Magic Johnson Reveals Plans To Team Up With Rappers To Educate On Homophobia & HIV/AIDS

20 years after shocking the world with the announcement that he had contracted the HIV virus, retired NBA star Magic Johnson plans to team up hip-hop stars to address the life-threatening disease and homophobia in the genre.
The 52-year-old NBA great, who has been living with HIV since 1991, recently spoke with the Huffington Post in which he revealed that he wants to unite emcees to speak about homophobia and stereotypes about HIV and AIDS.
Being a hip-hop fan himself, Johnson said that homophobia is still a big issue within the genre and in the black community in general, with men and women "scared to talk about it." This, he credits, to helping spread of the disease.
In a new campaign, he will enlist the help of rappers to change this.
"What we're trying to do is reach out to the hip-hop community because they have power -- power with their voice, power with that mic in their hand and power with the lyrics that they sing," Johnson stated. "I have a lot of friends in [the hip-hop] industry and so what we're trying to do is rally them to get behind the cause, deliver the message to these young people that HIV and AIDS is big and it's not going anywhere. They can make a difference right away by speaking out, because they have a big fan base."
Johnson will debut the campaign in 2012, where he'll revealed which hip-hop stars have agreed to take part.
"We've got about five or six people that we're talking to," he disclosed. "We're going to come out next year with everybody and we'll have a nice big press conference and what we're going to do, what our plan is, because it's so important that we rally -- not just them, either. I need the hip-hop community but I also need the basketball players and football players. We need a little bit of everybody, so that's what we're working on now."