Category: News

Lil Wayne Issues Official Apology To Emmett Till Family

 

 

 

 

 

 

After inciting public outrage from Emmett Till’s family for controversial lyric, Lil Wayne has issued an official statement to apologize for his actions.

Wayne offended the Till family on his unauthorized remix of Future’s “Karate Chop,” in which he rapped, “beat the pu**y up like Emmett Till.” Epic Records would eventually pull the song from the Internet and re-release it with censored lyrics. However, Wayne remained unapologetic throughout the whole ordeal.

Recently, the family has also tried to halt Lil Wayne’s endorsement deal with Mountain Dew. Much like when Reebook pulled their campaign from Rick Ross, the family hoped it would force an apology.

In Wayne’s apology, he acknowledges the pain he might have caused on the Till family. Then, he promises to never perform the song live or reference Emmett Till in future songs again. Read the full letter below.

Dear Till Family:

As a recording artist, I have always been interested in word play. My lyrics often reference people, places and events in my music, as well as the music that I create for or alongside other artists.

It has come to my attention that lyrics from my contribution to a fellow artist’s song has deeply offended your family. As a father myself, I cannot imagine the pain that your family has had to endure. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge your hurt, as well as the letter you sent to me via your attorneys.

Moving forward, I will not use or reference Emmett Till or the Till family in my music, especially in an inappropriate manner. I fully support Epic Record’s decision to take down the unauthorized version of the song and to not include the reference in the version that went to retail. I will not be performing the lyrics that contain that reference live and have removed them from my catalogue.

I have tremendous respect for those who paved the way for the liberty and opportunities that African-Americans currently enjoy. As a business owner who employs several African-American employees and gives philanthropically to organizations that help youth to pursue their dreams my ultimate intention is to uplift rather than degrade our community.

Best,

Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr.
Lil Wayne

Source: xxlmag

Jailhouse Roc: The FACTS About Hip Hop and Prison for Profit

Homeboy Sandman

[Via Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner]

GoldenUndergroundTV recently released an interview I did with them late last year. I got a bit animated at the end. Only so many interviews in a row I could handle being asked about Chief Keef.

My tirade wasn’t really about Chief Keef. It wasn’t about Gucci Mane or Wocka Flocka or any of the acts spontaneously catapulted into stardom by synchronized mass media coverage despite seemingly universal indifference (at the very best) regarding their talent. Whose arrests, involvement in underaged pregnancies, concert shootouts, and facial tattoos, dominate conversation for weeks at a time, with their actual music a mere afterthought, if thought of at all. My tirade was about marketing. It was about media powers seeking out the biggest pretend criminal kingpins they can find, (many of whom who shamelessly adopt the names of actual real life criminal kingpins like 50 Cent and Rick Ross), and exalting them as the poster children for a culture. It was about an art form reduced to product placement, the selling of a lifestyle, and ultimately, a huge ad for imprisonment.

This is not my opinion.

Last year Corrections Corporation of America (CCA),

the biggest name in the private prison industry,

contacted 48 states offering to buy their prisons.

One stipulation of eligibility for the deal

was particularly bizarre: “an assurance by the agency partner that the agency has sufficient inmate population to maintain a minimum 90% occupancy rate over the term of the contract.

What kind of legitimate and ethical measures could possibly be taken to ensure the maintenance of a 90% prison occupancy rate?

Two months later an anonymous email was sent out to various members of the music and publishing industries giving an account of a meeting where it was determined that hip-hop music would be manipulated to drive up privatized prison profits. Its author, despite claiming to be a former industry insider, did not provide the names of anyone involved in the plot, nor did he specify by which company he himself was employed. As such, the letter was largely regarded as a fraud for lack of facts.

Here are facts:

Ninety percent of what Americans read, watch and listen to is controlled by only six media companies.     PBS’s Frontline has described the conglomerates that determine what information is disseminated to the public as a “web of business relationships that now defines America’s media and culture.” Business relationships.

