Killin' 'Em Dead

NEW YORK — There's another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist.

The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: "'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. 'Gangsta rap' didn't exist."

I imagine the "didn't exist" was taken out of context - it would sound a bit less odd if preceded by "before some point in the 90's when the studios went out looking to create such a market,". The article did appear on Faux News, afterall, so I'm not surprised that they try to put it in a light that makes her sound kinda like she's denying the past and current existence of the genre.

Keys, 27, said she's read several Black Panther autobiographies and wears a gold AK-47 pendant around her neck "to symbolize strength, power and killing 'em dead," according to an interview in the magazine's May issue, on newsstands Tuesday.

The paranoid part of me wonders if that's an attempt to strip the humor out of something she said so as to manipulate readership and make her sound more militant. I don't know, and I'm not inclined to go buy Blender magazine just to fact-check Fox.

Another of her theories: The bicoastal feud between slain rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. was fueled "by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing."

Considering the recent official confirmations of long-theorized/anecdotalized "anti-MLK" programs by the FBI, she could be on to something. Or she could just be justifiably paranoid.