12 Most Embarassing Exposures in Hip-Hop
The Rick Ross exposĂ© is a reminder that everyone has skeletons in their closet. Rappers, like everyone else, have some dark, embarrassing secrets that they hope would remain just that - secrets. The difference between us and them is that public figures don’t have the privilege of being able to deal with embarrassing moments in private like the rest of us. But Ross isn’t the only rapper who’s had to lick his wounds in public. Here’s a rundown of 12 most embarrassing exposures in hip-hop history.
12. LA Times: Sorry, we duped you
In March 2008, LA Times writer Chuck Phillips ran a story that somehow tied Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jimmy “Henchman” Rosemond to the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur at Quad Recording Studios. The story, which was based on information obtained from unidentified FBI informants, claimed that Rosemond orchestrated an attack on 2Pac because he felt disrespected by the rapper. The Times further wrote he attack was supposed to be an assault disguised as a robbery, but escalated into a gun fight, resulting in ‘Pac being shot 5 times. Rosemond denied any involvement. Diddy called the report “false and ridiculous.” He was right.
Turns out the story was completely fabricated by a convicted con man who enjoys making a fool out of hip-hop journalists. Among several structural inconsistencies, the expose showed that some of the documents used in the story had been typed on a typewriter, even though the feds stopped using typewriters 30 years ago. LA Times promptly apologized for their journalistic failure. Said Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin in his statement: “We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck’s. I deeply regret that we let our readers down.” Needless to say, Chuck Philips was laid off after that fiasco.
11. Sigel, Who Shot Ya?
Sigel, born Dwight Grant, told police that four assailants jumped out of two cars and robbed him of $75,000 worth of jewelry, including a platinum chain and a watch, as well as $3,000 in cash. One of the attackers let off four shots. One bullet hit Sigel’s left shoulder. He then drove himself to a nearby emergency room at the University of Pennsylvania’s hospital.
Although the incident occurred in a residential neighborhood, nobody heard any gunshots. Worse still, cops were unable to find any shell casings on the street where he claimed he was shot. The street in question? McClellan Street, only a few blocks from the Sigel street that inspired Beanie’s stage moniker. A coincidence?
10. Dancing Dre
At the height of the Eazy-E vs Dr. Dre beef in 1992, the feuding friends traded insults non-stop. Just when it appeared as if Dre had sealed the deal with “Dre’s Day,” Eazy-E rebounded with “Real Muthafuckin’ Gs.” Eazy-E attacked Dre and Snoop, dubbing them studio gangsters who had never really witnessed the harsh realities of the “hood,” but that wasn’t the highlight. He devoted plenty of airtime to Dre’s past as a member of the electro-pop group World Class Wrecking Cru’ saying that he dressed in drag outfit while in the group. “Damn it’s a trip how a nigga can go so quick from wearing lipstick to smoking on chronic at picnics,” he rapped. Eazy also threw in a promo pic of Dre from 1986 dressed in pumps and mascara to boot.
9. Officer Rick Ross
It’s no news that Rick Ross modeled his rap persona after a famous drug kingpin, Freeway Rick Ross. In reality, Ross’ past most resembles that of the men who cuff drug dealers than a kingpin. When pictures of a young Rick Ross in prison guard uniform turned up on the ‘net, Rick Ross denied the reports vehemently, and insisted that it was a doctored image aimed at assassinating his character.
A bottomless pile of documents from the Florida State Department of Corrections later revealed that Rick Ross had, in fact, worked as a Corrections Officer. Ross’ case of a fabricated past is nothing unique in the music industry. He later explained his motivation: “In the game we in, it’s real competitive,” said Ross. “Competitors have to do what they have to do to eat.”
8. Eve the Stripper & Sex Tape Star
When Harlem rapper-turned-pastor Ma$e ran into Eve at a strip club years before she became a rap star, but he never mentioned it to anyone. Some internet jerk who stumbled upon pictures of Eve from her stripping days, on the other hand, wasn’t so nice. In 2003, as Eve was in the middle of revamping her image in her new career as an artist and actress, unflattering pics of her in full-on stripper outfit surfaced on the web to the surprise of many. Some of the photos showed the Ruff Ryders’ first lady in a compromising position with another woman. She later denied being a lesbian, saying that the other lady had been Photoshopped into the original pictures.
