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Court blocks release of racist Eminem songs

Magazine says ruling upholds racism that is destroying hip-hop
/ Source: The Associated Press

A court ruling has stopped hip-hop magazine The Source from distributing a disc of a previously unreleased recording by Eminem that includes phrases such as “black girls are dumb.”

Manhattan federal Judge Gerald Lynch granted the rapper’s lawyers an injunction preventing the magazine from enclosing the CD in its February issue, which goes on sale in mid-January. The magazine had planned extensive coverage of the recording.

The Source said it exposed the Eminem track while investigating the forces corrupting hip-hop, including racism.

“The fact that our opinion regarding the prevalence of racism in the music industry is being censored is just another step in the effort to cover up the racial bias destroying hip-hop culture,” The Source said in a statement Thursday.

Eminem’s record company, Interscope Records, declined comment on the ruling.

The rapper’s lawyers had argued that distributing the CD violates copyright laws.

Last month, The Source held a news conference to accuse Eminem, who is white, of racism, citing lyrics on the recording such as “black girls are dumb, and white girls are good chicks.”

The tape was provided to the magazine by “three white hip-hop fans from Detroit who were peers of Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, in the early ’90s, at the time of the recording,” the Source said last month.

The 31-year-old rapper has said the recording was “foolishness” that he’d made as a teen “out of anger, stupidity and frustration” after breaking up with a black girlfriend.

Besides winning several Grammys, Eminem won an Oscar this year for his song “Lose Yourself” from the film “8 Mile.”