Last year a mere 232 media executives were responsible for the intake of 277 million Americans, controlling all the avenues necessary to manufacture any celebrity and incite any trend. Time Warner, as owner of Warner Bros Records (among many other record labels), can not only sign an artist to a recording contract but, as the owner of Entertainment Weekly, can see to it that they get next week’s cover. Also the owner of New Line Cinemas, HBO and TNT, they can have their artist cast in a leading role in a film that, when pulled from theaters, will be put into rotation first on premium, then on basic, cable. Without any consideration to the music whatsoever, the artist will already be a star, though such monopolies also extend into radio stations and networks that air music videos. For consumers, choice is often illusory. Both BET and MTV belong to Viacom. While Hot 97, NYC’s top hip hop station, is owned by Emmis Communications, online streaming is controlled by Clear Channel, who also owns rival station Power 105.

None of this is exactly breaking news, but when ownership of these media conglomerates is cross checked with ownership of the biggest names in prison privatization, interesting new facts emerge.

According to public analysis from Bloomberg, the largest holder in Corrections Corporation of America is Vanguard Group Incorporated. Interestingly enough, Vanguard also holds considerable stake in the media giants determining this country’s culture. In fact, Vanguard is the third largest holder in both Viacom and Time Warner. Vanguard is also the third largest holder in the GEO Group, whose correctional, detention and community reentry services boast 101 facilities, approximately 73,000 beds and 18,000 employees. Second nationally only to Corrections Corporation of America, GEO’s facilities are located not only in the United States but in the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa.

You may be thinking, “Well, Vanguard is only the third largest holder in those media conglomerates, which is no guarantee that they’re calling any shots.” Well, the number-one holder of both Viacom and Time Warner is a company called Blackrock. Blackrock is the second largest holder in Corrections Corporation of America, second only to Vanguard, and the sixth largest holder in the GEO Group.

There are many other startling overlaps in private-prison/mass-media ownership, but two underlying facts become clear very quickly: The people who own the media are the same people who own private prisons, the EXACT same people, and using one to promote the other is (or “would be,” depending on your analysis) very lucrative.

Such a scheme would mean some very greedy, very racist people.

There are facts to back that up, too.

Prison industry lobbyists developing and encouraging criminal justice policies to advance financial interests has been well-documented. The most notorious example is the Washington-based American Legislative Council, a policy organization funded by CCA and GEO, which successfully championed the incarceration promoting “truth in sentencing” and “three-strikes” sentencing laws. If the motive of the private prison industry were the goodhearted desire to get hold of inmates as quickly as possible for the purpose of sooner successfully rehabilitating them, maintenance of a 90% occupancy rate would be considered a huge failure, not a functioning prerequisite.

Likewise, the largest rise in incarceration that this country has ever seen correlates precisely with early-80′s prison privatization. This despite the fact that crime rates actually declined since this time. This decreasing crime rate was pointed out enthusiastically by skeptics eager to debunk last year’s anonymous industry insider, who painted a picture of popularized hip-hop as a tool for imprisoning masses.  What wasn’t pointed out was that despite crime rates going down, incarceration rates have skyrocketed. While the size of the prison population changed dramatically, so did its complexion. In “‘All Eyez on Me’: America’s War on Drugs and the Prison-Industrial Complex,” Andre Douglas Pond Cummings documents the obvious truth that “the vast majority of the prisoner increase in the United States has come from African-American and Latino citizen drug arrests.”

Add to this well-documented statistics proving that the so-called “war on drugs” has been waged almost entirely on low-income communities of color, where up until just two years ago, cocaine sold in crack form fetched sentences 100 times as lengthy as the exact same amount of cocaine sold in powdered form, which is much more common in cocaine arrests in affluent communities. (In July 2010 the oddly named Fair Sentencing Act was adopted, which, rather than reducing the crack/powder disparity from 100-to-1 to 1-to-1, reduced it to 18-to-1, which is still grossly unfair.) This is not to suggest that the crack/powder disparity represents the extent of the racism rampant within the incarceration industry. The U.S. Sentencing Commission reported in March 2010 that in the federal prison system, even where convicted for the exact same crimes, people of color received prison sentences 10% longer . Where convictions are identical, mandatory minimum sentences are also 21% more likely for people of color.

