Big in the news this week was the shooting of a security guard outside of Drake’s Toronto mansion. On CBC radio this morning a guest was explaining the complex relationship between these rappers. Apparently, they diss each other in song, threaten to reveal embarrassing secrets and do reveal embarrassing secrets about one another in song. Rather than taking their matters to court or shrugging it off, they continue to poke one another. In this case, Drake and Kendrick Lamar have some beef with one another.
Musicians and musical artists lead complex lives. I enjoy writing songs and getting into the studio to record. Something tells me I’ll never be invited to galas or have a big tour, however. Perhaps my lack of fame keeps me grounded. This week we’ll look at some musical artists who got themselves in trouble with the law. In each case the common thread may be that their ego played a role.
(Don’t) Touch Me
The 80s were a time of big hair, and few had bigger hair than singer and model Samantha Fox. She was famous for an 80s hit, Touch Me (I want to feel your body) which described a woman luring a man by using herself as bait.
Earlier this year she was ejected from a British Airways flight from London to Munich for getting into a dispute with another passenger while drunk. She was arrested and spent the night in jail. 80s singers are people too. They’re only human, born to make mistakes.
From record breaking to chair breaking
I know a country music artists and he finds it difficult to reconcile his rough-and-tumble outlaw image with his law-and-order good-guy image. One thing I have noted is that country music artists usually apologize right away when they’ve done something wrong.
When Morgan Wallen threw a chair off a rooftop bar in Nashville, nearly hitting two police officers, he apologized right away. Back in September country singer Zach Bryan was arrested at a traffic stop after challenging state troopers to arrest him and take him to jail.
Bryan is said to have observed one of his security guards being pulled over by a state trooper for an alleged traffic offence. Bryan had been stopped by the Oklahoma highway patrol himself only a few days earlier and it seemed to him that they were out to get him. He got out of his own truck, approached one of the officers to complain about the amount of time it was taking to deal with the matter involving the security guard and he was threatened with arrest.
Bryan was told to get back in his truck or go to jail. He replied “I’ll go to jail, let’s do it.” He was then arrested.
Like Wallen, Bryan apologized soon after, saying ” I was just being disrespectful, and I shouldn’t have been and it was my mistake.”
He hired a smart lawyer (named Lee). The most recent news article on the incident explains that there is no public record of a charge being approved.
A scientist and a fighter
One of my colleagues, a lawyer and country music artist, calls the wind Mariah. If your name is Mariah, and you are a singer-songwriter, you might look to change things up so people don’t confuse you with someone else of the same name. I surmise that’s how Mariah The Scientist came up with her name.
Mariah The Scientist is a rapper. A few days ago she was arrested following an altercation in an Atlanta nightclub that happened in March. The complainant says she has no history with Ms. Scientist yet she approached the complaint, yanked off her wig and shoved her down on the floor.
No word of an apology from Ms. Scientist. What I take from this is that rappers don’t apologize and country music artists humbly accept their mistakes.
