Russell Simmons Moves BET Hip-Hop Awards Date

Russell Simmons has made a high powered call to BET to facilitate the network to move up the BET Hip-Hop Awards, AllHipHop had learned exclusively.

Initially the popular awards show was to fall on October 10, the same day as "Justice or Else," the anniversary of the Million Man March.

However, AllHipHop exclusively found that the Def Jam founder made a call to BET brass and negotiated the change to October 9th for the awards.

"Russell Simmons made a high level call to a BET executive respectfully requesting a date change due to "Justice Or Else" and BET mutually obliged and changed the date to October 9th," a source told AllHipHop exclusively.

Minister Louis Farrakhan has been touring the country heavily promoting the March and Hip-Hop acts have been involved. Most recently, Eminem had dinner with the minister in Detroit.