Finally, let us not forget the wealth of evidence to support the notion that crime-, drug- and prison-glorifying hip-hop only outsells other hip-hop because it receives so much more exposure and financial backing, and that when given equal exposure, talent is a much more reliable indicator of success than content.

Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) put it best; “‘hip-hop” is just shorthand for ‘black people.’” Before our eyes and ears, a “web of business relationships that now defines America’s media and culture” has one particular business raking in billions of dollars while another defines the culture of a specific demographic as criminal. Both business are owned by the same people. Mainstream media continue to endorse hip-hop that glorifies criminality (most notably drug trafficking and violence), and private prison interests, long since proven to value profits over human rights, usher in inmates of color to meet capacity quotas. The same people disproportionately incarcerated when exposed to the criminal justice system are at every turn inundated with media normalizing incarceration to the point that wherever there is mainstream hip-hop music, reference to imprisonment as an ordinary, even expected, component of life is sure to follow.

Conspiracy theorists get a lot of flak for daring entertain the notion that people will do evil things for money. Historical atrocities like slavery and the Holocaust are universally acknowledged, yet simultaneously adopted is the contradictory position that there can’t possibly be any human beings around intelligent enough and immoral enough to perpetrate such things.  Even in the midst of the Europe-wide beef that was actually horse-meat fiasco, and the release of real-life nightmare documenting films like “Sunshine and Oranges,” there is an abundance of people content to believe that the only conspiracies that ever exist are those that have successfully been exposed.

The link between mass media and the prison industrial complex, however, is part of a very different type of conversation.

The information in this article was not difficult to find; it is all public.

This is not a conspiracy. This is a fact.

Time Warner Cable Holdings

Viacom Prison Holdings

CCA Holdings

Private Prisons Public Functions

All Eyes on Me.. War on Drugs

written by Homeboy Sandman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF5BddCHDfs

Source: http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/jailhouse-roc-the-facts-about-hip-hop-and-prison-for-profit/

If You’re Not Actively Working for Peace, You Ain’t Hip-Hop

Boots Riley from the Coup, Jasiri X, and Mark Gonzales

Saturday, March 30th 2013

Last week we celebrated the birthdays of 2 of Hip-Hop’s founding fathers and icons, DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa. This got me reflecting on the origins of Hip-Hop and how far we’ve gotten away from them. Afrika Bambaataa defined Hip-Hop as Peace, Love, Unity, and Having Fun. He used Hip-Hop to unite the gangs in New York City and give the youth in poor communities a outlet besides fighting and drug abuse. Most of what is being marketed to our children as Hip-Hop, is in fact the very opposite.

One of the most powerful comments to come out of the whole Rick Ross and Rape controversy was by Hip-Hop activist and former Vice Presidential candidate Rosa Clemente when she declared that artists like Rick Ross were not Hip-Hop, they are part of the Rap Industrial Complex. She’s 100% right, especially when looking at Hip-Hop’s roots. Hip-Hop is social activism, as stated in the above video, which features, Davey D, M1 from Dead Prez, Stahhr, Aisha Fukushima, Boots Riley, Jahi, Mark Gonzales and myself. And if you’re spitting raps promoting drug use, the abuse of women and glamorizing violence just to get paid, you ain’t Hip-Hop.

Feel free to check out and share my latest video about us rising up and challenging these forces that continue to exploit us and divide us. It’s called “Raise Your Flag” and it’s off of my new album “Ascension”

The Hip Hop Gods Classic Tour Fest Revue 2012 by Wise Intelligent

VIA: wiseintelligent.tumblr.com

INTELLIGENTNEWZNET

INFORMING the HIP-HOP COMMUNITY

The Hip Hop Gods Classic Tour Fest Revue 2012

GRATITUDE, LOVE, RESPECT and ADMIRATION: Chuck D, Professor Griff, Flavor Flav, Johnny Juice, Shawn Carter I, Bro. Mike, Drew, Baba Malik, Davey DMX, DJ  Lord, James Bond, Pop, “E”, Karee, T-Bone, Lou, Paulette, Rynda, LBC, Lord Kell, Corey, Brother J, Ultra, Samani, Dinco D, Awesome Dre, Half-Pint, Jah Well, T.A. Son of Bazerk, Scholly D, Code Money, Cee Knowledge, Cookie.

