Nas is whipped!

I can see it now: Obama's standing stiffly at a podium in some cross-over state, trying to look all commander-in-chiefly to sway skeptical voters, when all of a sudden some hack of a reporter rises to ask his impressions of the latest Nas CD cover.

Insert: Pregnant, awkward pause.

For more than a year, the gifted rapper Nas has threatened to use the N-word as the title of his highly-anticipated, and often delayed follow-up to his 2007 anti-prophecy, "Hip Hop is Dead".


The backlash to the very notion of using THAT for a title is well-documented. So, instead, Nas revealed in a recent New York Magazine profile that he's going more stoic with the next CD's packaging. It'll just depict him with his name slashed across his back in the form of whip marks.

Now THAT'S keeping it real. A young and famous black millionaire can think of no better way to portray himself and his talent than referring to a slave-era atrocity that the poseurs he calls his contemporaries could hardly endure.

In the same article, by the way, Nas showed himself to be so careless and ill as to roll and smoke a blunt in the presence of a reporter wondering what's taking so long for his next "joint" to be released. He was also written up to be clueless as to who he'd be sharing the CD's production credits with.

Nas's next release may turn out to be an aural masterpiece. But it's marketing will prove to be another setback for father's trying to shield their sons from imagery that sends such an irresponsible and confusing message.

So pardon Obama, you hack reporter you, when you ask him to comment on Nas' CD cover and he goes into, 'Let me clear my throat' mode.