An update on this story. The unresolved question: Would, er, Mr. Rhymes apologize so readily for appropriating symbols of any other religion or culture, or offending sensibilities?
"US rap artist apologises to Arabs over song," by Tom Spender for The National, December 10 (thanks to L.E.):
DUBAI // The American rap star Busta Rhymes has reportedly apologised to Arabs and Muslims after one of his songs was criticised at home and abroad, including by a Dubai-based rapper who said it was demeaning.
UAE-born Yassin Alsalman, who records under the name Narcicyst, said the artist called him to explain that he did not mean to offend with his single Arab Money.
The video for the song shows Rhymes rapping about the Burj Dubai hotel, depicts him gambling with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and posing in front of expensive cars.
The track can no longer be heard on radio stations or bought in shops, but can still be downloaded online. Alsalman said Rhymes said the track would also be removed from the internet.
After hearing the song, Alsalman felt compelled to record his own song, The Real Arab Money, in response. He posted it on the internet and was astonished to receive a phone call from Rhymes.
“He pulled the track and the remix that came out with it after the negative feedback going on in the Arab and Muslim community,” said Alsalman, 26. “He called me personally and said he wanted to tell the Arab and Muslim community that he apologised. He said he was grateful for their reaction and he would take whatever steps were required to clarify the situation.
“What he did was an extremely commendable act as a man. He said that he would have felt the same reaction if he thought someone was disrespecting his culture as an African American. He said he wanted to respect Arab culture because it deserves appreciation and so he was pulling his song.”
The song has also been controversial in the UK, where this month a DJ was suspended from Galaxy Radio for playing Arab Money after the station received complaints. “Galaxy would like to apologise to all our listeners for the airing of this song. It was never Galaxy’s intent to offend its listeners and never will be,” the company said.
Alsalman said the portrayal of Arabs in the song reflected deeper cultural misunderstandings between the US and the Middle East.
“It was the cultural consultancy of the song that was a problem, if you will,” he said. [...]
Whatta wuss.
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It's easy to act all tough and "gangsta" around a bunch of shy, guilt ridden liberals.
No so easy facing down a crowd of screaming jihaddis.
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Big phony gutless wuss.
“What he did was an extremely commendable act as a man. He said that he would have felt the same reaction if he thought someone was disrespecting his culture as an African American. He said he wanted to respect Arab culture because it deserves appreciation and so he was pulling his song.”
....................
What a load. Busta Rhymes has some of the most profane lyrics in rap (which is saying a lot)--endless dreary rants about doin' hos and cappin' niggas.
more:
Alsalman said the portrayal of Arabs in the song reflected deeper cultural misunderstandings between the US and the Middle East.
“It was the cultural consultancy of the song that was a problem, if you will,” he said.
....................
The idea that Busta Rhymes (of all people) has "cultural consultancy" for his raps is ludicrous.
Sample lyrics from "A Quarter to Cutthroat":
Party respect to yardie it's a rude, boy.
Type inna everybody. white, black, to chinie pass the heini, onset offset.
No prisoners at war a quarter to cutthroat is the new school law.
You better be in by sundown.
Sending death threats from miles around.
Busta bust down with the surround sound.
Tic tac tic. ready to pickins hip-hop easy listning.
Time to take order 'cause it's a quarter to cut.
What, what you can't front.
Sample lyrics to "Against all Odds":
Destroy all arch rivals or any challenger
Make you remember this day, nigga, mark it on your calendar
I'm showing you something you ain't saying nothing
My niggas make noise like a bunch of volcanoes erupting
None of y'all niggas really wanna war
The type of nigga to crash my plane in your building in the name of the law...
....................
How do you like the last line? Sounds like a badass reference to 9/11 to me. And yet it wasn't upset Infidels who got him to withdraw a song. No, it was members of the "Religion of Peace". What a p*ssy!
Go ahead MF's, try to make me apologize for that:
http://sheikyermami.com/2006/12/20/the-imam/
Politically naive dirtbag raps it as he sees it, then gets a crash course on political correctness from his financiers, and quickly censors his own music. New name: Censa Rhymes
Rhymes is a wimp and a whore who lives for one thing...the filthy lucre.
And they have the nerve to call this garbage music?
