"Remy Ma is not even close to who I am," she said through tears. "I'm not a thug. I'm not a hardcore anything. I have feelings and emotions, and I'm a human being like anybody else. I'm Remy Smith."

Perhaps this means that her sniping about C.O.'s lower-than-her net worth was also part of her label's marketing plan. She also took time out to apologize, sort of, to her victim, who was in the courtroom but who didn't get a direct look from Remy:

"I apologize," she said, "and I'm sorry for not saving you. I feel so bad for all the physical and mental pain you went through, and go through. Myself, I have a lifetime scar on my face. So I know the pain you feel when I look in the mirror."

I'm surprised that she didn't add, "But if I got through it, so can you!" to her motivational speech, if only to seal the cluelessness of said statement.

Chaos in Court Hallway After Remy Ma Sentence [NYT]
Remy Ma calls in from Rikers [ImHipHop]

The contraband was quickly confiscated by eagle-eyed guards, according to city correction officials. Papoose was kicked off the island without ever seeing the woman to whose cuffs he once held the key.

The wedding was kaput.

"Get out of my face," Papoose snarled at a reporter yesterday as he returned to his Cadillac SUV in the jail's parking lot.

"I don't want to talk," said the still-single "Mix Tape King," who had worn his Sunday-best Yankee cap for the occasion.

"You all write racist articles."

Not to defend Papoose's contraband, but the phrase "Sunday-best Yankee cap" would seem to back up his statement. Anyway, Remy is expected to be all contrite at this morning's sentencing, but given that she was on Hot 97 last week bragging about how she makes more money than the jail guards, I suspect that the judge will see it as something of an act and that she'll be in the pen for at least a few years.

A KEY TO REMY'S HEART [NYP]

Papoose repeatedly claims that he doesn't think about Fat Joe in this recent interview, but three minutes into his description of the beef, you start to think he might be protesting too much.

"Dude is bragging about putting out albums, but...dude is bragging about having a hit record. But what's the point of having a record when the album flops?" Such is the logic of a man who, thanks to years of woes, has failed to put out either a single or an album of his own. Ever. Could be worse: He could be named Papoose. Oh, wait.

Papoose And Remy To Marry Next Month - In Prison [MTV]
Papoose Is 'Not Thinking About' Fat Joe [MTV]
[Photo: WENN]

It was a rare treat when members of the phantom unit materialized outside the West Village club S.O.B.'s on September 18. After a concert thrown by AllHipHop.com, two men in their thirties accosted an up-and-coming rapper and told him to come with them. When he resisted, he says, the men—one white, one black—flashed badges and identified themselves as members of the "hip-hop police." They interrogated the rapper outside the venue. "It really bugged me out," says the rapper, who requested anonymity. "There was no possible way [they] could know certain details unless they were in the VIP section." When the rapper began to talk back, he says, the undercover Hip-Hop Cops advised his manager to quickly put him in a cab. The manager complied. When the rapper returned home, he adds, he noticed a black car with tinted windows outside his apartment.

Unfortunately, if not suprisingly, no one within the NYPD would go on record for Matthews about either the specific incident, which took place on Sept. 18, or the hip-hop squad itself, and the closest he gets to confirmation of its existence comes from Remy Ma's lawyer and a retired cop:

This makes sense, according to retired NYPD detective Derrick Parker, who founded the unit and later wrote a book, The Notorious C.O.P., that outed it. Parker says that before any major hip-hop event, the Hip-Hop Cops devise a game plan. "They had to do it for 50's [recent] five-borough tour," recalls Parker. "They were doing the surveillance and pre-op plan."

And even more than the Nixon-era rubbishing of civil liberties, the frustrating part, as Matthews notes, is that "how effective the Hip-Hop Cops are is another matter," since they missed an actual brawl at the same club by only a day.

The Hip-Hop Cops Materialize In The West Village [Village Voice]

Blasphemy Is Cool [Nah Right]