A couple of news stories and fun facts on a lazy Friday...

A couple of news stories and some assorted fun facts I've always thought merited some publicity:

Ain't Not Stoppin' Us Now - Gamble and Huff receive honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music.

Minnesota Public Radio's Indie Music Station (Yes, there is a terrestrial FM indie music station that is commercial-free and available streaming!) is doing a show on Sunday night on the history and future of sampling in music. The blog site promoting the show, has a Youtube clip of Hank Shocklee (of Public Enemy's Bomb Squad fame) squaring off against George Clinton, who he sampled. I think Shocklee has the better of the argument. Check it out.

Sean Paul - After seeing Belly for the first time all the way through a few years back, I was trying to figure out the name of that song he performs (answer: Top Shotta (Here comes the Boom). This lead me to Sean Paul's Wikipedia page, which is filled with fun facts, including the fact that Sean Paul is partly of Jewish and Chinese descent, AND that he is the grandson and son of professional water polo players and actually was on the Jamaican national water polo team until age 21. Check that out.

Remember Shyne? Yes, that Shyne.



Well ever since he went down for that Puffy and J.Lo in the club business back in '01 - which for the record I always thought was a case of him being thrown under the bus by a certain Diddy - Shyne has been through 9 years of a 10 year jail sentence, and subsequently deported to Belize, his home country. Also, while in prison, he converted to Judaism after discovering that he was the descendant of an Ethiopian Jewish great-grandmother, changing his name to Moses Michael Leviy. Apparently when he got out in '09, the Immigration authorities decided to deport him, as he was not a U.S. citizen, although he had a green card. After a last-minute attempt to get N.Y. Governor David Paterson to intervene on his behalf, as he had for Slick Rick a couple of years ago, Shyne was deported to Belize in February of this year. Oh and did I mention that he is the "unwanted" son of Belize's current Prime Minister, who intervened on his behalf in the deportation proceedings but STILL couldn't keep the Feds from throwing him out of the country. So now we know. The US Government has a list that looks like this:

Pardonable Rappers
John Forte
Slick Rick

Unpardonable Rappers
Shyne

Shyne's real crime was sounding too much like Biggie. We all know that America killed Biggie and that Suge Knight is secretly running the country when not falling down in the streets and being filmed by TMZ.