But there was nothing Photoshopped about the sex tape which turned up a couple years after the stripper expose. The clip, recorded in 1999, showed Eve and ex-boyfriend Stevie J getting their freak on, sex toys and all. Even though it was less than 30-seconds long, that didn’t keep Internet voyeurs from feasting their eyes on the explicit homemade tape. Eve was so infuriated by the leak that she not only issued a cease-and-desist to the sites hosting her sex tape, she also hired a private investigator to figure out how it got out. But we never really got to the, er, bottom of that case, did we?
7. Young Buck, a Cry Baby
Before he was unceremoniously dismissed from 50 Cent’s G-Unit crew, Young Buck spent plenty of time airing the group’s dirty laundry. In various interviews, the Tennessee rapper claimed 50 owed him some royalties and that he was getting screwed in his deal. To stir up buzz for G-Unit’s T.O.S. album, 50 unleashed an old phone conversation with Buck to the web. Throughout the call, Young Buck mentioned that he owes 50 some money while telling his boss about his own financial plight. At some point, he broke down over his dismissal from the Unit, “Sh*t got me confused, man,” he said repeatedly. To which 50 Cent coyly replied, “You’ll be alright, don’t worry about it.”
6. Eminem’s N-Bomb Fiasco
In a desperate attempt to paint Eminem as a racist who’s only out to exploit hip-hop, The Source founders Benzino and Dave Mays emerged with a tape that found a 17-year old Eminem using the N-word. On one of the songs from the 1988 tape, an amateurish Eminem spewed hateful venom at black women: “All the girls I like to bone have big butts/No they don’t, ’cause I don’t like that nigger shit/I’m just here to make a bigger hit.”
Eminem later explained that he rapped those lines out of anger, having been dumped by his black girlfriend. He issued several statements apologizing for the ignorance. Eminem may have allowed his exasperation with an ex-girl to bring out the worst in him, but the tape hardly made a dent on his reputation as a respected MC. Everyone from 50 Cent to Skillz came to Em’s defense on the issue. After all, it’s hard to argue that a rapper who embedded himself in a predominantly black culture his whole life and helped pave the way for one of today’s most successful black artists is a closet racist. Still, Em felt the need to explain the circumstances surrounding those songs and took the time to detail the entire saga on “Yellow Brick Road,” one of his best songs ever.
5. Lies, Lies, Baby
For a while in 1990 or thereabout, everyone on the planet was combing through Vanilla Ice’s past to see they could find any discrepancies in his stories. Ice repeatedly told the media that he had been raised in the mean streets of Miami. Adding salt to injury, Ice gave 3 different accounts of an incident, in which he claimed he was stabbed 5 times and lost half of his blood.
It was later revealed that the tough-talking Ice wasn’t raised in the streets. Robert van Winkle actually spent the better part of his teen life in an affluent Dallas suburb. His stories about attending an all-black Florida high school and living a rugged life of crime were revealed to be tall tales
4. The Sauce
When The Source suddenly went bankrupt, the last explanation their Board of Directors expected was: “Ray and Dave squandered all the money on weed and bling.” Like a 7-headed dragon, their problems multiplied daily. A Manhattan lithographer sued for $30,000. A 5th Ave. jeweler wanted $36,000. The magazine’s travel agent wanted $142,000.
As if that wasn’t enough, former Editor-in-Chief Kim Osorio filed a sexual harassment lawsuit. Osorio’s description of The Source work environment sounded like something straight out of a Benzino song: a “raunched-out workplace where executives watched porn, smoked pot and called female employees bitches.” A federal jury in Manhattan awarded a whopping sum of $14.5 million to Kim for her troubles. Benzino response? “She’s a slut.”
2. Akon: Ex-con or Con-man?
Akon has repeatedly embellished his past in interviews and on his songs. He often touts his past reputation as the ring leader of a notorious car theft ring. He claims to have been locked up for 31/2 years. His claim to fame was a catchy single titled “Locked Up,” in which ‘Kon gave a seemingly autobiographical account of prison desolation. In fact, Akon was so obsessed with his felonious past that he named his label Konvict Music. That sound you hear at the beginning of every song he produces? That’s the sound of a clanking jail door.
A Smoking Gun investigation of Akon’s alleged criminal past revealed some discrepancies. Akon has been arrested several times, but the man who titled his 2nd album Konvicted has never served time. The 3+ years he claimed to have spent in jail and his claim of being felony were all fabricated, according to TSG. The website also found that he was convicted of only one felony (gun possession). Akon got off with 3 years probation in that case.
