Banner’s back…Part 1

Lavell Crump, aka David Banner, is a happy man. Only a little more than nine years ago, he walked on campus as president of Southern University’s Student Government Association. Surrounded by Southern’s festive Homecoming atmosphere, he is still a big man on campus, but he is no longer vocal about student fees and registration, he is now vocal on MTV, BET and practically every urban radio station as a platinum-selling rapper, producer.
But it wasn’t always like this for the alumnus Crump, who, only two years ago was invited by SGA President Wayne “Uncle Buck” Hayden to perform at Southern’s Homecoming Concert. And then the invite was rescinded.
“That really put a sour taste in my mouth,” Crump said, with disappointment. “I just wanted to see the school.”
A short time before Hayden announced he wanted Crump to appear as the concert headliner, a street team from a local radio station passed out David Banner snippets and CDs to students while visiting a high school. What they didn’t do was give edited versions to the young masses and that’s when the you-know-what hit the fan.
Not long after that, Hayden announced he planned to invite Crump for the concert, SU Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Raymond Downs laid down the law and said the rapper could not come because of bad publicity.
“How dare someone — a non-Southernite — tell me I can’t come to the school I attended,” Crump said. “I was the SGA president. I mean, I did the registration thing and sweated while I walked to class.
“Then once you become famous, the alumni wants to ask you for money,” he said. “I can’t support a school that doesn’t support me.”
For a while Downs, a Hampton graduate, was an enemy of the state and rumors started flying that one of Southern’s own was not welcomed on the very grounds he patrolled as a student representative.
“In my judgment, it was not an appropriate time to have him here,” Downs said. “I believed we shouldn’t have had him for the concert because of the issues he had with his material being distributed at schools we had the potential to recruit from.”
Imagine that — David Banner blacklisted. Just when his first mainstream hit “Like a Pimp,” featuring Lil’ Flip, was playing all over the airwaves.
An angry Hayden, along with a congregation of other angry students, blew up morning radio talk shows and took sides with Crump by voicing their disappointment in Southern’s administration.
Crump, meanwhile, turned into hip-hop’s Incredible Hulk.
“I was pissed off, I can’t lie,” Crump said. “When I was SGA president, no one could or couldn’t tell me who I couldn’t bring (for a concert). If the students wanted someone, then that’s who I brought. It’s about what they wanted.”
All of that has passed and now Downs is all thumbs up for having Crump back. Once Justin McCorkle, the current student government president, promised the student body that David Banner would be headlining the concert, not one rebuff was sent from student affairs.
“I figured if it would have been a problem, then I would have been told,” McCorkle said. “Having a past SGA president performing here motivates me as student government president to make homecoming more special.”
Downs said he has no hard feelings and perhaps he was misunderstood.
“I think it’s wonderful that he’s coming,” Downs said. “I never said he could never come, it was just the wrong time then. He’s an outstanding artist and if that’s what the students want, then no problem.
“His being here falls in with our theme. We’re honoring the past and chartering the future and we have a past SGA president to represent that.”
Crump said the bitterness has slowly, but surely subsided. But he is upset Grambling State invited him to perform three times before he could get clearance to come to Southern. He’s hurt the administration does not realize he will not wear any other historically black college paraphernalia unless it reps Southern U. Most of all, he is hurt it took so long to come home.
He said he still bleeds blue and gold and the welfare of Southern is a very serious issue to him. But the seriousness can rest for now.
“I’m just happy to be here,” Crump said. “I hate that it took so long, but it’s good to be back.
Part 2 of Banner’s Back will appear in the Oct. 18 issue of The DIGEST.