all the way to the left looks way too much like him! lol And I'm not even going to talk about the one in the back making kissing faces! haha
Sources say, The car that was given to his son Justin, a supped up (sic) version of the Maybach Exelero, cost $360,000. and a uniformed driver to escort him around New York City.
Why the driver? Well, that’s because Justin is just learning to drive and won’t be able to ride around his home city for the next two years without an instructor in the passenger seat.
Sandra Bullock said she donated US$1 million (NZ$1.35) toward Haitian earthquake relief, and Madonna announced she gave US$250,000 (NZ$338,685) toward the effort as celebrity aid continued to pour into the devastated country.
Bullock's contribution went to Doctors Without Borders' emergency operations in Port-Au-Prince, where three of the organisation's existing facilities were damaged by the magnitude 7.0 quake.
"I wanted to ensure that my donation would be used immediately to meet the needs of the Haitian people affected by this catastrophic event," said Bullock in a statement. Madonna's gift was to Partners In Health, a longtime medical provider in Haiti. "I urge all of my friends and fans around the world to join me collectively to match my contribution or give in any way you can," she said. "We must act now."
Despite the controversy still surrounding his name, the scandal-hit Woods is donating $3 million for assistance in the rescue and relief effort in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
Woods reportedly is planning to make the donation, consisting of doctors and supplies to Wyclef Jean, through media mogul Russell Simmons.
The disgraced golf pro Woods will give the weighty sum to Haiti native Wyclef Jean’s Yele foundation in the hopes of creating a mobile hospital.
"Tiger Woods is working on sending a mobile hospital with 50 EMTs to go set up a triage," Simmon tweeted.
Word is, Rus prematurely tweeted about Tiger's donation. Tiger Woods has not yet pledged any money to the ongoing relief effort in Haiti, said the head of his charitable foundation.
"We're currently researching the most effective plan to aid in the relief effort. Historically, we have found being part of the rebuilding effort to be the most effective approach for the Foundation."
Earlier Friday, Not On Our Watch, an advocacy and grantmaking group founded by George Clooney, Brad Pitt and others, donated $1 million to Partners in Health.
George Clooney, who plans to host a telethon 22 January along with other celebrities, and Lady GaGa, who announced that all of the proceeds from her 24 January Monster Ball show in New York will also go towards helping the earthquake-stricken country.
You can purchase merchandise from LadyGaga.com on the 24th – all of those proceeds will go to helping Haiti as well.
Jay-Z, U2 and Swizz Beatz teamed up to record a song to aid in the relief effort. On Saturday, producer Swizz Beats hinted via Twitter that the project was in the works. "Me, Bono, Hova, have something to say about Haiti stay tunned [sic]," he wrote. "I told you I was working on something amazing for Haiti they need us!!!!"
Video is from The Miami Herald includes Mr. Robertson’s remarks, and a response from Hans Mardy of the Haitian-American Emergency Relief Committee, who suggested that it was the slavery imposed on the Africans taken to Haiti in chains that was devilish, not their successful bid for independence in 1804:
The Washington Post reported that by Friday morning, just days after the earthquake hit, Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti Foundation had raised more than $1.5 million.
Groups that vet charities are raising doubts about the organization backed by Haitian-born rapper Wyclef Jean, questioning its accounting practices and ability to function in earthquake-hit Haiti. Even as hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into The Wyclef Jean Foundation Inc. via text message, experts questioned how much of the money would help those in need.
”It’s questionable. There’s no way to get around that,” said Art Taylor, president and chief executive of the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance.
Undoubtedly, Jean's celebrity helped draw in donors: He's an internationally known musician from Haiti who won a Grammy with the Fugees and went on to a hugely successful solo career. But an analysis of the charity's tax returns raises questions about how it has spent money in the past, with administrative expenses that appear to be higher than comparable charities and payments to businesses owned by the musician and a board member, including $100,000 for a performance by Jean at a 2006 benefit concert.
"It seems clear that a significant amount of the monies that this charity raises go for costs other than providing benefits to Haitians in need," said Dean Zerbe, national managing director of Alliant Group, a tax services company, and the former tax counsel to the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees charities.
The concerns were first reported on The Smoking Gun Web site.
