Reminding everybody that you don’t become a mogul by not grabbing hold of the zeitgeist and riding it for all its worth, Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons has announced that he’s launching his own movie awards show, set to debut just four days before the Academy Awards. Playing off of the #OscarsSoWhite movement, the All Def Movie Awards will see Beasts of No Nation, Chi-raq, Concussion, Creed, Dope and Straight Outta Compton compete for the best picture award, feted by attendees who enter the event—set for February 24, at the former Mann’s Chinese theater—by walking down a black carpet. (Simmons hasn’t said anything about how the committee for best picture—or the equally prestigious “best bad muh fucka” and “best helpful white person” awards—was chosen, but we’re going to guess it was something like, “whoever the hell Russell Simmons wants.”)
“The All Def Movie Awards are not the Black Oscars,” Simmons said in a statement, “But they could be. This will be a fun, entertaining and hopefully thought-provoking celebration of the uncelebrated.” The show is being planned as part of Def Jam’s regular All Def Comedy Live show, and—in a move we have to applaud as a pretty masterful piece of Oscars-directed trolling—will be hosted by Chris Rock’s little brother, stand-up comic Tony Rock.