Suge Knight, one of the most controversial figures in music, will speak Thursday (February 14) to a contingent of the hip-hop community that will gather to discuss the future roles of rap in society.

Knight, along with comedian and radio personality Steve Harvey, will give opening remarks at the West Coast Hip-Hop Summit at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.

Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, will follow with the keynote address, according to a spokesperson for the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, which is organizing the event (see ).

Afterwards, invited artists, politicians, music executives and religious leaders will convene behind closed doors to tackle many of the same issues Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Ja Rule and others discussed at last year's inaugural summit in New York (see ).

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, who launched the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network last year (see ); Minister Benjamin Muhammad, the network's president; and Bay Area radio personality Davey D will be among the attendees at the West Coast Hip-Hop Summit, along with rappers Xzibit, Kurupt, the D.O.C., DJ Quik and others.

Issues on the table include becoming more politically active, economically empowering impoverished communities and fighting federal censorship. Muhammad, the moderator of the meetings, will announce plans by the network to support spoken-word artist Sarah Jones, who is battling the Federal Communications Commission over the banning of one of her pieces of work about hip-hop.

The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, which held a youth summit in January in New York (see "Nas, P. Diddy, Wu-Tang Addressing Youth At NY Hip-Hop Summit"), will hold its second national summit in Los Angeles in June, the spokesperson said. National issues will be discussed at that event.

Last year's summit, titled "Taking Back Responsibility," resulted in the formation of a mentoring program and an agreement for a new set of marketing guidelines (see "P. Diddy, Jermaine Dupri Help Announce Hip-Hop Initiatives").

Knight was recently released from prison, where he served five years on charges stemming from a 1992 assault (see ) and is currently recruiting artists for his new label, Tha Row (see "Left Eye Signs With Suge Knight's Tha Row").