A Brooklyn man claims “vicious, wicked and cold-hearted” NYPD officers demanded he do a little song-and-dance act before releasing him from custody during a search. Quinshon Shingles, an aspiring MC, “was thus compelled to perform a rap song for his freedom,” according to his lawsuit asserting illegal search and false imprisonment. And it was only if the song was “hot” that his release guaranteed, the suit says: “Apparently satisfied with [Shingles’s] rap performance, the defendant officers indeed released him and allowed him to leave the subject premises.” This should do for the genre’s lingering tension with law enforcement what “Accidental Racist” did for bigotry in America.
