Is Ol' Dirty Bastard trying to pad his rap sheet, or is he getting played by da Man? On Friday night (Jan. 19), the fuzz in Brooklyn, N.Y., stopped ODB (ne Russell Tyrone Jones), for alleged traffic violations. Four plainclothes police officers claim the rapper then began shooting at them from his 1999 Chevy Tahoe. ODB was charged with attempted murder of a police officer in the first and second degrees, attempted aggravated assault on an officer in the second degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in both the second and third degrees. In a court hearing on Saturday, ODB, who also goes by the nom de guerre Big Baby Jesus, maintained his innocence, saying he was holding a cell phone and not a gun. Peter Frankel, ODB's lawyer, says the other passenger in the car, Frederick Cuffie, corroborated the report, and that they are now awaiting results of a paraffin test which should reveal whether ODB actually fired a weapon at the police (various reports claim that a gun was never found). "[ODB] is sticking by what he's said all along: that he didn't have a gun and he didn't fire a gun," says Frankel. "The only way [the police will] get a positive result is if [ODB] fired a weapon. Based on what he said, it's not going to happen." As of this morning, ODB was still being held at Riker's Island Correctional Facility in New York waiting for friends and family to come up with $150,000 bail. Frankel was confident his client would be out of jail today. ODB is expected to return to court on Thursday. If found guilty on the first-degree murder charge, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison . . .

During Monday night's episode of Ally McBeal, the waifish lawyer represented a woman whose husband claimed that their nine-year marriage was bogus. Funny how life imitates art. Now Mick Jagger is claiming his eight-year wedlock with Jerry Hall was also a sham. Tuesday morning (Jan. 19) reports revealed that the Rolling Stone says the Buddhist ceremony in which he and Hall were married on the Indonesian island of Bali in 1990 didn't constitute legal nuptials. A statement released by Jagger's spokespeople said the marriage wasn't legal because Hall hadn't converted to Hinduism and the couple lacked the appropriate legal forms to make the marriage binding by the Indonesian government. The BBC reports, however, that "local laws are very flexible for couples wanting to marry. You don't need to be a Hindu to marry under Hindu law ... Couples do not need documentary proof to prove they have been married" . . .

Prolific British avant-rock composer Bryn Jones, who recorded under the moniker Muslimgauze, died this weekend in a Manchester hospital after contracting what doctors described as "a rare blood fungus that ravaged his immune system." He was thirty-five years old. As Muslimgauze, Jones -- who kept a very low public profile -- recorded more than ninety full-length albums over the course of the past fifteen years. His compositions were often minimal, usually percussion-based and peppered with elements of Middle Eastern culture. Jones said that he was inspired to undertake the Muslimgauze project after Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1983: Subsequent albums like Hebron Massacre, Abu Nidal and Vote Hezbollah also painstakingly explored troubles in that region. Despite the contentious tone of his rhetoric -- in interviews and album packaging, Jones openly advocated the terrorist tactics of what he viewed as "oppressed peoples" trying to "throw off the shackles of their enslavers" -- Muslimgauze's music was usually pacific and ethereal. The last full-length album that he completed, Hussein Mahmood Jeeb Tehar Gass, will be released in America early next month by Soleilmoon Records . . .

The RSN Staff
(January 19, 1999)