behind bars

Rap legend Slick Rick spent his 41st birthday,
January 14th, incarcerated in a Florida
immigration detention centre. Back in the
80s Rick was in the charts with Doug E Fresh
with The Show but now Rick's fighting deportation
to Britain, his birthplace, from where his
family emigrated in 1975.

Rick aka Richard Walters's career collapsed
in the 1990s when he shot his pregnant cousin
and her boyfriend in an argument where Walters
alleged they were trying to extort money. He
served five years and 12 days in jail then
saw his comeback album, featuring a who's
who of hip-hop inc Nas, Snoop Dogg, Outkast
and Wu-Tang Clan, bomb.

In June 2002, after performing on a Caribbean
cruise ship, Rick was arrested in Florida for
"deporting himself" and "illegally re-entering
the country". A new 9/11 inspired-law allowed
all felons with five years jail time not
born in USA to be deported. Walters spent 17
months in jail before being released then was
re-incarcerated last year, when the Department
of Homeland Security took up the case again.
Two months ago a US district court judge
ruled that he should not be deported but
Rick remains in the detention centre with
no official release date.

The US government must think terrorism
issues are now so minor that it wants to
spend so much time and energy on the security
threat posed by an aging black rapper.

also - believe it or don't