A special section on vitriol in the art world! First, Getting a bum rap in court of public opinion: Often, there’s no rhyme, reason why hip-hop musicians are suspect, writes an African American music critic in the Boston Herald. Recent events suggest to some — populist black activist leader Al Sharpton and former O.J. Simpson attorney [will he ever live it down? does he want to?] Johnnie Cochran among them — that there is a ‘hip-hop profiling’ subgenre of ‘racial profiling’ abroad in the land, and that

we should expect people, especially police, to
distinguish between fantasy and reality. Just because someone poses
with guns on an album cover, brags about taking drugs, puffs up what
they would do to their enemies if given the chance, or mercilessly
harangues “soft” rappers as fake does not make them a criminal.

No one, for example, ever strip-searched country singer Johnny Cash
just because he sang, “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”
Cash has, in fact, sung so many songs about offing people that a
recent compilation of his music includes an entire CD of murder songs.

We’ve also seen a huge public outpouring of sympathy for Robert
Downey Jr. – a gifted but drug-addled white actor. Yet no one rushed
to the defense of Ol’ Dirty Bastard – a gifted but drug-addled black
rapper with essentially the same problems – when he was rearrested
after fleeing court-ordered rehabilitation.