Lemondrop

Yesterday we ran a story about rapper Roxanne Shante, who at the age of 15 rose to rap superstardom and followed up her recording career with a hefty academic record. Best of all, the education was free, since a loophole in her Warner recording deal was that they'd pay for her schooling for life.

Today, Slate.com reported that her story of attending Marymount College and then pursuing a PhD at Cornell was false, and that no such deal with Warner ever existed. Well, our reporter Lauren Fritsky went straight to the source for her take, and here's what Roxanne had to say about the article and its author:

"I'm just gonna let it go ... What he's trying to do is trying to get himself known, to get the popular sites to read after him. This is not a $5 billion Ponzi scheme. What would make someone go so hard and heavy at that?"

Shante has since said that she received a Masters, not a PhD from Cornell, though Slate's research found no evidence of either. While the story might be bogus, we still respect the way she's pulled herself up and worked to make a difference in people's lives.

Hopefully this is the first and only time a hip-hop artist exaggerates for publicity; otherwise we're going to have to scrap next week's features on Kanye talking to God and Eminem murdering Lindsay Lohan.


More interesting stuff from the Web:

Limbless dancer performs at Juilliard.
The hottest wives in hip-hop (StreetLevel)
Crazy-ugly swimsuits
Model flaunts a real body.
25 cheerleaders get stuck in an elevator. (Asylum.com)