Known for the hottest top ten videos and "livest" audience in the country, BET's 106 & Park introduced a new controversial video to its audience Friday, titled "Read A Book." The first aired creation of BET's new animation department headed by Denys Cowan, BET's senior vice president for Animation, "Read A Book" is guaranteed to strike a nerve. The video takes several visual staples of hip-hop videos past and present (Spinning rims, shaking posteriors, firearms), and has lyrics that encourage the viewer to do such things as "read a book," "buy land" and "brush your teeth." Sound crazy? It is!


Written, recorded and produced by Bomani Ahmer, "Read A Book" uses an irresistible beat on which to place the catchy, overly repeated lyrics. But instead of exhorting the listener to dance as much of current hip-hop does, he takes the opportunity to suggest ways through which people can better their lives. The song came to the attention of BET and the decision was made to have BET Animation create a video. "The best animation can get very complex messages across with great clarity and humor. The song 'Read A Book,' has such a powerful message that we thought it would be fun and thought provoking for our audience," said Cowan. "This video a great example of how the best animation can convey complex messages with great clarity and humor".


Friday July 20, 106 & Park aired the video as the "New Joint Of The Day" and encouraged the audience to go to BET.com/onblast to see the video again and to go to BET.com to chat about it. In the coming weeks, fans of the video can look forward to watching "Read A Book" on BET On Demand and through Verizon VCast. "This song and video uses expletives (deleted) and raw images. Airing this video may be risky but, we feel it's a risk we're willing to take," explains Stephen G. Hill, BET's executive vice president of music programming. "It's a brilliantly done satire and we certainly trust that our audience will find the humor and the message in the piece".