​Last week, the Voice reported on former Roc-A-Fella Records mogul Damon Dash's recent troubles with the law. The city brought a restraining order against the owners of 172 Duane Street, which used to house Dash's club/art gallery/rehearsal space DD172, as well as against Dash himself. They claimed six violations of the liquor code, namely storing and selling alcohol without a license. While DD172 had vacated the spot back in June, the city didn't serve the property with papers till last Wednesday.

Yesterday at the courthouse in Lower Manhattan, the judge, Cynthia S. Kern, signed a stipulation settling the matter as long as 172 Duane Street Realty abides by the liquor laws in future and agrees to provide security guards when holding events, agrees to warrantless inspections by police, and abide by their certificate of occupancy. In other words, the property is agreeing to not break the law.

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​A year or so ago the woman wearing a polo shirt on the cover of Vampire Weekend's Contra—Ann Kirsten Kennis, who claimed to have been made aware of her picture being on the album cover by her daughter—filed suit against the band and its label, XL, for appropriating the image of her without her consent. Last week, Kennis asked a Federal court in Los Angeles to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that she had reached a settlement with the band and the label.

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via YouTube

​Sirens are forever wailing around town, but the sirens I heard as I walked down Houston Street Tuesday night sounded extra-menacing. And judging by the sheer number of squad cars flying past me, and the intensity with which they ran red lights and drove against traffic up Orchard Street, it was evident something bad was about to transpire.

Shortly after midnight, a gang (and I use that in a very literal sense) of New York Police Department officers rushed Tammany Hall on Orchard Street, interrupting a peaceful Pete Rock/Smif n Wessun event.

Witnesses say the attack by police was unprovoked. Several onlookers captured much of the chaos on camera; judging from the footage, the police were the aggressors.

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Tomorrow would have been Tupac Shakur's 40th birthday, and a new revelation involving his life has come out: An associate of James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond has confessed to being involved in the robbery and shooting of Tupac Shakur at Quad Studios 17 years ago in a statement to AllHipHop.com.^* Dexter Isaac, who's currently serving a life sentence at MDC Brooklyn, says that he was paid $2,500 plus most of the jewelry he took by Rosemond to carry out the crime, and that he still has a chain taken on that day. The meat of the confession after the jump.

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​The 1997 murder of Christopher Wallace, b/k/a/ the rapper The Notorious B.I.G., remains unsolved. Last week, the case became both more transparent and more suspicious as the FBI opened up its files into an investigation about not just who shot Biggie Smalls, but also who helped orchestrate the killing. Popular accounts and common conspiracy theories about Biggie's death usually allege some combination of 2Pac and Suge Knight's Death Row records camp, LA's Crips gang, and corrupt L.A.P.D. officers being the masterminds behind the murder. The FBI's files, which span from 1997 to 2005, do little to prove or dispel these allegations--although they do make for sadly sinister reading.

While the first wave of reports has concentrated on the contents of Biggie's pockets on the night he died--marijuana, a pen, an asthma inhaler, three "larger size" condoms, and a driver's license issued in Georgia--the reports also contain insights into the often-nefarious side of the mid-'90s rap scene. So for those without the patience or printer ink to scour through the 350-plus pages--which include heavily redacted witness statements, a sketch of the crime scene, internal memos, and even a reference to a Village Voice article (on page 48 of Section 1)--here are ten insights into music-business-related matters.

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"They found me guilty as an accomplice to murder and a co-conspirator for felony murder and robbery, which they had no proof of whatsoever." Max B is talking on the phone from Bergen County Prison in New Jersey, where he's serving out a 40-year sentence for these charges. The offenses relate to an incident on September 22nd, 2006, when a man named David Taylor was shot and killed as Max B's fellow defendants Gina Conway and Kelvin Leerdam attempted to rob Taylor and his associate Allan Plowden of $30,000 at a Holiday Inn in Fort Lee, New Jersey. It's a spell of incarceration the rapper is appealing -- not least because he says he was back home in New York when the fatal robbery took place. Max B is confident his appeal will be approved, and estimates he could be a free man as early as this July.

In the interim, he's just released Vigilante Season, his debut album via the Amalgam Digital label. Recorded before he was locked up, the project sees Max, who came to prominence by helping one-time Dipset capo Jim Jones write 2006's summer smash single "We Fly High (Ballin')," teaming up with the producer Dame Grease, who crafted many of DMX's early hits. (According to Amalgam Digital's DJ Next, Jones sent out a cease and desist order when Max B attempted to sign to the label, claiming that he still owned rights to Max B's contract; following a lawsuit, a judge ruled against Jones's claim.) Unable to promote the album and its first single, "Money Make Me Feel Better," in person, Max B says, "We just got to ride on this one, hopefully it do good and I can come out and give you the next one and be behind it 100%."

In the days leading up to the album's release, Max B engaged in two phone calls from Bergen County Prison to speak about the rigors of his incarceration, anomalies in his trial, the perceived foulness of the New Jersey prison system, and the days when he held down a pre-rap nine-to-five at the World Trade Center.

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​The rapper DMX is currently serving out a one-year sentence for parole violation at the Mental Health Unit of the Arizona State Prison. It's the latest nefarious chapter of a life that the artist known more formally to the cops as Earl Simmons has lived out as if he were playing it out through an episode of the Grand Theft Auto video game series. Being picked up and locked up for drug use, reckless driving, robbery, or impersonating officers of the law seems to offer no deterrent to DMX, whose musical career has unfortunately been dwarfed by his real world problems. So in honor of this week's release of DMX's Greatest Hits With A Twist project, here are ten great japes from the Yonkers yapper.

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2010 was not a particularly pleasant year for venue/police relations -- see Market Hotel or Santos Party House -- and 2011 unfortunately got off on the wrong foot immediately. Ridgewood Masonic Temple, the pretty great Bushwick spot that hosted shows last year by Sleigh Bells, Das Racist, Lightning Bolt, and various others, is going dry, according to a bushwick.bk.com report on recent liquor-license snafus there that finally raised the ire of the cops. As a result, the Titus Andronicus/Real Estate show planned there for New Year's Eve by promoter extraordinaire Todd P was moved last-minute to a more, y'know, festive location. As Todd put it:

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Free Dapwell! All images via DasRacist.net

​At least, they were detained in and then deported from that country yesterday, due to "some sticklerism on the part of UK Customs regarding paperwork." Or was it because of their radical political views and brown skin?! The trio has been out in first China and then, after a brief respite, Europe, which is why your Twitter feed has been relatively quiet lately. Honestly sounds like it was going great until they ran into British customs, who apparently held the rap group for a ten hours "in a room with books, prayer rug and compass, television and remote, and these horrible sandwiches (cheese and onion, egg and cress, etc.)." Racial profiling seems evident:

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"I'm laughing, really I am," insists our friend/colleague Rich Juzwiak, guru of dance music/horror movies/America's Next Top Model, upon announcing that yet another prominent TV show (The Insider) has lifted, seemingly without credit, yet another of his quick-cut web-video delights (Mariah Carey prattling on about her pregnancy/need for immediately comfort/fat fingers on the Home Shopping Network). You'll recall that Jay Leno recently boosted Rich's Taylor-Swift-acting-surprised montage, which generated some amount of bemused Internet outrage and eventually resulted in Rich getting public credit; he seems far less concerned about this transgression, but let this serve as a reminder that any montage Rich sees fit to produce is worthy of both your time, and, evidently, airtime. His full Mariah clip is below -- that it is titled "Everything You Need to Know About Mariah Carey on HSN" and is a full seven and a half minutes long gives you an idea of the dedication involved here:

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