POLITICIANS JOIN FIGHT AGAINST NAS' N-WORD

Plus, poet Saul Williams joins the controversy with 'NiggyTardust' part of upcoming CD title.

Brooklyn assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries is calling on the New York Comptroller to pull an $84 million state pension fund invested in Universal Music Group and its parent company Vivendi unless Nas changes the title of his new album "N**ger."


“[They are] profiting from a racial slur that has been used to dehumanize people of color for centuries,” Jeffries tells Rolling Stone. “It is time for Nas and other hip-hop artists to clean up their act and stop flooding the airwaves with the N-word.”

Meanwhile, Nas also said this particular title was supposed to grace his last album, "Hip Hop Is Dead," but "the climate wasn’t right, and 'Hip Hop Is Dead' is also what I was feeling," he explains. "That went first, and now I’ve got to get this one off my chest.”

So what of all the controversy? “It’s like talking to your child about sex. It’s hard, but it’s important,” he tells Rolling Stone. “It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable. I don’t expect a lot of people to sell a record called N**ger. Hopefully, people can open their minds up and lose some of their fear and deal with it. It’s just an album. It’s one piece of the many things I do, and this will be one of my favorite pieces.”

And despite early reports to the contrary, his label Def Jam says it's 100 percent behind the title.

“It will be certain record stores that will be scared to deal with it. The record label is gung ho, and it’s ready to go,” Nas said.


In related news, poet Saul Williams may join Nas as a target of protest with the announcement of his upcoming album title, "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!," produced by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and mixed by Alan Moulder.


The title is a play on David Bowie's album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.' Williams announced the news on his Web site, stating: "Most people aren't aware of the world of art and commerce, where exploitation strips each artist down to 'n**ger.' Each label, like 'apartheid,' multiplies us by our divide and whips us 'til we conform to lesser figures ... the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways."

Tracks on the album include "Black History Month," "Tr(n)igger" and "NiggyTardust."

According to MTV.com, the album will be available Nov. 1 in digital form on the Inevitable Web site, which allows fans the choice to either pay $5 for the album — or nothing at all. For five bucks, customers can get either 83MB (high quality) or 128MB (very high quality) MP3 files. A third $5 option is also available, in the Free Lossless Audio Codec format, which is similar to MP3 but doesn't lose quality in the compression process — that version has CD quality (395MB) but isn't playable on iTunes or Windows Media. The free option provides an 83MB zip file that contains lower-quality, DRM-free MP3s of the songs.