Hip-Hop Group Yanks Album Cover Depicting WTC Blast
By Sue Zeidler
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Striking a macabre note, a new album cover by
hip-hop band The Coup -- whose music has a strong anti-capitalist bent --
had until recently depicted the World Trade Center exploding, the band's
label said on Wednesday.
``We changed the artwork as soon as we saw what had happened,'' said Daria
Kelly, director of sales for 75 Ark, the band's label.
Kelly said the picture, which eerily shows group member ''Boots'' Riley
holding a detonator in front of the exploding towers, was yanked from the
San Francisco-based company's Web site at (http://www.75ark.com) by 9:30
a.m. PDT on Tuesday, hours after two hijacked airliners actually smashed
into the World Trade Center's twin towers and brought them down, possibly
causing thousands of deaths.
Kelly said the artwork was done about two months ago for the band's
upcoming album, ``Party Music,'' which features a single called ``5
Million Ways to Kill a CEO'' and is due to hit stores on November 6.
``We were going to print them this week. Thank goodness we hadn't yet
printed them,'' she said, adding that the new album cover would probably
just bear the band's logo.
While the label quickly moved to delete the image -- which shows
explosions in the towers at about the same level as the actual blasts --
the picture has begun to circulate on the Internet and generate a lot of
reaction.
It was featured Wednesday on lifestyle-culture Web site at
(http://www.ammocity.com) accompanied by the following message: ''The
album cover for hip-hop group 'The Coup' manages to even outweird the
quotes from Nostradamus doing the email rounds today.''
Kelly said she had not received any e-mails about the cover, noting it
hadn't been circulated by the label very much.
``We just started press about a month ago,'' she said describing the
Oakland, Calif-band's music as focusing on the ''destruction of corporate
America.''
The band, considered among the more overtly political rap bands, was
formed in the early 1990s. Lead rapper/producer Boots Riley, whose real
name is Raymond Riley, was involved in political activism before becoming
a musician, according to music industry sources.
Released in 1993, the Coup's debut album ``Kill My Landlord'' was a highly
charged blend of leftist resistance and 70s funk, which received wide
critical praise.
