A.J. Calloway told an Orangeburg audience Wednesday why he walked away from national stardom as the host of a popular BET music video countdown show.

The nation’s most popular lyrics and videos have gotten so vulgar, “I couldn’t watch my own show with my niece on my lap,” he told a shocked but supportive audience at South Carolina State University.

“What you see on the television isn’t the reality,” Calloway said. Women don’t really wear bikini tops as they chat with Rolex-wearing men, drinking expensive liquor, in fancy nightclubs.

“Pick your five favorite songs,” Calloway said. “Write down every word that’s in your favorite songs. Read it back to yourself and think about what that has put into your head.”

“Understand internally what you’re taking into your soul and into your system. Really look at it,” he said. “You might say it doesn’t do anything, but I’m telling you, it does.”

Calloway remembers growing up in suburban New Jersey: “They spray-painted on my house ‘n——- get out,’ they cut my dog, they slashed my tires, they burned my lawn,” he said.

“I knew that there were so many people up against us that I (vowed to) never do anything against my race,” he said.

Fast-forward to his BET job. “I felt like I was hurting us by doing what I was doing,” he said.

“I’m not here to bash hip-hop,” he said. “I’m definitely a fan of clean music.”

It’s the disrespectful, destructive music that “is not reflecting ... where we came from and where we need to go as a people,” he said.

“We’re so lost in the music, we don’t understand the reality of what’s happening day to day in our lives,” he said. “I see how it has changed the mind-set and soul of our people. Across the nation, we’re totally asleep. We’re all at one big party.”

“All those institutions that are out to bring down (blacks) don’t have to work any more because we’re doing it to ourselves. ... They’re laughing at us,” Calloway said.

“So I’m saying to you all, get a reality check and understand what’s happening on a day to day basis. Open your eyes. Understand what’s going on in government. Read a newspaper,” he said.

Improving the lot of African-Americans “doesn’t have to do with (non-blacks). It has to do with us: the way we look at each other, the way we dress, the way we represent ourselves, definitely what we say to each other,” Calloway said.

“If you’re a student, act the part. Dress like a student. Walk and talk like a student,” he said.

“And if you want to be a thug, be a thug, and get shot and locked up. When I went to school, everybody I know that acted that way, that’s what happened to them. They’re either dead or they’re incarcerated. And that’s it, bottom line. There’s no in-between. All the kids that sat in the back of the class and talked a certain way and acted a certain way, are dead or locked up. Period.”

“I don’t want to be preachy or anything, I’m just speaking from my own experience.”

He came to SCSU as a member of the Black Student Today Panel.

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