The Hip Hop Gods Classic Tour Fest Revue was an incomparable experience. Never have I been engaged for 16 days by such a diverse body of perspectives, views, talents, occupations, beliefs and opinions coordinating, cooperating and functioning together for the benefit and success of the whole. It was like biology and the study of cell structures. When millions of individually specialized cells come together to form organs which form systems that sustain and preserve the entire body. The individual cell understanding how it’s success is interdependent and only achieved via the success of the group.

I will be forever thankful  for the shared knowledge, wisdom, understanding, advice, networks, connections, camaraderie, conversations, jokes, laughs, germs, colds, flus and sickness we passed around. And although I don’t eat bear meat, ostrich, eel, snails and shit (y’all some strange muthafukas), I’ll travel around the country and world with all of you any time, just say it.

Most importantly, I am humbled by the opportunity to have been part of the first ever Hip Hop Gods Classic Tour Fest Revue – the establishing of a legacy and platform for the SUSTENANCE & PRESERVATION of CLASSIC Hip Hop.

Thank you to Washington DC, NYC, Philadelphia, Burlington VT, Boston, Indianapolis IN, Chicago, Minneapolis MN, Denver CO, Jackson Hole WY, Aspen CO, San Diego, Los Angeles and all the Hip Hop fans, press and promoters, who REFUSE to allow anyone other than yourselves to determine for you what is or isn’t relevant.

To Gen. Chuck D, Public Enemy and the Hip Hop Gods, …SALUTE!

– Wise Intelligent 

Follow The Hip Hop Gods on twitter @PublicEnemyFTP @MrChuckD @FlavorFlav @RealProfGriff @djlordofficial @JamesBombs1w @Hiphopgods  @JohnnyJuice @BroJXClan @DaRealMonieLove @SchoollyD @WiseIntelligent @SonOfBazerk @AwesomeDre313 @LONSofficial @ceeknowledge #HHGtour #PEftp

http://hiphopgods.rapstation.com

My new project Wise Intelligent Iz…EL Negro Guerrero (The Black Warrior) is schedule to drop EARLY 2013. Check out the NEW HIT video  “I SAID IT” produced by Jersey’s own Masada

http://www.youtube.com/wiseintelligent

VIA: wiseintelligent.tumblr.com

Bonz Malone Interview Blackstonian Radio

Blackstonian Radio and HH4BU’s own UNO the Prophet talks to the legendary Bonz Malone about his career, how he got started as writer and his observations on hip-hop and the industry that grew up around it. . . . . . . . . . .

VIDEO: The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk Policy

A secret audio recording of a stop-and-frisk in action sheds unprecedented light on a practice that has put the city’s young people of color in the NYPD’s crosshairs. Read the full story at:http://www.thenation.com/article/170413/stopped-and-frisked-being-fking-mutt-…

Directed by Ross Tuttle
Produced by Ross Tuttle, Erin Schneider, Stephen Maing
Camera by Ross Tuttle, Stephen Maing
Editing by Stephen Maing, Carla Ruff

Immortal Technique Explains Why Obama Only Slightly Better Than Romney & Old White People’s Racism

“People can tell me all day that Obama is a war president. He’s an individual who’s violated human rights of other people with drone strikes and what not, that he deported more people than [George W.] Bush, which is true, all these things are potentially true, but at the same time, do I think that Mitt Romney is going to be the solution to that problem? Do I think in any way shape or form, that it would be logical for black and Latino people to vote for someone like that? Or even white Americans who are looking to advance themselves in middle class and working class America. No. That doesn’t mean that I think Barack Obama is a savior or that I’m campaigning or even voting for him. Don’t tell me simply because the food in front of me is rotten that the shit you got in the trunk of your car is better. I digress from that by saying that traditionally in hip-hop, we’ve had a very political culture that’s always been associated with questioning what people tell us is unquestionable. Only because the hypocrisy [of] what we’re told we can question and what we can’t question or what we remember and what we’re told not remember.”

