A lawsuit filed over an assault on a 15-year-old boy is the latest to take aim at the marketing of rap music, alleging Interscope Records has encouraged 50 Cent and other members of his G-Unit hiphop group to live a “gangsta” lifestyle.

Only G-Unit member Tony Yayo and an acquaintance, Lowell Fletcher, were involved in roughing up James Rosemond on a Manhattan street in March 2007. But in a civil suit, Rosemond's mother has cast a wide net of blame that includes 50 Cent, Interscope and parent company Universal Music Group.

Interscope “required” G-Unit members to “maintain and advertise a 'gangsta' image and lifestyle and engage in conduct, including 'beefs,' consistent with the 'gangsta' image and lifestyle,” the complaint, filed earlier this month, says.

According to the suit, the assault resulted from a “beef'” between G-Unit and Czar Entertainment, the management company which represents rival rapper The Game. Czar CEO Jimmy “Henchman” Rosemond is the victim's father and, at the time of the incident, his son was wearing a t-shirt bearing the Czar logo.

In other recent cases alleging a similar connection between “gangsta” violence and rap marketing:

• Five rap fans sued Slip-N-Slide Records, alleging the label is liable for the gunshot injuries they suffered at a Plies concert in a Gainesville, Fla., nightclub. Plies is one of the label's recording artists.

• A woman allegedly shot by rapper Remy Ma outside a Manhattan nightclub sued Street Records Corp. for encouraging Ma “to engage in a pattern of harassment, threats, intimidation, physical violence and illegal acts.”

• A man allegedly struck by rapper Busta Rhymes on a Manhattan street sued Interscope, alleging it was aware of Rhymes's history of violent behavior but “promoted the image created thereby as part of its marketing campaign” for his recordings.

“We respect free speech and in no way want to limit free speech,” the plaintiffs' attorney in the Plies case told The Gainesville Sun. “We're simply asking that gangsta be left in rap and not brought into reality.”

One of the earliest cases of this type involved an aspiring rapper in Los Angeles who allegedly murdered his roommate as part of Death Row Records' plan to cultivate a “gangsta” image for him. “Part of what makes a 'gangsta' rap artist marketable is the fact that the artist is a current ongoing participant in violent gang activities,” the victim's mother alleged in a lawsuit filed in 2003.

But the parties quickly settled that case and if the “'gangsta' lifestyle” theory of liability is ever tested in court, it could be well be viewed as a simplistic explanation of the causes of the violence associated with hiphop artists.

50 Cent, who began drug dealing at the age of 12, was involved in criminal activity long before he was signed by Interscope in 2003; Yayo, his childhood friend, was in prison for gun possession and bail jumping when G-Unit recorded its debut album.

How can Interscope, therefore, be accused of “requiring” the G-Unit members to behave as “gangsta” rappers when “gangsta” may simply be the only reality they have ever known?

By Matthew Heller
4/22/08