Blinded by the bling

A line in Times reporter Katharine Q. Seelye's piece about this year's magazine cover awards, New Yorker Wins Best Cover of the Year, caught my eye.

Referring to a cover that was the co-winner in the celebrity category:

The Vibe cover showed Busta Rhymes with a piece of duct tape over his mouth, a reference to his supposed withholding of information regarding the murder of his bodyguard. The panel lauded him for being willing to poke fun at himself.

There's a clear linkage between hip hop and violent crimes; and the NYPD has said time and again its efforts to investigate murders are hamstrung because many witnesses refuse to talk. There's nothing funny about what Rhymes, who's been in trouble with the law on multiple other occasions, is doing.

It's weird; whenever a celebrity is involved in something, the story always seems to center around the celebrity--they're who we identify with, after all, since by definition they're the ones always in the news. We blur the lines between their lives and their movies/music/etc.; it's almost like just exist as characters, no more real than Prospero and Caliban.

The name of Busta's bodyguard was Israel Ramirez. He was 29 when he died of a single shot to his chest, during the filming of a music video. Police believe Busta knows something that could help them solve the murder, but he's refusing to talk.

Someone should explain to Ramirez's young son what's so funny about that.

Getty photo of Trevor Smith aka Busta Rhymes and Schwartz photo of Israel Ramirez and his son, also named Israel, with mom, Alexa Medina, via the Daily News.