2. Two-Face Cam’ron
In an April 2007 appearance on CBS’ 60 Minutes to discuss the impact of snitching on the black community, Anderson Cooper asked Diplomats co-founder Cam’ron whether he would cooperate with the police if he knew that a murderer lived next door to him. Cam’s response defied reasoning and ignored common sense: “If I knew the serial killer was living next door to me? I wouldn’t call and tell anybody on him. But I’d probably move,” he replied. “I’m not going to call and be like, ‘The serial killer’s in 4E.’”
Cam said, at the time, that snitching was bad for business as far as hip-hop goes. He maintained that it was in strict violation of his code of ethics and he would never condone it under no circumstances whatsoever. After a Smoking Gun investigation unearthed document that showed Cam’ron clearly cooperating with law enforcement following a beatdown at a Harlem playground, Cam was suddenly singing from a different hymn book. He quickly issued a statement apologizing for the comments on 60 Minutes. “Looking back now, I can see how those comments could be viewed as offensive, especially to those who have suffered their own personal tragedies or to those who put their lives on the line to protect our citizens from crime,” said Cam. “I in no way was intending to be malicious or harmful. I apologize deeply for this error in judgment.”
1. Nas and Jay-Z Had Something in Carmen:
There are so many theories on why Jay-Z and Nas suddenly found themselves embroiled in one of the most memorable feuds in hip-hop history. Was Nas jealous of Jay’s commercial exploits? Was Jay dissing Nas’ baby mama on “Is That Your Chick”? Nas’ ex-girlfriend Carmen Bryan will tell you that she’s the unintentional brain behind the beef. Probably out of respect, both Jay-Z and Nas tried at first to conceal the fact that Carmen, who has a daughter with Nas, had anything to do with the battle. Here’s Jay-Z on the classic Nas diss “Takeover”: “You know what with you know who, but let’s keep that between me and you.” Nas on “Last Real Nigga Alive”: “She hit the streets , later on she hittin’ the sheets With a rapper who wanted me on his songs.”
In her Superhead-esque memoir, It’s No Secret: From Nas to Jay-Z, from Seduction to Scandal–a Hip-Hop Helen of Troy Tells All, Carmen Bryan revealed intimate details of her affairs with Allen Iverson, Jay-Z and Nas and how it impacted the beef. Here’s an excerpt from her book: “Throughout our clandestine relationship Shawn [Jay-Z] had made many references to me in his lyrics. But he had never said anything negative or explicit and had never used his relationship with me to taunt Nas.This was turning into an urban soap opera with me in a leading role as the femme fatale.”
The beef culminated with Jay-Z finally admitting to an affair with his biggest rival’s fiancee on “Super Ugly,” featuring these infamous lines: “Me and the boy A.I. got more in common than just ballin’ and rhymin’/ Get It? More in Carmen/ I came in ya Bentley backseat/ Skeeted in Jeep/ Left condoms in tha baby seat.” Disgusted by her son’s actions, Jay’s ma dukes demanded that he apologize publicly to Nas and his family. He obliged.
One more thing…
While I understand that combing the past of public figures for funny lies makes for good entertainment, it’s reached a pathetic peak at this point. No disrespect to anyone who takes the time to investigate the past of those who dictate a big chunk of our reality, but it’s not news that rappers typically beef up their background with the kind of movie-like menace they believe music fans desire from rap stars. Most young adults I know are aware that 90% of rap lyrics are about as real as the stunts you see in movies.
In other words, fabrication is an inextricable element that has been woven into the fabric of hip-hop culture. My advice to a new rap consumer is this: Take what you find useful, discard the rest as chaff, and move on with your life. The problem with faking jacks is that younger listeners who buy rap records often take their distorted depiction of reality literally, and the psychological consequences of this trend is undeniable. That said, the issue is far more complex than many are willing to admit. It’s easy to pound on phony rappers for faking the funk, but you can’t effectively address the situation by ignoring their financial motivation — companies who benefit immensely from music that depicts black people in a negative light.
What’s going on in hip-hop, while absolutely inexcusable, is no worse than what happens in politics. In fact, you could argue that politicians affect our lives in way more serious ways than any rapper could. So, what’s worse? An artist who fabricates his past to earn a living in an extremely competitive music environment, one which encourages such fabrication, or a president whose lies leave thousands of people dead, thousands more injured, and half-a-trillion dollars in debt for our kids and grand-kids to shoulder? You be the judge.
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