My bad, Juelz

I should apologize to Juelz Santana.

Yesterday, I suggested he got robbed while on tour over in England, when it's obvious he didn't get robbed. He got extorted.

Sorry, bro!

This became clear to me when I read a press release Juelz put out earlier today addressing rumors that surfaced yesterday that he'd been robbed. I didn't actually receive a copy of it myself, but I had one forwarded to me by Jackpot.

Which of course struck me as odd, since I was the one who did the story yesterday on Juelz getting robbed, and since my email address is pretty easy to come by. (Not that I'm looking to receive any more press releases. God forbid!)

I wonder if this was either a matter of, a) her (of course it's a her) not being savvy enough a publicist to know who I am or how I can be contacted, or b) her purposely avoiding dealing with me, because I might say some shit that doesn't reflect very well on her client.

I'm assuming it's the latter, but also the former, if you catch my drift.

I'd go even further, to suggest that this might be yet another one of these cases of a MySpace jumpoff posing as some c-level rapper's publicist. But you guys know what happened the last time I tried some shit like that: That post was lost to the dustbin of history, along with numerous other posts I've written for this site.

Also, as I learned the other day in a hip-hop advertising email group I belong to, a lot of these lower level hip-hop publicists don't even like the term "MySpace jumpoff" mentioned in their presence, even if it isn't specifically being applied to them.

Paranoid much? I'm just saying.

Suffice it to say that I could have written a much more convincing press release, with much better grammar to boot, and I don't have any kind of background in public relations.

Anyhoo, you fruits probably already read the operative bit of the press release in the news item on this mess here at XXL, where's it's quoted at length. Here it is anyway, just in case.

“Bottom line, my former manager along, with an ex-group member, accepted an astronomical amount of money for a paid date that never happened or was ever brought to my knowledge,” Santana explained. “I was NOT robbed.

“My staff and I were kicked out of our orginal hotel for the commotion,” he continued. “The promoter, myself, and my Dipset associate Blackadon worked out the outstanding issue like bosses do.”

You don't say?

I'll start with the obvious: How in the fuck did you manage to get kicked out of the hotel for causing a commotion, but you and your Dipset associate Blackadon handled the situation like a boss is supposed to? It would seem to me that you could do one or the other.

Furthermore, who in the fuck ever heard of working out a settlement for some money owed by a guy who used to be your manager and a guy who used to be in your group (let me guess, it was Cam'ron?), when you said yourself that, not only did you not have anything to do with this deal, but you never even heard of it?

You guys know I was pre-med in college rather than pre-law, but I'm pretty sure that means Juelz didn't actually owe anyone any money. And yet, by his own admission, him and Blackadon managed to come to some sort of agreement with these guys who came to collect.

Hmm...

I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure that, if you don't owe anyone any money, and yet you agree to pay someone some money, in a business meeting that involved enough commotion to get you kicked out of a hotel, that's called extortion.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Cam'ron, or whoever, didn't actually owe these guys $70,000. Think about it: How in the fuck is a rapper gonna stick a promoter for that kind of money without there being some sort of legal action involved? Especially one of these major label rappers.

I wonder if these guys actually showed Juelz where it says, on paper, that he owed them $70,000, or if they just told him that and he went along with it. Because he was afraid for his life.

If it's the latter, he might need to see about talking to the authorities over in England about getting his jewelry back. They didn't have any cause to do him like that. Sure, it'll look weak of him. But I'd say he's already taken an L on this one.

Plus, I'm not even sure if it counts as snitching, if it's not even in the US. For all we know, these guys who got him could be with the terrorists. Do we know for a fact what race these guys were? I've heard there's a lot of Arabs sneaking into Europe. Right, TPAR?