Caving to censorship? So Larry Flynt and Robert Spencer are more 'gangast' than Busta Rhymes. Thought so.
That song was awesome. I'm not even into hip-hop, except some older, not really hip-hop stuff like Digable Planets and really old rap, like RUN DMC, but I really liked that song. Thank God for YouTube.
What a nancy bitch.
I have hated loathed despised and gaped incredulously at rap culture for twenty something years and consider it the cultural equivalent of AIDS. The whole ethos of rap and the glorification of the criminal mind is a tragedy. It does have a certain virile crudity and misogynist vigor like....well like Islam.
poetcomic1,
If music is banned in Islam,and if RAP is not music, then RAP is all we would hear if the world became Islamic.
Preventing that from happening alone is worth dying for. Better be getting your Bose anti-noise headphones soon.
On to this article: I always knew most RAP "singers" were pathetic, narcissistic, unimaginative, and cowardly. The last thing anyone would call one is a real man.
Yet ANOTHER reason to strike Dubai off my list of places to see before I die.
Admirable display of courage.
Gee. It's OK for a rap artist to slime Western society, but it's not OK to criticize Arab society.
He's a hypocrite. He's a gutless hypocrite. The Islamic society that objects to the study of the Koran in unsanctioned methods are also a bunch of sissies. If their book is so great, and if their scholarship is good, they have nothing to fear.
Arab Islamic society must feel awfully inferior to be objecting to this sort of criticism. People misquote and misrepresent the Bible all the time. You don't see many religious leaders of the Jewish and Christian varieties barking commands over things like this.
This is a case of two insecure and angry groups of people. One is so insecure that they scream threats at anything that resembles an offense; and the other is a rude twit who uses his art to be offensive to most people. They deserve each other.
FWIW:
There appears to have been a musical exchange between Busta and ?
(mp3)Arab musical response
Busta appears to respond to above with (mp3)busta rhymes arab money-remix
Having reread and tried to make sense of the 'lyrics' (if that word even applies) I do believe that Mr. Rhymes was not being satirical but deeply and sincerely wanted some of that 'Arab Money'.
Just in from Davey, one of my readers:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c68_1188723453&c=1
Giant pussy Rhymes worships Allah, 'the most high'...
Sheik, You beat me to it this time, but the comments here are a gas
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm0dhky6wFk
Posted by: blangwort
This is a case of two insecure and angry groups of people. One is so insecure that they scream threats at anything that resembles an offense; and the other is a rude twit who uses his art to be offensive to most people. They deserve each other.
Sorry I will have to correct you
It happens to be one type person in this case who is insecure and angry rude twit who uses his ? art ? to be offensive to most people.
On August 20, 2006, he was arraigned for charges of third-degree assault after attacking a man who reportedly spat on his car in New York City on August 12 after the AmsterJam Music Festival on Randalls Island.
On October 24, 2006, he appeared at Manhattan Criminal Court as the district attorney's office attempted to amend previous charges against him to include weapons possession for a machete found in his car. The judge, ShawnDya Simpson, refused to add the charge and adjourned the case.
On February 20, 2007, Smith refused a plea deal offered by the prosecutors office for the assault of his former driver, Edward Hatchett. The deal would have entailed six months in jail and pleading guilty to two assaults, the attack on Hatchett, and the attack on the former fan. The dispute with Hatchett is believed to have been originated over back pay Hatchett felt he was owed. Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Becki Rowe offered Smith another option, pleading guilty to third-degree assault. The conditions of the proposed sentence would include five days of community service, two weeks of youth lectures and six months of anger management classes, as well as three years of probation. On March 18, 2008 a judge in New York City sentenced Smith to 3 years' probation, 10 days' community service, $1250 in fines (plus court costs), and to enroll in a drunken driving program.
On September 25, 2008, he was temporarily refused entry to the UK due to "unresolved convictions".
Busta shows his true manhood.
Nada.
It's just a black gangster showing his respect for the Original Original G -- Mohammed.
Ah, he claims to be a Muslim. Now his submission to Islamic Arab supremacism--and I don't hear him apologizing to any Christian Arabs--makes some sense.
A call to all Rappers..
Do not lie about Islam.
Speak the truth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8789NMWZ9EI