From [ Immortal Technique ]

By the way; Here is Immortal Technique Supporting & Rocking ScopeUrbanApparel gear.

#CantBeMad, but Since I’m Nicer. I’ll Even Give Ya’ll some more DOPE-LINKS from Immortal Technique

[hip-hop4blackunity]
http://hip-hop4blackunity.org/2011/10/immortal-technique-the-martyr-download/

Some $#!+ I Got On My Mind: “Hip Hop & The Conscious Community”

“Some $#!+ I Got On My Mind” is a series of commentary by Author/Social Activist Kalonji Jama Changa. Kalonji is Author of the best-selling “How to Build a People’s Army” and the founder of the grassroots community organization, FTP Movement. (http://ftpmovement.ning.com/) he can be reached at defendingthepoor@yahoo.com

Hip Hop Activist Rosa Clemente speaks about dealing with depression and the death of Chris Lighty

Not Ready to die, but wanting to die: Depression, Hip Hop and the death of Chris Lighty

Disclaimer: No cause of death for Chris Lighty has been officially released.

“We need a very serious and healing discussion on depression for the Hip Hop generation. As one who suffers from depression myself, it breaks my heart to see those lose this very difficult and often lonely battle.” 8/30/12 my Facebook status after hearing of Chris Lighty’s death

Right now I should be finishing a paper for my independent study. But I just heard the news about Chris Lighty’s death. Though I never meet him, being part of the Hip Hop village, I always heard good things about him. Reading my sister, Joan Morgan’s, one word post on Facebook, “devastated”, I broke down and thought, another possible suicide in our village. Why is this happening? All of us living and breathing are dealing with a myriad of challenges, especially financial ones, so what is it that makes one want to kill themselves? And why is there so much silence in communities of color? We all grew up hearing about suicides, and for a long time I believed that only white kids killed themselves. When I was in high school, there was a rash of suicides that I heard about, read about. I would say to my friends, “white kids are crazy”, little did I know that I myself might have been a little bit “crazy”.

“Today my silence stops. My shame ends. I am going to say the one thing you are never ever ever supposed to say; I wanted to die. Some of us reach this point, and it is the most frightening thing to say and feel”.

It was not until 2005 that I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and depression. I was 34 and after a very hard pregnancy, in which I suffered from a rare disease, hyper-emesis, along with postpartum depression, did I finally admit to myself that I had been suffering with depression since my mid-twenties and I desperately needed help. Depression manifests itself in many ways. For me, it manifested as manic episodes of high energy, no sleep, compulsive cleaning and bursts of anger. As I look back at my life I recall encounters in which I acted irrationally, impulsively and destructively, sometimes publicly. I recall episodes of manic states in which I would stay up for days, clean and write like a fiend. When the panic state ended I would shut down and isolate myself for days in my room and cry myself to sleep, thinking of death. In the subsequent 7 years since my diagnosis I have sought treatment that includes medications, talk therapy, acupuncture and tried more holistic techniques. I have great days and some very dark ones but I believe I am better and as I continue to live I have come to truly understand this disease. One of the hardest things was telling friends who would then tell me all the evils of these meds and urge me to drink this tea, do this exercise, eat this food or just go out and take a walk, it’s just the blues. As well-meaning as my friends were they just did not get it. Too many times those of us who deal with issues of mental health are silenced, ignored or told, “everything will be all right” “you’re strong” and often we want to scream back at them and say, “How do you know everything will be all right? I am sick of being strong!” When we hear that it makes us shut down even more and retreat into that corner. When we see that look in your eye we wish we never would have told you. No matter how many friends you have, how many people tell you they love you, these things do not cure depression. Some of us need medications, some of us cannot meditate or exercise our way out of it. Most of us inherited this and because of the silence in our families we may never truly know the extent to which this is passed down. I worry every day that my daughter has inherited this from me. Every time she cry’s or shows signs of anxiety or stress I am terrified that my little girl has “the gene.”

