June 10, 2008 1:20 PM ET
Hoping to bring some notoriety to her new single and video "The Way That I Love You," the marketing geniuses behind former Murder Inc. princess Ashanti have posted a fake news clip alleging that the music video (about a woman who gets revenge on a deceitful boyfriend by killing him) has inspired a rash of copycat crimes. Things get weird and uncomfortable when police at the fake crime scene find a blood-splattered message on the wall that reads "Black children will die." The police name the main suspect in the crime "Commercial Hip Hop," and "Commercial Hip Hop" wants to kill black children because they are "playing me like a fool." What any of this has to do with the actual Ashanti video is beyond us, and the whole experience can't make people more willing to invest in Ashanti's new album The Declaration. On another strange side note, the police officer in this faux news report is named Detective John Kimble, which is also the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in Kindergarten Cop, so the developers of this video obviously did their homework — they just didn't check to make sure any of this made any sense. What's worse, the video has sparked a protest in Los Angeles, where several groups are condemning Ashanti and Universal Music Group for glorifying violence and demanding the video be taken down.
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