LMFAO's Sky Blu and Mitt Romney Scuffle on Flight to L.A.

Earlier this week, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was involved in a confrontation on a flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles. His alleged assailant? Sky Blu of the electro-rap duo LMFAO, the pourers of "Shots." According to new reports, Sky Blu had the audacity to lower his seat back prior to the flight's takeoff, which caused Romney, who was sitting behind the rapper, to loudly request that he straighten his first class seat.

From there, tensions escalated, and Romney's spokesperson told the press Sky Blu became "physically violent," the New York Daily News reports, leading the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to remove Sky Blu from the plane. In a video posted on TMZ, Sky Blu and his Party Rock accomplice Redfoo talk about their run-in with Romney, and Sky Blu insists Romney became physical first. "He grabbed my shoulder, and I was like boom get off of me," Sky Blu said. "The man assaulted me. I was protecting myself."

In the end, Romney did not pursue charges, and even though the police said they arrested and released Sky Blu, the MC claims he was never actually placed under arrest. Romney and his wife were in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics while LMFAO had a concert in the British Columbian city the night before.

Ironically, while this all went down in Vancouver, the encounter has strong ties to the city of Detroit: Even though Romney is the former Governor of Massachusetts, he was born in the Motor City, a pedigree that helped him win the Michigan Republican primary over John McCain in 2008. Sky Blu and Redfoo, meanwhile, are the nephew and son of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, one of Detroit's most important musical figures. Since Sky Blu seemed willing to forgive Romney for the encounter — “I'm sure he's a good dude. It was just an unfortunate situation," he said — maybe they can go to a Tigers game and hug it out.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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