Essence magazine is taking the rap industry to task.

The country’s largest Black woman's mag has started the ‘Take Back The Music' campaign as a year long in depth look into the way in which Black women are depicted in popular music (especially rap and hip-hop), movies, television , videos and the media. The year-long strategy  will include a February town meeting at famed Spelman College, which, back in April, protested against Nelly's sexist video for the track "Tip Drill," and forced him to cancel an appearance.

The entire Essence staff united to address what they see is a problem of global proportions.

"We started looking at the media war on young girls," editor Diane Weathers said. "[and examined] the hypersexualization that keeps pushing them in sexual directions at younger and younger ages."

The mag's editors were also inspired by Spelman's student protests.

"Then in April, there was the demonstration at Spelman College in Atlanta. The young women - supported by the men at Morehouse, by the way! - told the rapper Nelly that they didn't want him on campus because his work was too insulting."

“We are mothers, sisters, daughters and lovers of hip-hop," states the editors. "... we’re so alarmed at the imbalance in the depiction of our sexuality and character in music. The damage of this imbalanced portrayal of Black women is impossible to measure. An entire generation of Black girls are being raised on these narrow images. And as the messages and images are broadcast globally, they have become the lens through which the world now sees us. This cannot continue."

To learn more, visit Essence online.