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Barack Obama’s presidential campaign says a new rhyme by supporter and rapper Ludacris is “outrageously offensive” to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Republican Sen. John McCain and President Bush.
The song brags about an Obama presidency being destiny. It uses an expletive to describe Clinton, calls Bush “mentally handicapped” and says McCain doesn’t belong in “any chair unless he’s paralyzed.”
The lyrics don’t spare the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who recently apologized for making crude comments about Obama. “If you said it then you meant it,” intones the rapper.
Obama’s campaign blasted “Politics as Usual,” which is on the “Gangsta Grillz: The Preview” mixtape with Atlanta spinner DJ Drama.
“As Barack Obama has said many, many times in the past, rap lyrics today too often perpetuate misogyny, materialism, and degrading images that he doesn’t want his daughters or any children exposed to,” campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in an e-mail statement Wednesday. “This song is not only outrageously offensive to Sen. Clinton, Rev. Jackson, Sen. McCain and President Bush, it is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear. While Ludacris is a talented individual he should be ashamed of these lyrics.”
Ludacris’ publicist and manager did not immediately return calls Wednesday for comment.
Just in case anybody had forgotten that Kobe Bryant has never won an NBA title without Shaquille O’Neal, the big man sent out a reminder.
The Phoenix Suns center can be seen rapping that “Kobe couldn’t do without me” in a video posted online at celebrity news and gossip site TMZ.com
During the two-minute video, a grinning O’Neal lurches through an improvised rap in which he skewers the Lakers’ star, with whom he won three straight NBA titles from 2000-2002 while with Los Angeles.
“I was freestyling. That’s all. It was all done in fun. Nothing serious whatsoever,” O’Neal told ESPN.com Monday. “That is what MC’s do. They freestyle when called upon. I’m totally cool with Kobe. No issue at all.”
O’Neal and Bryant last played together in 2004. After a long-simmering feud came to a boil in public, O’Neal was traded to Miami before the 2004-05 season, and won an NBA championship with the Heat in 2006.
Bryant and the Lakers didn’t reach the finals again until earlier this month, when the Boston Celtics beat them 4-2.
“You know how I be,” Shaq rapped. “Last week Kobe couldn’t do without me.”
O’Neal, who has recorded seven albums, also said he is “the difference between first and last place” and even took a jab at former New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing’s lack of championship rings.
This story and all other past blogs along with all the up-to-date blogs can be found at the new home of the iNPLACENEWS blog here
A Chicago jury has acquitted R. Kelly on all counts at his child pornography trial.
The verdict came six years after the R&B superstar was first charged with videotaping himself having sex with a young girl. Prosecutors had said she was as young as 13 at the time.
The Grammy award-winning singer dabbed his face with a handkerchief and hugged each of his four attorneys after the verdict was read. The singer had faced 15 years in prison if convicted.
Both Kelly and the now 23-year-old alleged victim had denied they were the ones appearing on the tape, which was played for the jury at the beginning and end of the trial.
The prosecution’s star witness was a woman who said she engaged in three-way sex with Kelly and the girl from the video. Defense attorneys argued the man on the tape didn’t have a large mole on his back, as Kelly does.
The jury of nine men and three women included the wife of a Baptist preacher from Kelly’s Chicago-area hometown, as well as a compliance officer for a Chicago investment firm and a man in his 60s who emigrated from then-Communist Romania nearly 40 years ago.
Jurors took the sex tape at the center of the trial with them, and a monitor was set up in the jury room in case they wanted to review it.
Kelly was charged with 14 counts of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl, who prosecutors say was as young as 13.
The 41-year-old superstar’s trial was repeatedly delayed, once because the judge seriously injured himself falling off a ladder and another time because Kelly had emergency surgery to remove his appendix.
In closing arguments, Kelly’s attorney banged on the jury box with his fist, yelled and whispered, laughed and pleaded for more than in hour in his emotion-filled closing.
At one point, Sam Adam Jr. referred to a defense argument made repeatedly during the trial that a mole on the singer’s back proved he simply can’t be the man in the video.
After displaying a freeze frame of the man’s back in the video — with no apparent mole — Adam walked over to the defense table and placed his hand on Kelly’s shoulder.
