Don’t know if any of you guys went to Miami’s Art Basel this past weekend – it’s an annual festival of art and culture featuring selections from galleries and art collections from around the world. I got a chance to go down for one night to a party at the home of promoter and real estate renovator Michael Capponi in honor of music and poetry guru, vegan and yoga practitioner Russell Simmons and the Diamond Empowerment Fund, the organization he created to help disadvantaged people in diamond-producing African nations. He and his former wife, model, fashionista and reality diva Kimora Lee Simmons, are the owners of Simmons Jewelry, and wanted to explore how the diamond industry empowers Africans.

The DEF has partnered with several organizations, including DeBeers, Zales and Steinmetz Diamond Group, and several celebrities including Brett Ratner, Holly Robinson Peete, Kim Kardashian, Reggie Bush and Cincinnato Reds manager Dusty Baker. (“We’re trying to get LeBron James for our Athletes for Africa group,” Simmons says. “I’d like him to read this.”) Their goal is empowerment through education for African children, supporting the CIDA City Campus and the African Leadership Academy, both in South Africa.

I’ve met Russell a couple of times before, once at a party on Palm Beach and once when we co-judged a student poetry slam sponsored by Palm Beach Association of Black Journalists. During that slam, I spent about 40 minutes with him, but I was struck by his committment.  I also noticed that he’s a friendly guy who’s always looking around the room – which means that it took some doing interviewing him at a party, whose guests included “Real Housewives of New York”‘s Kelly Bensimon.

The other partygoers were obviously very interested in hanging out with Russell Simmons, and a couple of times, people, including some hot girls, ducked into the room where we were talking and I was like ‘Hello? Interview!” Anyway, I wound up with a few very friendly, very chill minutes with one of the men responsible for the popularity and domination of hip-hop culture, as well as the resurgeance of the popularity in poetry with his “Def Poetry Jam” show on HBO.

Question: I think a lot of people in this country weren’t really aware of the politics surrounding the extraction of diamonds until relatively recently.

Answer: I think a lot of people saw the movie (2006′s “Blood Diamond”). It’s something people didn’t know about before. The main thing was to be a voice of reason. I just spoke to Nelson Mandela about this. There are so many economies that live or die by diamonds, where 80 percent of their revenue is what comes out of the ground. We’re giving love back to Africa.

Q: Explain the difference between what the blood diamond issue is, which was about diamonds mined sometimes with slave labor, used to fund warlords where the money didn’t benefit the citizens at all, and the goals of the Diamond Empowerment Fund…The general consensus is that diamonds were hurtful to Africa, but there are many cases where they’re not.

A: Our goal is to push the industry. “Blood Diamond” (and the real-life issue) inspired the industry to do good works. We’ve done a lot – I visited the (ALA) and got to meditate with the kids…We’ve made it possible for them to have free college (through the City Campus) at a much bigger facility….We can’t afford for Africans to leave Africa. We want them to go back to their communities.

Q: Did you have any idea that when you started “Def Poetry Jam” that you were going to help repopularize poetry in a culture and to a generation that might not be exposed to it?

A: Who would know that? (laughs). I’m an entreprenuer, but I’m also a philanthropist. I like my energy to be lifting consciousness, as a vegan and a yogi. I want to be known for that, and I’d like to use my relationships with different communities to do that.

Q: When we judged that poetry contest a few years ago together, I think everyone was so impressed because everyone was aware that you’re a big star who didn’t have to be there.

A: I gotta be there! (laughs) Where else am I gonna be?