"It brings real caution for donors that want to help in Haiti that they might want to take a harder look at this organization but also consider the significant number of charities that have been doing good work in Haiti that don't have these question marks," Zerbe said.
Hugh Locke, president of Yele Haiti, said the charity does what others can't, because Jean gives it unusual access to the country's slums. He said the group hopes to spend a higher percentage of its budget on services as it gains experience. "I think people should be very comfortable that any money given to Yele Haiti is going 100 percent to emergency relief."
The earthquake prompted so much donor interest in Yele Haiti that its Web site crashed Thursday. Yele Haiti also is getting much publicity at events, including a fundraiser Monday at the 9:30 Club and a telethon next Friday hosted by actor George Clooney. It is collecting supplies Sunday in Miami and airlifting them to Port-au-Prince next week, Locke said. The charity provides scholarships, funds a soccer team, takes students on environmental-education camping trips and employs women to cook for schools, according to Yele Haiti. After a 2008 storm, it helped a food program distribute emergency rations to 6,000 families without violence, Locke said, organizing the community to distribute the food rather than sending in aid workers with armed guards. But its financial records raise questions, experts say. In 2006, Yele Haiti had about $1 million in revenue, according to tax documents. More than a third of the money went to payments to related parties, said lawyer James Joseph, who specializes in nonprofit issues. "It might be completely legitimate. But it's certainly something I would want to look into more carefully," Joseph said.
For instance, the charity recorded a payment of $250,000 to Telemax, a TV station and production company in Haiti in which Jean and Jerry Duplessis, both members of Yele Haiti's board of directors, had a controlling interest. The charity paid about $31,000 in rent to Platinum Sound, a Manhattan recording studio owned by Jean and Duplessis. And it spent an additional $100,000 for Jean's performance at a benefit concert in Monaco. Locke said that Jean and Duplessis were unavailable for comment Friday.
The Telemax money was used for "everything from public-service announcements to educational programming," said Jesse Derris of the public relations firm Sunshine, Sachs and Associates, which is representing Yele Haiti. They used their own company "because it was a way to buy time at a significant discount." The rent included office space and shared receptionist services for the charity and is "severely reduced" below market rate, Derris said. All the proceeds of the benefit concert went directly to Yele Haiti, he said. Locke said the $100,000 included expenses, such as payments to backup musicians and production costs.
Yele Haiti reported nearly $1.9 million in income on its 2008 tax return.
Wyclef Jean recently heard these comments and responded in a YouTube statement:
ALSO CHECK HIM OUT GETTING INTERVIEWED IN HAITI PRIOR TO THIS MESSAGE:
Rescue workers struggle to clear rubble and bodies from the streets of Haiti's "flattened" capital, where a government official said the death toll from Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake may exceed 100,000.
Thousands of injured people waited for care outside badly damaged hospitals, while an unknown number remained trapped inside collapsed buildings. Basic services like water and electricity were out, and Haitian President Rene Preval said his government needs help clearing streets so rescuers can reach some of the hardest-hit areas.
"We need medicine. We need medical help in general," Preval told CNN. "Some of the hospitals, they collapsed."
Phone lines are down as well. So it is extremely difficult to those not in Haiti to speak with their loved ones.
The Dominican Republic was the first country to give aid to Haiti in the aftermath of Tuesday's devastating earthquake. They set aside historic tensions, rushes heavy equipment to Haiti to help remove earthquake debris.
Superstar musician Wyclef Jean, a native of Haiti, has helped raise over $400,000 for his native country, thanks to text-message donations. Jean and the Miami-based Give On The Go campaign joined forces to encourage people from around the world to send a text message of "Yele" to 501501 on their mobile device which would then charge $5 to the donor's cellular phone bill.
Responding to the devastation from the Haiti earthquake, Obama administration officials on Wednesday temporarily suspended deportations of illegal immigrants from that country.
While still helping the relief, there are others that may say Haiti's energy and old ways may have caused this. American televangelist, Pat Robertson, has everyone wide eyed as some of his recent comments on the quake. Robertson said Haiti has had a "pack with the devil" for years while commenting on CBN News. You can watch the video below.
AGAIN, TO HELP GET RELIEF TO HAITI PLEASE TEXT "Yele" to 501501 to donate $5.