“The truth be told, there is no mole … that means one thing,” Adam told jurors, then paused and lowered his voice. “It ain’t him. And if it ain’t him, you can’t convict.”
Prosecutors wrapped up their arguments the same way they began them a month ago: by playing the entire graphic sex tape in open court.
The 27-minute film played on a monitor just outside the jury box — the lights switched off and the blinds pulled across courtroom windows — as Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Heilengoetter read through sections of the indictment.
Neither Kelly nor the alleged victim testified at trial. But as the video played Thursday, Heilengoetter told jurors the man on the tape is Kelly and that he controlled the encounter.
Kelly sat across the room from jurors at the defense table in a gray pinstripe suit, his hands folded in front of him. As the sex tape played, he appeared tense, keeping his eyes on the monitor, his mouth drawn tight and his brow furrowed.
Over seven days presenting their case, prosecutors called 22 witnesses, including several childhood friends of the alleged victim and four of her relatives who identified her as the female on the video.
In two days, the Grammy winner’s lawyers called 12 witnesses. They included three relatives of the alleged victim who testified they did not recognize her as the female on the tape.
During the trial, Kelly endeavored to make a good impression on jurors, always standing straight and folding his hands in front of him whenever they entered the courtroom. Jurors, in turn, made a good impression on Judge Vincent Gaughan, who repeatedly praised their attentiveness. All appeared to take careful notes, even when testimony became highly technical.
Rapper Treach from Naughty By Nature was given a ticket for driving with a suspended license after he was pulled over for driving the wrong way down a one-way street … all the while wearing a bulletproof vest.
Treach was busted yesterday in Newark, NJ. after police were called to the area because of a report of shots fired. Treach was pulled over in “the immediate area of the shooting incident” but Newark PD tells TMZ they have no suspect (or even a victim) and that Treach is only “a potential witness at this time.”
TMZ fun fact — it is not a crime to wear a bulletproof vest in New Jersey, unless it is worn during illegal activity. The more you know …
She may be just out of jail, but Foxy Brown still has a lot of legal issues ahead of her!
And, things have just gotten more complicated for the troubled rapper.
On Wednesday, Brown’s Florida lawyer, Fred Haddad, unexpectedly dumped her as a client on Wednesday in court.
Foxy is facing misdemeanor battery charges for an “incident” that happened at a Pembroke Pines beauty supply store last year. She got all Naomi on one of the workers!
Haddad told Judge Joel Lazarus that he was withdrawing from the case because of ”irreconcilable differences” with Brown.
The lawyer exploded on Brown’s handlers, who broke the news that her New York attorneys had brokered a plea deal with the state attorney’s office behind his back.
Haddad had spent the past few months preparing a case for trial.
Brown would receive six months probation if she accepted the plea deal.
”I think the problem is she doesn’t like me,” Haddad said. “I have a problem agreeing to a plea deal. I didn’t negotiate this. I put a ton of work into this case.”
As Kanye West is celebrating the triumphant success of his new “Glow in the Dark” tour, new reports are surfacing that rapper and his fiancee, Alexis Phifer, have split.
The couple had been engaged since 2006 when Kanye proposed to her in Italy while on vacation.
An insider told US Weekly that “Kanye is possessed by the tour and everything going on and just couldn’t keep it going. They are still friends and have broken up and gotten back together before, so it could work out.”
Alexis herself confirms the split, telling the mag, “It’s been hard and not been an easy time. I tried to keep things private but yes, it’s sad when things end like this and we truly do remain friends. I wish him the best in his future and all of his endeavors. He’s one of the most talented people I’ve ever met, that’s for sure.”
We’re sure Kanye’s not gonna have a problem finding a plethora of women wanting to date him now!
Nothing like a little flying glass to help preach non-violence!
Old-school rap legend KRS-One was hospitalized in New Haven, CT with a fractured hand last night when a “fan” threw a bottle on stage, striking the rapper in the head and hand. And get this: KRS was performing in New Haven on his Stop the Violence tour. Jesus take the freakin’ parking lot!
The concert-goer was upset because club security had removed him from the stage, according to AllHipHop.com. The rapper had to cancel several upcoming appearances due to the severity his injuries. The best thing, though? He kept rappin’ even after getting hit!
Posted by xperiencedskeptic 
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