I turned 40 this year and I told myself I would live my life in my truth. Every day I wake up and I know that as much as I want to have a great day the slip back into a depressive state lurks around the corner. Unfortunately, so many do not have the information, the networks or the support systems I do. Damn, so many are not privileged enough to have health insurance that covers mental health services. In one of my recent sessions with my therapist she reminded me that there is no cure for depression, there is living with depression. Hip Hop and the larger community of Black and Brown, progressive, radical, social justice activists must figure out a way to begin a dialogue, to not just break the silence around depression, but to stop the shaming of those who suffer this disease. Often times I feel that if I had an ailment that was physical or one that people could actually see people that their hearts and minds would be more open to that disability then to my mental health disability.

“Too many times those of us who deal with issues of mental health are silenced, ignored or told, “everything will be all right” “you’re strong” and often we want to scream back at them and say, “How do you know everything will be all right? I am sick of being strong!”

Today my silence stops. My shame ends. I am going to say the one thing you are never ever ever supposed to say; I wanted to die. Some of us reach this point, and it is the most frightening thing to say and feel. That day in April 2005, living in Brooklyn, I felt that feeling. The sick nauseating, head spinning, heart pounding feeling of wanting to die, visualizing how I would die and who would find me. As I lay on my bedroom floor ravaged with pain and tears, hoping to get the strength to walk to the 7 on Parkside and Prospect all I could feel is that soon this would be over, this monster inside of me would finally be gone and so would I. At the moment a bit of light broke through and I did the one thing so many cannot and do not do, I picked up the phone; I called my best friend who called my mother who called my aunt who called a friend who is a psychiatrist. She stayed on the phone with me until my husband came home from work and the next morning I was in a doctor’s office. Since that dark day in Brooklyn and until the day I am SUPPOSED to leave this world, I will be living with and battling this disease.

As I said, I never meet Chris Lighty, but I keep imagining the movement he put that gun to his head, the pain and despair he must have felt is unfathomable. The thought of it makes me physically ill. As many write about his death, some will say he did not commit suicide, some will say that he showed no signs that he was depressed; some will blame his financial issues, some will be angry; some will ask themselves what could I have done and unfortunately, some will pass judgment and some will never be able to admit that he lost his fight. The despair he must have been in might not have been noticeable even to those closest to him. Maybe no one knew. That’s the thing about depression; it’s a disease that is often suffered in silence, alone, behind a closed door, in the corner of a dark closet, under the covers of a bed. I have often said that Hip Hop saved my life; now we need Hip Hop to do what it does best; tell the hard truth, bring people together to create the means to battle whatever ails us and try to save lives. For those of us in this Hip Hop village suffering from this wretched debilitating disease we must Break the Silence, we must Stop the Shame. We must do it for those that are still living and in remembrance of those like Chris who did all they could to survive but lost their battle to this demon.

Rosa Clemente is Hip Hop Scholar and Activist, 2008 Green Party Vice-Presidential Candidate. Currently she is a doctoral student in the W.E.B. Dubois department at UMASS-Amherst and can be reached on Facebook, Twitter @rosaclemente or via email at clementerosa@gmail.com

Please share this letter with your networks, feel free to post and below are links to some great mental health resources that focus on people of color.

http://thesiweproject.org/
National Alliance on Mental Illness
Black Mental Health Network

Jay Electronica Conquers Rothschild Heiress

SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2153789/Rothschild-heiresss-marriage-Goldsmith-scion–falls-rapper-called-Jay-Electronica.html

It seemed like the perfect union –  a marriage that brought together two of the country’s wealthiest families.

He was the multi-millionaire son of the late financier and tycoon Jimmy Goldsmith, she a scion of the Rothschild banking dynasty.

But now Ben Goldsmith and his music producer wife Kate, who have three children, are to divorce after she embarked on a passionate love affair with an American rap singer named Jay Electronica.

