The Volokh Conspiracy - Shante Contract Clause Too Good to Be True:

I linked a couple of weeks back to a heart-warming NY Daily News story about Shante, who was supposedly a 1980s early hip-hop wonder who never made stardom, but whose recording contract had a clause providing for her education for life. Several readers have been kind enough to email me this Slate article by Ben Sheffner debunking the entire story, start to finish. Ouch. Here's the introduction to the story, which goes on to walk point by point through everything, fact checking everything, and finding it all wanting. Thanks to various readers for pointing this out.

It was the feel-good story of the summer. According to the New York Daily News, Roxanne Shanté, a 1980s female hip-hop pioneer famous for the 1984 underground hit "Roxanne's Revenge," had finally gotten her own revenge on Warner Music, the record label she accused of "cheating with the contracts, stealing and telling lies," to avoid paying her what she was owed. How? After valiantly fighting, reported Daily News freelancer Walter Dawkins, Shanté had convinced Warner to honor a contractual agreement to "fund her education for life." Warner ended up paying more than $200,000, Dawkins reported, to finance Shanté's education, which Shanté said included an undergraduate degree from Marymount Manhattan College and a Ph.D. in psychology from Cornell. And now, said the Daily News, "Dr. Roxanne Shanté" has "launched an unconventional therapy practice focusing on urban African-Americans," in which she "incorporates hip-hop music into her sessions, encouraging her clients to unleash their inner MC and shout out exactly what's on their mind."

The story was endlessly blogged and tweeted, heralded as an example of a heroic triumph by a girl from the projects over her evil record label. Credulous music-industry critics lapped it up; Techdirt, after stating flatly that Warner had "tr[ied] to cheat [Shanté] out of her contract," reflected the online sentiment: "It's nice to see how Warner Music actually did some good in the world, even if it had to be dragged there kicking and screaming."

One problem: Virtually everything about the Daily News' heartwarming "projects-to-Ph.D." story appears to be false.

Related Posts (on one page):

So There's No Shante Clause After All,
Shante Contract Clause Too Good to Be True:

(link)

neurodoc:

Oh my, we can't rely on what we read in the NY Daily News as gospel?! Who would have thought, especially with a story like this with all those facts of the sort no one would ever make up (educational credentials).

What's the likelihood that NY State will check to see if she is holding herself out to the public as a licensed psychotherapist and practicing as such?

9.4.2009 9:51am

r. ranchel (mail):

Talk about a diploma factory! She was claiming a Cornell education and Cornell was claiming her as an alum, yet she never attended. I suppose, to a large extent, that's the purpose of the Ivy League.

9.4.2009 9:57am

Hannibal Lector:

The postings on Cornell's web site claiming Sahante as an alum were virtual affirmative action.

9.4.2009 10:05am

Matt_T:

Wait...rappers lie!?

9.4.2009 10:15am

Steve:

This could really diminish the hard-earned reputation of the Daily News as a journalistic bastion.

9.4.2009 10:18am

Mike Keenan:

Walter Dawkins needs to be writing screenplays and not news stories.

9.4.2009 10:38am

Cato The Elder (mail) (www):

She does not even have her B.A. apparently.

9.4.2009 10:49am

subpatre (mail):

As we get older, we discover that everything we believed (and wanted to believe) about Shanté clause is a myth.

9.4.2009 10:55am

DiverDan (mail):

Well, it's at least nice to know that the New York Daily News is aspiring to the high journalistic standards established by the New York Times - "Whatever News Is Fit to Fabricate."

9.4.2009 11:00am

Dave N (mail):

At the end of the Slate article:

Dawkins told the site [Techdirt] he had relied on information in a Cornell alumni publication and a "Hot97 interview" as sources.

Journalism at its finest.

9.4.2009 11:06am

krs:

I'm still waiting for the statement from Shante referring to the fact-checkers as "haters."

9.4.2009 11:15am

krs,

Not haters; just racist.

9.4.2009 11:24am

David M. Nieporent (www):

subpatre wins the thread, I think.

9.4.2009 11:39am

Laura(southernxyl) (mail) (www):

From the Slate article:

I'm just gonna let it go. ... What he's trying to do is trying to get himself known, to get the popular sites to read after him. This is not a $5 billion Ponzi scheme. What would make someone go so hard and heavy at that?

So rather than getting angry at a person who called her out for being a liar, she's so magnanimous as to "let it go". How awfully decent of her.

"This is not a $5 billion Ponzi scheme. What would make someone go so hard and heavy at that?" Translation: "I didn't steal anybody's money, I just lied my head off about myself and about other people. I am mystified as to why anybody would take exception to that."

9.4.2009 11:53am

AF:

I'm still waiting for the statement from Shante referring to the fact-checkers as "haters."

Not haters; just racist.

You should have waited longer.

9.4.2009 11:58am

one of many:

Forget the facts which are meaningless, is the narrative correct?

9.4.2009 12:09pm

SuperSkeptic (mail):

Hilarious

9.4.2009 12:21pm

Fub:

I second David M. Nieporent's subpatre nomination.

9.4.2009 1:12pm

The bit about this not being a Ponzi scheme is kind of interesting. That would be an eminently sensible comment if people were trying to take away all of her property and sell it, and if prosecutors were trying to have her locked up until she dies.

NickM (mail) (www):

I third the nomination.

Nick

9.4.2009 1:33pm

sk (mail):

Yep, close the thread. Subpatre wins.

Sk

9.4.2009 1:37pm

guy in a veal calf office (mail) (www):

Slate and the white comentators here are essentially steering ridicule onto a musician-of-color's fabrications because they don't have a racial justice frame.

9.4.2009 2:28pm

pete (mail) (www):

Shante should have claimed to have gotten a degree in monkey fishing from Cornell instead of psychology and then Slate would have been cool with the story.

9.4.2009 4:44pm

While the story might be bogus, we still respect the way she's pulled herself up and worked to make a difference in people's lives.

I went looking for the "$5 billion Ponzi scheme" quote and came up with this. Anybody know what exacctly she "pulled herself up" to, and how she "worked to make a difference in people's lives"? Has she been doing the latter by foisting herself off as a psychotherapist? The reference to Ponzi schemes would seem to indicate that she is not totally uninformed as to current events.

(Reverend Al must be otherwise occupied or he might have come to Shante's defense against those who would question her story.)

9.4.2009 5:36pm

Leo Marvin (mail):

All hail subpatre.

9.4.2009 9:38pm

At the risk of tarnishing my badge of honor on making ‘a funny’ on the story, the Shanté clause myth succeeds because of what we already believe about Warner —and to a lesser extent— about race and gender.

Regrettably, the fallout from this fabrication makes recording companies look better, and people like Shanté look worse.

9.5.2009 1:29am

subpatre, I take your points about what might have encouraged people to believe this story, though I think it smelled very fishy from the getgo. But in these times, with entertainment lawyers all around and a generally higher level of sophistication, are record companies still doing business the way they once did, taking gross advantage of artists? I expect not, but that's little more than a guess on my part.

And by "people like Shante" do you mean unabashed liars? Do you think it entirely harmless for people to go on believing in Shante and her clause, though all is bogus there, encouraged in those beliefs about race and gender to which you allude?

9.5.2009 7:50pm

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