SameOldShawn: Right before we came in here, we were looking at an essay you'd written about Angel Haze, and about her "Cleaning Out My Closet" freestyle. You talked about that as a watershed moment in terms of hip-hop and its more open talk about rape and rape culture, which is a term that's gaining some currency lately

I was curious to hear your thoughts about the Rick Ross incident, another thing that caused the term "rape culture" to be used in the popular discussion more than it had in any time in my recent memory

Michael P. Jeffries: The activists who have been working and trying to get us to understand not only the seriousness of rape, but to understand that the way we talk about rape is important, that we need to be honest about it, that we need to be unforgiving with the language -- it's important to understand there are grassroots people who have been fighting this battle for a long, long time. And the fact that it's now popping up around conversations that have to do with music is a tribute to their hard work

But with reference to this most recent event with Ross, I think one of the things that you're seeing now that's encouraging is that the apology -- whether it's a half-assed apology or a genuine apology -- the apology is insufficient now. This is an important step, because folks who are upset about these kinds of portrayals and the way rape is treated as something that's ordinary, and the rate at which victims are blamed, that's no longer acceptable. And apologizing for it is no longer acceptable. We're moving from apology to a culture of accountability and revolution

And that's what the anger is about. The anger isn't, they want Ross to say he's sorry. The anger is, they want accountability at all levels of the music industry and the other industries that we dabble in