Ben and Kate Goldsmith pictured in December 2010. The couple are set to divorce after she embarked on a passionate love affair with an American rap starBen and Kate Goldsmith pictured in December 2010. The couple are set to divorce after she embarked on a passionate love affair with an American rap star

Last night Mr Goldsmith confirmed the split, saying: ‘I’m pretty shell-shocked by everything. All I am thinking about now is my children.’ 

The marriage ended with a dramatic showdown at the family home in  Notting Hill, West London, on Wednesday morning.

Mr Goldsmith, 31, confronted his  30-year-old wife over explicit text messages and emails he found on her smartphone that she had received from and sent to the New Orleans-born hip-hop artist, who now lives in London and is one of her clients.

 

After initially denying the romance, Mrs Goldsmith confessed to the affair when her husband told her he had read the text messages.

During a heated altercation, Mr Goldsmith slapped his wife and kicked a child’s toy at her.

He then took the children to school. By the time he returned, she had called police and they were at the house to arrest him.

Last night a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police confirmed that officers were called to attend a domestic  disturbance in the couple’s street at 8am and arrested a man on suspicion of common assault.

The couple's marriage is on the rocks after Mr Goldsmith confronted his wife over explicit messages she had sent to rapper Jay Electronica (pictured)The couple’s marriage is on the rocks after Mr Goldsmith confronted his wife over explicit messages she had sent to rapper Jay Electronica (pictured)

Mr Goldsmith was released after being given a caution.

Sources say the marriage has become increasingly volatile and  turbulent during the past two years, but added that Mr Goldsmith had never hit his wife before.

One friend of old Etonian Mr Goldsmith said yesterday that he was ‘devastated and miserable’ over the collapse of his marriage to Kate, whom he has known since he was 18.

He has moved out of the marital home to stay with friends and has a suitcase of clothes in his offices in the West End.

‘Ben is heartbroken, devastated and thoroughly miserable,’ a friend of the couple said. ‘He suspected Kate was cheating on him because she has been behaving increasingly erratically for some time.

‘She is obsessed with this chap called Jay Electronica who is one of her clients. She is always on the phone to him and out  with him until four or five in the morning most nights. Sometimes she even stays with him.

‘Ben was paranoid about their friendship months ago, but when he confronted her about an affair earlier this year she denied it.

‘Then last week he found a series of texts and email messages. They were very intense messages planning sexual liaisons.’

Ben, who has been drowning his troubles at his local pub The Scarsdale in West Kensington, where he has been overheard discussing the affair, has told friends that the marriage is over and that he intends to file for divorce on the grounds of adultery.

Kate inherited an £18 million fortune after her father, banker Amschel Rothschild, hanged himself at the Bristol Hotel in Paris in 1996. It is understood that her affair with Jay Electronica, a father of one whose real name is Timothy Elpadaro Thedford, has been going on for close to a year.

She has been in constant touch with him on Twitter and last month the  rapper posted a picture of Kate aboard a helicopter on his site. He also recently tweeted: ‘The handling of the heart is a very delicate art cause its paper thiiiiin.’ [sic]

Electronica, 36, who is signed to Kate’s record label Round Table,  was born and raised in the violent  crime-ridden Magnolia Projects in New Orleans, Louisiana. He has been rapping since 2004 and is known for controversial and explicitly sexual lyrics.

He has a three-year-old daughter with Grammy award-winning singer Erykah Badu. He keeps a relatively low profile in London but works with some of the industry’s biggest talents, including Jay Z and Sean  ‘P-Diddy’ Combs. He is also friendly with heiress and socialite Nicky Hilton and regularly tweets Kate’s brother James, who is believed to know about the affair.

Starting out: Ben and Kate at their 2003 wedding in Bury St Edmunds, SuffolkStarting out: Ben and Kate at their 2003 wedding in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

The rapper is currently in LA following the death of his grandmother Dorothy Flowers, but he is expected to be reunited with Kate shortly.

Sources close to the Goldsmiths say that although the marriage has been on the rocks for some time – the couple had a trial separation  earlier this year – they are deeply shocked that Kate has left Ben for a bad-boy rapper.

Mr Goldsmith tried to save the marriage but has now told friends ‘there is no going back’.

