Some days I wonder what New York's tabloid papers would do without hip-hop. The hip-hop music business courts controversy and much more, whether it is shootings, jailings or stupid prejudice. And half the time - even when there is blood on the floor - it seems as if the music business loves the free publicity. Here are some of the events of the past few months:
A police officer boasts of his friendship with hip-hop superstars until he is jailed for robbing drug dealers while off-duty.
Rapper Lil' Kim began serving a 366-day sentence on September 19 for lying to a federal grand jury about a 2001 shootout.
The Queens-born rapper 50 Cent's movie Get Rich or Die Tryin', which was criticised by some for promoting gun violence, was dropped by a theatre in Pittsburgh because a man was shot dead there on the opening night in November.
Earlier this month, a 29 year-old bodyguard to acclaimed rapper Busta Rhymes was gunned down outside a recording studio when hip-hop stars gathered there to film a video. This case made it abundantly clear that hip-hop stars seem to believe they live in a parallel universe. Rhymes kept his mouth firmly buttoned on the shooting, even though he was reportedly just a few metres away from the bodyguard at the time. Frustrated police and prosecutors are now trying to set up a grand jury to force the rapper and others to tell what they know.
Meanwhile, some in the industry say too much. Miss Jones, a disc jockey from the hip-hop radio station Hot 97, insulted the Asian community a year ago when she aired the Tsunami Song, mocking tsunami victims with racist slurs. And during the recent transit workers' strike, she dubbed the head of NewYork's powerful transit union - a Caribbean immigrant - a 'dumb coconut'. A group of council members is calling on people to boycott her programmes.