A family friend told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Ben has said that Kate has confessed everything to him. He  has said this is definitely it and  the marriage is over. He will be  filing for divorce on the grounds  of adultery. He has moved out and  is staying with friends.’

The split has been another blow to the wider Goldsmith family, who  are still reeling from the divorce  of Ben’s older brother, Tory politician Zac. His ten-year marriage to  Sheherazade Ventura-Bentley  collapsed in 2009 after he embarked on an affair with Kate’s younger  sister Alice Rothschild.

In a bizarre twist to the family saga, Zac and Alice now live together in a house on the Goldsmiths’ family estate in Richmond, South-West London, and plan to marry as soon as Zac’s divorce is finalised.

A Family Affair: Ben's brother Zac with his lover, Kate's sister AliceA Family Affair: Ben’s brother Zac with his lover, Kate’s sister Alice

Lady Annabel Goldsmith, Ben’s mother, is said to be devastated about his marital breakdown and spent last week looking after her grandchildren.

Meanwhile, Kate’s family are reported to be ‘worried sick’ about her new relationship. ‘Her mother and all her family are very concerned that Kate is going off the rails,’ says a friend.

‘Kate and Alice are talking but most of the family are not on speaking terms with her at the moment. The whole situation is very sad.

‘Ben and Kate have a wonderful family, a lovely house and everything they could have wanted. The problem is, Kate is hanging out with Jay all the time and she has become a different person. There have been some very explosive rows.

‘She’s out nearly every night until the early hours and has become obsessed with this rapper.

‘Her explanation to her husband has always been that it’s work and that’s why she and this guy have been spending so much time together.’

The source added that Ben had been worried about Electronica since January, but Kate assured him the relationship was a working one and nothing more.

‘They had a trial separation earlier this year. They both went off and did their own things. I think Ben saw a couple of girls, but there was nothing serious. Kate convinced Ben to give it another go, which he did.

‘He was furious when he found  out that Kate had been cheating on him with Electronica. He is totally heartbroken.’

The marriage took a knock two years ago when Kate became close to a friend of Ben’s, but the couple agreed to try to make things work.

Last summer they were reported to have suffered another rocky patch over Kate’s busy work schedule. Mr Goldsmith put the family home on the market in April.

The couple claimed they needed  to downsize, but the truth was that the problems in their relationship were becoming more evident.

Now the couple will have to thrash out a complicated and legally fraught divorce settlement. Zac’s divorce to Sheherazade is still not settled because of the financial structure of the Goldsmith dynasty.

Sir Jimmy left his family a £1.2 billion fortune, but much of the capital is tied up in trusts run by trust  managers. The brothers’ fortunes, and that of their sister Jemima, is mostly from inheritance income, not capital.

Meanwhile Kate, who went to  Bryanstone School in Dorset, is determined to continue working with Electronica and her record label and management company.

Ben and Kate started dating in 2000 when they were regulars in  the social pages of Tatler magazine, where Ben was frequently voted most eligible bachelor – topping even Prince William at the time.

In 2003 the couple celebrated their engagement at Annabel’s in Mayfair, the club named after Ben’s mother, and were married that September. Ben was 23 and Kate 21.

They followed a family tradition  of marrying young. Ben’s father eloped with his first wife, Bolivian tin heiress Isabel Patino, when  he was 21, and Ben’s older sister  Jemima surprised society when she married Pakistan cricketer Imran Khan at the same age.

Kate’s father was 25 when he  married her mother, heiress Anita Guinness, who was 23.

The Rothschild and Goldsmith families, blood relations who can trace their heritage to the Jewish ghettos of 18th Century Frankfurt, are powerful and influential in the worlds of finance and politics.

Sir Jimmy amassed his £1.2 billion fortune through pharmaceutical and banking interests.

Through his marriage to Lady Annabel, a close friend of the Prince of Wales, he was also a high-profile society figure.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2153789/Rothschild-heiresss-marriage-Goldsmith-scion–falls-rapper-called-Jay-Electronica.html#ixzz1x2dPhpQq